9 Earth and Its Outflow

Chapter outline

Earth is the fourth principle, the fixed maternal vessel of all sublunary generation.

The changeable heaven discussed here is distinguished from God’s unchanging Empyrean.

Movement and heat remain present in every material body, even where imperceptible.

Volatilization carries earth and water upward; fixation carries heaven downward.

The elements contain intermediate grades, making gradual transformation possible.

Universal and particular reproduction continue through one matter under changing degrees of volatility and fixation.

Earth is the fourth and last principle in the separation of Chaos and the lowest part, as heaven is the highest and air and water occupy the middle. Heaven is the subtlest, earth the coarsest; heaven is volatile, earth fixed. Air and water stand between them, though differing in their degrees of subtlety and volatility. Earth is the second receptive part and female sperm or seed, the mother of all things beneath the moon. Earth is coagulated, fixed heaven; coagulated water; thickened air; vapour turned into earth; a fixed, coagulated being. It is the centre and vessel of all celestial influences and of the common seed, from which all minerals, plants and animals grow in and through earth. To show briefly how earth and water become vapours, air, smoke, mist and exhalation for the generation of the common universal seed, or regeneration of Chaos, and how they soar into the heights of air, indeed into heaven, consider what follows. First, however, the lover of the art must understand my meaning correctly. By heaven I do not mean that heaven, or Empyrean, in which God dwells with his elect. That heaven is entirely removed from and exempted from all changes and natural operations. These changes arise below it and, by the almighty Lord’s express command, reach no farther into it.

With this understood, the reader should note that, as I said above, heaven is the most mobile of all things because of its extreme subtlety. It never ceases moving as long as God lets the world continue in its being. Its movement causes its nearest neighbour, air, to move as well, though much more slowly than heaven. Air in turn moves water, and water earth, although their movement becomes successively weaker and slower. We see that heaven moves air in the continual stirring and trembling of air and wind. That air moves water needs no proof. Sailors on waters great and small, especially at sea, are often held up, waiting for wind or lying becalmed, while the water rages high with its flood and waves. We see water move earth in its continual transport of sand, mud and stones—ground-up earth—which it tears away and washes off in one place and carries to another. Here it hollows out, there it heaps up hills and valleys again, according to the circumstances of the place. Every movement causes warmth, whether perceptible or not. In living animals, specifically land animals, we feel not merely warmth but heat. In aquatic animals we feel no warmth, or very little—indeed, one might say, cold. Yet all life must necessarily arise from movement and the warmth it causes, since cold extinguishes life. The reader should infer that there is both perceptible and imperceptible warmth.

I have included this because warmth is implanted in the elements: sometimes we feel it, sometimes not, yet either way it generates at all times in every element, whether or not the sun or the subterranean central heat is added. Every thing, however small—even too small to be seen or grasped by our natural sight—has heaven implanted within it, together with all the other elements. If a thing has heaven implanted within it, it necessarily contains movement, visible or invisible, perceptible or imperceptible. Heaven does not rest; it must have movement, wherever it takes place. Even where it appears to rest, it still has its invisible outflows, actions and powers. For example, an earth-grown plant, root or herb, torn from its mother or birthplace and dried out, appears dead because its growth has been stopped. Yet heaven is within it and does not rest, but accomplishes great things through imperceptible transpiration. Such a spirit helps human beings in health and sickness according to its implanted nature and virtue, not only when administered to them but also when hung upon them, without losing its power and might or diminishing its size and weight.

The lover of the art now sees what this is and from what power each thing derives its action: heaven and its perpetual movement, becoming lukewarm, warming and heating. Do not, therefore, look for anything on earth, large or small, in which heaven and all the other elements are not concentrated. Reason too tells us that every thing must contain the nature and properties of what it arose from. Each and every thing came from Chaos as first matter and therefore possesses its properties. Those properties are spirit and water; spirit is the mover and warmer. This spirit is poured out everywhere throughout the world. Even the smallest drop of water and the smallest speck of earth are filled throughout with it and with water, in the liquid and the dry state. Just as every part of a drop is water and spirit, so every part of a speck of earth is earth and spirit, though coagulated, whereas the water is fluid and dissolved. Earth and water are less mobile than heaven because of their thickness and coarseness, or coagulation and concentration. Make earth volatile like heaven, and its movement is as swift as heaven’s. The entire difference and distinction among things therefore rests on volatility and fixation. Fixed and volatile bring about the alteration and altered forms of every single thing. Nature’s whole aim and end is that heaven should become fixed, if it is to be useful and beneficial to creatures beneath the moon.

Plainly, all sublunary things are coarse and thick compared with heaven, and therefore less mobile. To benefit them, heaven must necessarily become earthly. Otherwise they could not grasp so subtle and extremely volatile a vapour, unless it communicated itself to earth through air and water. For this reason God ordered heaven to pass through all the elements and change into them all, while the other elements, through their utmost subtilization, change into heaven—for the benefit and good, generation and preservation, destruction and regeneration of every substance beneath the moon. To demonstrate how water and earth together with air become vapour, smoke and mist, and how these become heaven, the lover of the art must hold firmly in mind that heaven and the other elements are mixed and present everywhere in all things great and small. Moreover, heaven and air manifest their moving force and power in every stone and bone. A subtle, thin thing, such as an animal, shows its power and movement sooner than a large, immobile tree firmly rooted in earth, or a stone that appears entirely lifeless.

Earth and water are always together. Earth is in water, and water runs over the ground of earth; water is in earth, for springs, wells and streams flow from it. Entire great lakes are also found within earth. As this is known, so it is also known that air is in heaven and heaven in air. Heaven, air, water and earth are always beside and within one another; throughout all their parts none is without the others. Just as a human being cannot live without soul and spirit, one element cannot dispense with another. Water and earth are therefore filled with heaven and air. Water must moisten earth if earth is to bear fruit. Through the implanted heaven, air or mobile spirit, this moistening and impregnation in their mixture—together with the external seed added to it and the internal central heat—causes movement; movement causes lukewarmness, lukewarmness warmth, and warmth heat. This generates and awakens water into vapour and exhalations. The stronger the heat and the more water there is, the more violently it steams, seethes and exhales. When this vapour breaks out into the air, the surrounding warmth of air and sun and the wind move it still further. The more it moves, the subtler it becomes, rising higher and higher. The higher it rises, the nearer it comes to heaven and the origin of movement. It thus becomes increasingly subtilized and volatile to the utmost degree. The more volatile it becomes, the more it inclines toward the nature of heaven, until it is changed into that nature. Conversely, as stated above, heaven becomes more earthly the nearer it comes to earth, until through earth it is turned into earth and stone.