Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Since I have undertaken to treat of the spirit of the world, I must make it understood how the world is full of soul and life. For besides the fact that Nature spiritualises nothing without giving it life, and that the world consists in continual, unfailing alterations of forms which cannot take place without vital movement, we also see this same Nature, like a most fruitful and attentive mother, embracing and nourishing the world, allotting a sufficient portion of life to each of its members. Thus there is nothing throughout the universe that she does not endeavour to animate. She cannot be idle, but remains continually intent upon her work, which is to give life. Now this great body is stirred and endowed with ceaseless movement, and such movement cannot take place without a vital spirit. For what has no life is necessarily incapable of movement: I do not mean movement from one place to another through violence and force, but movement from privation to form, or, to speak more clearly, from imperfection to perfection. The growth of plants and the concretion of stones advance through movement, brought about by the infusion of the soul that stirs this great mass, through a certain nourishing spirit at its root. The source and mine of this spirit lies at the centre of the earth, the great grandmother of all things, so that from there, as from a heart, all the vital functions may arise and spread throughout the body.