stands above nature can be infused into a mortal human being without the means and assistance of sensible species. According to philosophers, nothing can be conceived without them, because everything received is received according to the manner of its receiver. Consequently the human spirit understands celestial mysteries in a mortal and natural manner. A mirror, phantasms, shadows, images and the assistance of figures are therefore needed to conceive not only supernatural things but even natural ones.

To understand this better, one must consider that whatever enters the spirit—whether from the Father of lights above or the foot of mountains below—the spirit comprehends beneath the figure or representation of some created thing it once saw and heard, touched or tasted. Otherwise these figures are not recognized within the family of physical things. We must therefore conclude that nothing reaches us, we understand nothing, and express nothing outwardly except through

the means and assistance of some image or species, which we can apprehend only through the figure or character in which it is clothed, as said above.

Finally, to reduce the figures depicted in this plate to the meaning of physics: what do these riders upon horses of different colors signify? What do their weapons and ornaments signify, and finally the people cast down upon the earth, killed by sword, famine, death, beasts and fire? What do the clouds surrounding them mean in our philosophical work? What do they signify in a metaphysical sense? This remains for us to explain.

The swiftest of all animals is the horse. To increase its speed, poets gave it wings, whence comes Pegasus's etymology—apo tēs pēgēs. He is said to have been born from Medusa's blood and, flying over Mount Parnassus, to have struck earth with his hoof and brought forth this fountain of Helicon or Pegasus. What is meant by wings except greater speed? I do not speak of horses, but of mercurial spirits, which chemical philosophers call winds, vapors or clouds. It is for this reason that they are seen

running within a cloud. But since mercury is composed of different substances, its most volatile, fugitive and spiritual part signifies this rider holding his bow and shooting an arrow, and the white horse, which is air. Because of its volatile part, ethereal and piercing like an arrow of air, it is compared to the Stymphalian birds fluttering to and fro within the vessel. A golden crown is granted him because he went forth victorious to conquer: it belongs to him to overcome matter's fixed parts, that is, to make them volatile and raise them to the top of the vessel's head. Concerning the second, one can understand everything we have said above of the lion of Nemea's forest, the boar of Erymanthus, a mountain of Arcadia, the furious bulls ravaging all Crete, the dragon of Colchis and of Cadmus, or the two serpents strangled by Hercules. Our mercurial water's fieriness is signified by the red horse within the cloud, and its dissolving power by the sword. The third, mounted upon

a black horse and carrying a balance, displays the perfect corruption of substances. They believe these complete substances should be purified in part for our child about to be born, and chemical philosophers call them an acgor. To whiten our laton, we employ several imbibitions in succession. All the poets sufficiently indicated this preparation through the mountains Calpe and Abyla, formerly joined.