that is when it assumes a Terrestrial Body God also willed his own Son and our Redeemer in his assumed Humanity be as it were regenerated by and with the Water of Baptism and Fire of the Holy Spirit not that he needed any such purgation but because he was to converse with Men contaminated with corruption that he might in all things yield himself an example of Renovation and Purification giving Men a visible and ample Testimony That according to the Flesh he was of the same Nature with them not contaminated or corrupted but obnoxious to passion and equally mortal as they In like manner our fecund Mother Nature willed her first-born though pure in his Centre That he should be regenerated by Water and Fire that is by Separation of the Terrestrial from the fiery part the spisse from the subtile and the impure from the pure which Hermes also aimed at when he said That the Earth should be separated from Fire for what God hath conjoyned Man should not separate but onely the impure and gross from the subtile and pure by Fire And besides this Sense which first offers it self to our Intellects there is yet another more occult meaning for seeing by the Separation of Earth from Fire he means that that 's gross from that that 's subtile he seems to hint that we should separate the natural qualities of these two Elements by detracting the moist frigidity mixt with heavy Terrestrial things without which that cold cannot subsist and by putting on hot siccity which is of the Nature of Fire and consequently light and spiritual For which cause he adds That it must ascend from Earth to Heaven that is from imperfection to perfection for Paracelsus calls Fire the Firmament and as nothing can attain perfection unless it first depose its imperfect gross and mortal bark wherein this cold quality abounds the cause of all mortification as heat is of life so also prudent Nature observes this Rule That each subject should sustain and pass the obsure blackness of death and expect the cleer and candid renovation of life and immortality that is impassible essence whereon neither Fire nor corruption hath any power And assuredly the acquisition of this life by death is naturally exercised by all Creatures continually for all Sperm or Seed of Animals is mortified in some Matrix and of Vegetables in the Earth before any specification can be made But if this rule takes place in the members by how much may we more exactly observe and directly imitate it in the head and if the life acquired by mortification be of any duration how much more shall that be perpetual which is principal Jesus Christ taught these things by similitude of a Grain which he says cannot fructifie unless it first die signifying the mystery of his Resurrection which his Death should precede for he willed Death that he might rise to a glorious and perpetual Life therein not onely giving example to men but expressing the whole Idea of Nature That divine and learned Ermite Morienus Romanus who is often quoted by modern and natural Philosophers avers the same of the fixed Grain whereto Nature hath given power to perfect Metals for he saith Unless it putrefie and grow black it cannot be perfected and compleated but returns to nought I have taken liberty to say thus much that I may teach the younger sort how the Creator should be acknowledged by simple Creatures and because the vulgarity of Men begs this knowledge from remoter things acting as they do who seek the perfection of Sciences from the Scholars of the lowest Form whereas they should require it from the best Directors and Doctors I would excite them by these natural coneeptions that they would convert the principal endowments of their Souls to the search of the general principle and that in more exquisite things such as impart life and preservation to all mortal Creatures Mortification then necessarily precedes all entrance into life and principally in this Spirit the first-born of Nature when it assumed a Body for else no Man could separate it from Body which hinders its Regeneration to Life and Pacification of its Essence not as though by combustion and destruction it lost its Body in Death nor yet by Putrefaction but so that in Germination the Putrefaction of Seeds annihilates not that which is corporified in them for which cause in the Exaltion of Mercury or the Universal Spirit after the first degree which is made by Separation all that 's corporeal and spiritual becomes volatile because the sublimatory vertue therein overcomes the fixing faculty but the fixed part afterwards retains the volatile with it being helped by the action of heat which augmenting the power of the two nobler Elements destroyes the power of the two weaker which Hermes hints at in a certain Treatise by a plumous Bird detained with a Bird without Feathers And Nicholaus Flumellus by two Dragons one with and another without Wings But that I may not longer fold my self in these Daedalean Labyrinths see we not all Vegetables encrease and elevate themselves upwards by vertue of this volatile Spirit which as I said before would carry them higher towards the place whence it came whereto it hath an appetite but that it is detained by its proper Earth and corporal Mass wherein some fixed matter resides But lest some not sufficiently accustomed to Philosophical terms should think we contradict our selves I will here explicate my self I say then That I mean not by this volatile Spirit that which I before called volatile and separable Sulphur for that is rather the Author of Corruption then Growth but that most simple part of the primaeve vapour which never loses it s subtily whose Nature is to be elevated and tend to perfection for to sublimate is