Yet Nature is often dragged unwillingly beyond her own bounds and does not follow a certain track, especially in directing the moist element. Its interrupted laws fail; it readily inflicts and suffers violence, both because of the inconstancy of a volatile nature and because of the varying disposition of higher bodies. These incline the lower things, especially moisture, and turn them from their laws at the command of the eternal governor, who uses those bodies as instruments and organs to move the machinery of the universe. Hence we perceive the deceptive and inconstant climate of this dwelling of ours and the altered seasons. Thus earth’s womb, variously affected, bears us noble or exhausted offspring, more or less abundantly; thus the surrounding air, purer or more impure, brings health or disease, while moist nature turns all things about us.

Since lower things receive their law from higher things, whose natures and dispositions are largely unknown to humankind, the rule of our sky is deceptive and uncertain to us. Yet let the philosopher set before his eyes Nature’s intention more than her action, and order more than the disturbance of order.

THE CIRCULATION OF MOISTURE IN MIXED BODIES.

The revolving movement of moist nature may be observed not only in the general harmony of the world, but also in the particular harmony of mixed bodies. Through the revolution of moisture they are generated, nourished, and increased: by drying, moistening, and digesting. Therefore those three operations of Nature are compared to food, drink, and sleep, because food corresponds to dryness, drink to moisture, and sleep to decoction.

Let the human being not fashion dreams for himself while boasting of varied titles and claiming the name of microcosm for himself alone as though it were his particular property, because the natural motions of the macrocosm are perceived by analogy in his material structure. For every animal, even a little worm, and every plant, even seaweed, is a small world bearing the image of the greater one. Let the human being therefore seek the world outside himself, and he will find it everywhere. All creatures have the same archetype, from which innumerable worlds have been brought forth from the same matter, though dissimilar in form. Let lowliness and humility therefore be assigned to humankind, and glory to God alone.

THE FERMENTATION OF WATER.

Lower natures are fermented by higher ones. Water, impatient of delay, hastens to meet the gifts of heavenly things. Air opens a passage to the vapour flying towards it and receives it hospitably in the region of clouds as in a hall. Before it reaches that place, moist nature is stripped of its weight, its body in some measure turned into spirit, so that with added speed it may fulfil its wish sooner and enjoy the privilege of a twofold nature.

THE FERMENTATION OF THE ELEMENTS THROUGH WATER.

Meanwhile the sun, prince of the heavenly choir, and the higher natures, taking care of lower things, instil life-giving spirits through a constant breathing, like little streams springing from their purest fountains. Vapours, either floating thinly in the air or condensed into a cloud as into Nature’s sponge, eagerly drink that spiritual nectar and draw it to themselves by a certain magnetic power. Having received it, they swell; impregnated with that seed productive of offspring, and as though their weight had been restored, they dissolve into dew, frost, rain, or some other moist nature and fall back into earth’s bosom. That mother of the elements receives the returning moisture into her womb and, pregnant with heavenly seed, brings forth innumerable offspring in their season, more or less noble according to the seed’s power and the matrix’s disposition. The lower waters also share in this beneficence of heavenly things. Since they constitute one globe with earth, the benefits of higher things are common to them. Through water’s nature, the other elements are fermented.

That ferment is a life-giving spirit flowing down from higher natures into these lower ones, without which earth would again become empty and void. It is the seed of life, without which neither the human being, nor any animal, nor any plant would enjoy the benefit of generation or life. For the human being does not live by bread alone, but chiefly by that heavenly food: air breathed upon and fermented by a spirit of this kind.

THREE SECONDARY ELEMENTS.

The three material elements, being remote in the composition of things, obey God and Nature alone and do not submit to the laws of art or human ingenuity. Three others are born from the union of the former three. Extracted by way of resolution, they sufficiently show themselves to be proximate in the composition of mixed bodies: salt, sulphur, and mercury. Thus it becomes manifest that a trinity is the seal of the elements and of all Nature.