A New Light of Alchemy

5Someone might object that if this were so, it ought to happen continuously, although often no wind is felt. I answer that if water is not poured violently into a distilling vessel, no wind is produced; a little water raises only a little wind. You see that thunder does not always occur even when there is rain and wind, but only when air’s force carries turbid water into the sphere of fire, for fire does not tolerate water. An example is before your eyes when you pour cold water into a hot furnace and thunderous noises arise. The reason water does not enter those places and cavities uniformly is that there are many such vessels and places. One cavity sometimes drives winds and water away from itself for days and months, until the water rebounds again. We see the same in the sea: its waves are sometimes driven many miles before they meet a rebound that makes them return. But to our subject: I say that fire or heat causes the air’s motion and is the life of all things; earth is their universal nurse or receptacle. Without water to cool earth and our air, the earth would dry out for these two reasons: the heat of central motion and that of the heavenly sun. This nevertheless happens in some places when the earth’s pores are blocked and moisture cannot penetrate. Then, through the correspondence of the heavenly and central suns, which have a magnetic power between them, the earth is kindled by the sun. In this way too, one day the heavy round of the world will fall.