properly and Philosophically no more then to perfect and exalt matters from imperfection to perfection As therefore this Mercury hath an elevable so hath it a stable substance the first is naturally innate in it the second is in its centre or power yet it cannot compass its effect without the help of Art And that I may shew more plainly in what ways Nature proceeds in her operations I think it convenient to add a little about the causes and manner of Fixation Repeating therefore that indubitable Axiome I alledged in the beginning of this Book as perpetually observed in the Worlds Constitution to wit That all that hath life hath also some duration and that nothing is produced under the cope of Heaven which hath not some kinde of life in it I say that this Duration must be wrought by Conservation to Perpetuity for Perpetuation is the scope of Nature seeing it is the endeavour of every good Opificer to preserve the work of his hands till it be corrupted by the injury of time or the light of its life extinguished by the cold ashes of death to whose feet all things necessarily prostrate themselves by this inevitable law That whatsoever hath
infinite This Substance or first Matter in every species of compounded Bodies is one in essence vertue and quality and in one and the same subject one part cannot be of one species and another of another but in Excrements it is otherwise for the better understanding whereof I will lay the following Rule That there are but two means or mediums for the compleating of all Separations to wit Fire and Water and there are but two things separable in Bodies the one whereof is separated by Fire the other by Water In the first place it is indubitable That the Nature of Fire is such as it destroyes and consumes all that is combustible and of Water such as it washes and cleanses all substance from its impurity that commaculates it Fire devours all that 's volatile and of an Airy quality because it is its proper nutriment but Water divides all that 's Terrestrial and gross Betwixt these two extremes then there must be some intermediate disposition which should be kept and conserved containing nothing that 's combustible or impure in it which may be subjected to these two Warriers And it is manifest That Adustion and Dregs are the two Corrupters and Destroyers of all things which Divine Hippocrates was not ignorant of when he said That all Diseases proceed either from the Air or Aliments insinuating that the excess of excrementitious Aliments are apt to receive corruption and Excrements by Fire exceeding natural heat are the inflaming and corrupting causes of each Disease for the Excrements of Aliments fill Bodies with Terrestrial impurities and inflammable Air generates sulphureous and adust matter which easily conceiving hot ardours consumes and dissipates what is radical and vital with it self carrying it away because the greater part of it is volatile the less adustive Dregs then and Adustion are the two Authors of corruption and those that hinder the vigour of substantial actions in all things And if we require any Arguments to prove this the stink of Digestion and Excrements demonstrates it for that same sented in things that are burned speaks little of good to be there The same is also evident in the fumes of Excrements which stinking Bodies emit for those suppose corruption and besides the corruption they generate they also cause these two inconveniences the one is the hindrance of Penetration the other of Fixation which two actions are absolutely necessary for the conservation of life for that which nourishes and supports life must needs be subtile that it may by its subtile parts penetrate Bodies and like a secret Balsam roborate and augment the light of life in the centre of the Body for if it were gross it would rather obstruct suffocate and extinguish then penetrate and pass through such narrow ways and because on the other side it conserves life in its state it should in reason be a stable and no fluxible thing for if it were volatile we might every moment expect death lest it should be introduced by the corruption generated by feculent adustion which continually layes wait for our life Grosness then hinders Ingress and Adustion Stability Hence we may take a good admonition for Medicine to wit that every true Medicament introsumed for the restoring of strength and profligating the cause of instant death should have two properties to wit to pierce to the centre of sanity and preserve the centre by dilating and deducing it through the whole Body which the Ancients with good success revoked to practise and not many yeers ago the too much hated Paracelsus who explained their operations to posterity which were so long kept secret and let him that will affirm the contrary I doubt not to aver That nothing without the operation of Fire can be brought to purity and stability which two parts must be chiefly observed in making Medicaments to which Assertion this valid Reason draws me That no body in its first original and form can be truely Medicinal as immerged in the corruption of its excrementitious Dregs because it cannot attain the place fear of sanity nor yet preserve sanity because it wants subtilty to penetrate and fixedness requisite to the Restauration of what is corrupt and lost and the conservation of what is restored which cannot possibly be attained by the common way of preparation neither in substance nor in infusion the impossibilty hereof in substance appears in that such do not purge without violence which causes rather perilous weakness then salutary Restauration and as to infusions nothing can thereby be extracted out of simples but a little introsity which is