Nine Books on the Nature of Things

No one can deny that air gives life to all corporeal and substantial things born and generated from the earth. To know specifically what the life of each thing is and what kind it is, understand that the life of things is nothing but a spiritual essence, an invisible and intangible thing, a spirit and spiritual thing. Nothing corporeal therefore lacks a hidden spirit within it and a life which, as stated, is nothing other than a spiritual thing. Nor does only what moves and stirs live—humans, animals, worms of the earth, birds beneath heaven and fish in the sea—but also every corporeal and substantial thing. We must understand that at the beginning of the creation of all things, God created no body whatsoever without its own spirit, secretly contained within it. What would a body be without spirit? Absolutely nothing. It is therefore spirit, not body, which secretly contains the thing’s virtue and power. Death is in the body, and the body is the subject of death; nothing but death should be sought in the body. It can be destroyed and corrupted in various ways, whereas spirit cannot. Spirit always remains alive and is also the subject of life. It also keeps its own body alive, but when the body is overthrown it separates from it, leaves the body dead and returns to the place from which it came: the chaos and air of the upper and lower firmament. From this it is evident that spirits vary as bodies vary. There are heavenly, infernal, human and metallic spirits, spirits of minerals, salts, gems, marcasites, arsenical substances, drinkables, roots, liquors, flesh, blood, bones and so forth. Know therefore that spirit is most truly the life and balsam of all corporeal things. We shall now describe here, as briefly as possible, the life of each natural thing by genus and species and in its particularity.