Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Wind is nothing other than air moved and stirred, as can be recognised from the breathing of animals: breathing through the benefit of air, they send out wind. Wind, then, is air, and air everywhere is vital and the breath of life, since nothing can live without it. Whatever is deprived of it or suffocated dies immediately, and even plants without open and free air become weak and languishing compared with others. We do not therefore say in vain that air is a vital spirit, passing through and penetrating everything, giving life and consistency to everything, binding, moving and filling all things. Through this air the general spirit enclosed and hidden in all things is generated and made manifest, being impregnated and made fruitful by air, which renders it more powerful in generation. Thus Calid, the Jewish philosopher, had good grounds for saying that the mines of things have their roots in the air and their heads or summits in the earth. It is as though he said that air causes this spirit to grow and increase, and to multiply its mine within the earth.