innate in all Bodies with a little of their excrementitious Dregs Hence infusion attracts not the internal vertue but onely the external sapour of things which in their centre is quite different from that in their superficial matter for commonly we see all infusions are bitter which we are forced to obdulcorate with Sugar or Honey because most Apothecaries are not so industrious as to extract the natural sweetness wherein the Nature of the things consists from the things they infuse for all bitterness proceeds from Salt which hath sweetness at the bottom which cannot be extracted by simple infusions but by Fire onely and ingenious Artifice this sweetness being the very perfection of the Medicine Hence Arnoldus de villa nova saith That if you know how to dulcorate what is bitter you have the whole mystery Which Brucestus was not ignorant of as appears by his Dialogue entituled Demogorgon But this occult sweetness can never be manifested unless it be quite freed from Terrestrial Excrements and volatile and Aereal Adustion for the earthiness thereof gives it its extraneous sapour arising from the Excrements of Salt from whose variety according to the species and place wherein they are generated the diversity of sapours doth arise for all sapour comes from Salt and by how much there is more Salt by so much is the sapour more intense And on the other side that which is volatile and Aery begets ill and non-natural odours which send out a stinch which we perceive in their burning because of the combustion and inflammation of the unctuous Sulphur and that volatile matter is an Excrement is apparent from the stinking fumes of Bodies that are burning whence smoak proceeds that adhering to the Chimney or other part which afterward retain the odour of the burnt Bodies and the bitterness of the Excrements of Salt And this is yet more manifest by that blackness and obscurity which this fume impresses on all things it touches which greatly hinders the light and splendor of Nature which always desires purity and freedom from darkness as appears by that intense splendor in perfect Bodies a token of their purity seeing others more immerged in impurity are more obscure as Metals perfect and imperfect precious Stones demonstrate But if we would avoid long peregrinations and according to the oracles advice terminate our curious journeys in our selves by seeking out the causes of our Diseases
Bath the smoak of boyling water or by infusion in water or else by inhumation in moist places and the end of all these is one to wit the reduction of the things calcined into water that by this liquefaction the terrestrial matter may by straining settle in the bottom of the vessel but this subtile practise and all of the like kind should be reiterated for if any would by continual calcination separate the more simple parts of the compound and reduce to salt what hath the essence of salt he thereby creates much loss for the intemperate and continual violence of the fire will sublimate and evaporate a great part of that which is with such labour sought so that nothing will remain but a small quantity of the soluble matter with a great deal of dregs and besides that matter may by long abode in the fire be made into glass it is better therefore to flie to frequent reiterations then violate nature by the excess of any precinitancy I found such an inconvenience once in calcinating common Chrystal which while I desired to purge from its excrements and by long ignition to reduce to its true essence I found both it and its excrements made into glass and thence useless for my purpose for though Chrystal be clear lucid and transparent yet in Calcination it first emits black and then violaceous fumes as also stinking and sulphureous odours which sufficiently attest its excrementitious earthiness as also white fumes following after the true Homogeneity of its substance which remains clear and fluid in small quantity till it become true chrystalline Salt yea by the duration of these last reiterations its ingrateful sent is changed into a most delicate one like that of violets-powder By these reiterations of Calcinations two more conveniences do yet arise One is that the thing calcined by assuefaction to the fire brings stability and subtilty to the Medicaments as I said before The other that a body often dissolved acquires easie penetration and ready ingression as also more potent strength to change the state of the patient from sickness to sanity from weakness to vigour from declination to restauration and perfect health and these are the ordinary ways of all separations which have no other scope then the purging of pure substances from excrements and elevating of their terrestrial grossness to a fiery purity and from imperfection to perfection Which Hermes hints at when he says that earth must be separated by fire and the subtile from the gross which he says must be done with great care and animadversion For when he speaks of the preparation of the universal Spirit after its terrification and opens the way to the preparation of all individuals he would signifie that there is something in this earth which can scarce be retained and conserved and this is a light and volatile spirit which is kept by the temperament of fire But on the contrary it will easily flie away with the separable and more copious volatile part if in the operation temperate fire and a good method be not used with much patience where the Artist should observe this rule with all diligence that there are three distinct Sulphurs whereof two are separable to wit the external which perishes by Calcination and Dissolution and the internal which vanishes onely by decoction and the third is fixed which is properly the Sulphur of nature and the proper subject of its substance whereunto Philosophers give the name of Agent Fixed-grain or Element of fire As to the external Sulphur it is that first volatile and adustible water for it is plainly extraneous and the first nutriment of fire but the internal is more rooted in and united to the substance and therefore yields not save to intent and continued heat and therefore it assumes all colours before it egrede beginning first with black which is the prime sign of earthiness adustion and corruption and the antecessor of putrefaction and corruption and then passes through other middle colours till at length it put on whiteness which is the airy colour and then ascends to a fiery colour or redness in which the power of art and dominion of fire is terminated and beyond which there is no progress Which thing the Poets fabulously concealed under the unconstant form of Proteus who turned himself into various monstrous forms that he might affright those that would captivate him This variety of colours proceeds from the internal Sulphur the true author and producer of all tinctures and varieties which are by Nature or Art observed in any subject These colours may be also distinctly noted in the decoction of the first universal Subject as I have above said That it produced them in my operations and first whiteness presents it self and then Natures Sulphur appears which Geber says is white without and red within for redness immediately follows this whiteness without all help save the continuation and augmentation of Fire whence one Philosopher said His Stone was a Gold-Ring covered with Silver I would briefly insert these few words about colours not that I would presume to teach the preparations and observations which I know necessary for the perfecting of that great and so much praised Philosophers Elixir but onely that I may shew the curious Disciples of learned Medea which induced by profound and ingenious inquisition seek to enter the secrets of these mysterious Physicks what Sulphurs must be rejected and what must be retained in all things I hope I shall spend that time well which I have substracted from my houshold-affairs if I restore any vigour or spark of life to that languishing part of Natural Philosophy which envious Men have buried in the Sepulchre of Calumny under the odious title of abusive Transmutation and falsifying of Metals though ignorance onely stop their eyes from discerning this true mystery which they load with opprobrious contumelies and injurious words grounding their malice onely on the malicious lies of impudent dullards who run about Cities sell smoak and obnubilate their false Sophistications under the coat of this fair Virgin deceiving the eyes of the too credulous Commonalty with their pigments and by their Syrenical and fraudulent Speeches precipitating curious Inquirers into Scylla or Charybdis CHAP. 4. Of the Spirits ascent into Heaven and descent into the Earth THe Almighty Creator of all things foreseeing from the beginning that infection and corruption growing with things compounded of Body and Spirit would move continual and intestine wars he opposed a remedy to this dissention whereby the one may be conserved and the other not destroyed and seeing the Spirit and Substance were included in a Body and the Body immerged in corruption it was impossible that corruption should act upon and prevail over the Body and yet the Spirit placed in both should be kept free and incur no danger but rather that with the Body it should yield to deaths Tyranny which alwayes intends Natures destruction and the prostitution of all individuals which thing
intellects of what Nature it is I shall further add That the Pores of the Earth are full of this Vapour which acquires a dry quality by its innate heat accompanied with some secret moisture by which it is condensed and coagulated into a specifical Body and as this moist Nature now dried up was first Water so it must be reduced into Waters again by Water which is the sole mean whereby to humectate dry things as fire is to siccate moist things which is a work duely observed by Nature in generating Metals for Water flowing through the Pores of the Earth findes there a dissoluble substance wherewith it unites its most simple parts to which union all the Elements concur in due proportion This substance then by its own dissolution is so conjoyned that it of it self condenses through hardness which is natural to it because of its innate siccity and by successive and long decoction acquires a metallical induration But now this substance being dissoluble of what other Nature can it participate but of Salt for nothing is so dissoluble as Salt which by how much it is more burned is by so much easier dissolved unless it be turned into Glass The first matter then is Salt or Salt is the first Body whereby this matter becomes visible or palpable of which Salt Raymundus speaks when in his Testament he saith We have before declared That in the Centre of the Earth there is a certain Virgin-Earth and true Element and that that is Natures work Nature therefore is placed in the Centre of every thing so Salt is this Virgin-Earth which hath yet produced nothing into which the Spirit of the World is converted by vitrification that is by extenuation of its moisture This is that which gives the form to all things and without which nothing could incur into the senses nothing is coagulated without Salt nothing congealed This is that that gives hardness to Gold as also to the Adamant and all Stones both precious and vulgar with a Secret vitrifying Vertue Yea what is more we manifestly see that all Bodies compounded of the four Elements return into Salt for if a Body putrefie what remains but powder and ashes covering most precious Salt and if a Body be destroyed by combustion calcination or incineration what rests in the last extraction but Salt Glass-makers do give manifest testimony hereto whence Arnoldus de villa nova in his new Chymical Light speaking of the permanent Water of Philosophers which Water is dry and wets the Tangents hand no more then common Quicksilver saith Who then can prepare this Water Well he may do it who can make Glass The same Author speaking of the excellency of this dry Water manifests it sufficiently when he saith in his Chymical Treatise which he calls his Philosophical Breviary That an Operator can no more do any thing without Salt then an Archer emit an Arrow without a cord or string And Fons Amantium saith the same Sans sel ne peux metre en effect Utile chose pour ton faict I can effect nothing in your rare Art Unless with Salt I'gin to operate All Bodies then are composed of Salt and as we said before the Principles of Composition and Resolution are equal which concurs with the Philosophers infallible Rule That the first matter of all things is one with the last where they alledge Ice and Snow for example which are by heat resolved into Water out of which they were by cold congealed And if I should here suggest the Testimony of all approved Authors to this Verity my Treatise would end in a Volume but that I may demonstrate That this Salt is pure and true Earth not such as we tread upon which I shall hereafter prove to be nothing but the Dregs and Excrements of the other I must recur to the first Creation which I shall decypher by a familiar example of an Operation made in imitation of Nature and by the same Rule and Model by which this great Universe was framed I said before That Water or the humid Nature as Hermes calls it upon which Moses saith That the Spirit of the Lord moved was the principle of all things And here the Question will be How that great and confused heap of Waters was so divided that this ample and gross Terrestrial Mass proceeded thence and by what medium so different things were procreated of the Earth I shall answer to these Questions onely what experience hath taught me It is therefore naturally probable that in the middle of these Waters by way of separation there was a certain collection of sediments or setlings wherein I follow the Text of Moses who saith That God separated the water from the water for there are two kindes of Waters to wit elevative and congelative Waters the former then elevating it self in a vapour left the other fixed in the botom as those that coct Sea or Fountain-Salt daily experience though perhaps it be be true that the one is made by the attraction of the Suns Rayes the other by the expulsion of Fire And here note That Fire and Heat onely are indued with a separative faculty which they exert either by violent or natural motion This separation then was made by one of these wayes and to what thing could Moses better compare this Fire which cannot be otherwise defined then the origine of Universal Light of Animal heat and vital motion which gives existence to all things and preserves them in their being then to the Spirit of the Lord Let us again consider Natures Salt in its Chaos diffused dissolved and suffocated in its Water under what form will it then appear or with what quality will it affect our gust but that of bitter Water and this form and quality it would retain for ever if it were not separated but as soon as this elevative Water feels the action of Fire it begins to flie from it by vaporation and so the collection is gradually diminished till onely a little heap of Salt be left in the bottom which comes together as the Earth did in the first Chaos of the Universe And thus we see the first operation of Fire which is the production of Driness that is of Earth But as this first Earth remained still coagulated with its Excrements and Dregs by Fire so this Salt which is true Earth retains its Excrements though it seem pure white and full of light for nothing is generated nourished and augmented but it abjects its Recrements of the formation and separation whereof we shall elsewhere speak Now this Salt or dry Earth thus coagulated and setled in the Water drinks up all its humidity and is by the continuation of heats action spontaneously dried preserving all this while its innate moisture by which it is never deserted and from which it hath its dissolutive vertue After the accession of this moist and dry temperament it is apt for production as the action of Fire shall impel it from potency to effect and
as the Body of this great Earth hath the specifical and productive vertue of individuals so hath that same we call Salt not that it can produce Herbs Metals or Animals as the other doth but that it conserves in its brest the original Seed of all things as Experience by the operations of Fire manifests hereby giving colours sapours vegetations and induration to all these kindes and also proper Fire which the Sun hath introduced into it whereby it enlivens and nourishes all things which I have sometimes observed in the prosecution of a Philosophical operation whilst I saw in this matter without other mixtion all colours distinctly one after another in order and according to the internals that the Masters of this Art determine as they should be in the matter and confection of the Philosophers Stone together with that sudden fusion which follows upon the attainment of the highest redness like that of wilde Poppy but it would not produce that admirable effect in changing of Metals but it exerted such miraculous vertues by causing universal and natural sweats in Man's Body that I am afraid to publish them lest I be branded with the title of a Scharlatane Medicaster though C.V. my Soveraign good Prince as an irreprehensible Eye-Witness may easily vindicate me from that injury for when the fame of those admirable cures came to his Ears he was pleased like a gracious Jupiter to visit the Habitation of his poor Philemon induced thereto I suppose by the generosity of his minde and the relation of a good Man who was so afflicted with divers Dolours and extenuated with the diuturnity of his grievous Diseases that nothing but hopes on Divine Providence or the solace of his imminent Death could move in him resentment The true relation I say of this Man so much affected C. V. that he diligently took the information of many men whom I had by this remedy restored to sanity and if the covetousness or envy of the Man who undertook the cure of the reverend Cardinal and my Lord's Brother P. M. had not prohibited the use of this Medicament I perswade my self by God's Grace and Benediction it would have conduced to the sanity of many that still lie languishing for want of cures If therefore this Salt have all the qualities of the Earth in it who will deny it to be Earth or say That it may not be called the Universal Spirit made into Earth as Hermes describes it But I aver That this conversion cannot be effected save by the Artifice of easie practise but difficult perquisition for it is without falsity an act exceeding Man's cogitations to render that matter visible to the eyes and tangible to hands which so many learned and famous Writers in all ages have thought invisible and incomprehensible of which they have affirmed That those that labour in this profound Theory may be able to discourse well and plausibly of its excellency but should never finde and know it in effect And I profess amongst all the curious men wherewith I have conversed familiarly this forty yeers from which time I have had some knowledge of this matter I can scarce finde six that know ought of it When then I have sufficiently declared how this Salt may be turned into Earth which is the operation of operations it rests that I shew That after conversion its vertue remains entire Buâ— before I enter this Discourse I shall as iâ— is requisite relate with what vertue thiâ— Salt or Spirit is of it self indued that wâ— may search and finde the same in it wheâ— it is converted into Earth I say therefore for confirmation of my purpose That it is without doubt anâ— needs no proof that the continual motion of the Heavens is for some end for though Physically we may say Thaâ— the end for which a thing is moved iâ— to acquire another place yet is motioâ— made for other causes and the intent 〈◊〉 this motion is not to go from place 〈◊〉 place onely but so to move as to oâ—tain the effect of another End for theâ— are two Ends the one is by Philosopheâ— called the End for which a thing 〈◊〉 made as the End of Plato's Generâ—tion is for Plato's Soul and Beatituâ— is the End for which Plato studies Veâ—tue The other End is that to whiâ— things tend Thus the End where conjunction of Male or Female tends Generation but the End for whicâ— Generation is made is a Man or an â—nimal Thus the End for which Plato went out of Greece into Egypt was to learn Wisdom but the End to which he tended was Egypt The End therefore of the Heavens motion is not onely to acquire new places but to influence upon inferiour Bodies for if any one should imagine that these influences are of no use or that they are cast into a place where nothing can receive them he is in an error too gross to be refuted This Celestial Influx is perpetual and continual because the motion by which it descends is orbicular beginning in and returning to it self And this is the Reason why the things whereon it influences and which it produces are of the same Nature and quality as without ceasing to receive the power and multiplication of these Vertues which fail not And seeing this Influence is not extended above the Heavens where nothing is it must needs be carried toward some inferiour thing that it may act upon for nothing is passive but what hath a Body and what other natural Body is there in the World but Earth Is not this the Body of Bodies and that solely that can subsist alone having in it self all the qualities requisite to a Body as Longitude Latitude Profundity and Superficies Is not it the Subject and Mark that Nature hath set whereat to aim all her Darts where can she better accomplish her works then on the Earth The Earth therefore is onely that inferiour Body that receives Celestial Influences whose faculties and powers penetrate calefie purge separate enliven augment confer and restore We need not now dispute whether the Heavens and Celestial Bodies influence upon the Earth for experience and sense takes away this doubt This therefore being left as sufficiently known we shall onely declare how they make their influences vertuous I said before That they tend directly downwards and not upwards and the Earth being the Centre of this Spherical Body they must needs fall upon her and fasten their Points there for the Earth is that Point of the vast World where all the lives of these influences concentricate And seeing the Earth is a Body so solid that it gives solidity to all others it is requisite that that which penetrates it be very subtile The Heavens therefore being of most subtile matter produce alike effects for the operations ordinarily follow the qualities of the Body that operates And this penetration would profit nothing but like a Torrent running over a Field because of its swift motion scarce wet the surface unless it