INNATE HEAT AND RADICAL MOISTURE.

Innate heat and radical moisture are of different kinds. The former is wholly solar and spiritual; the latter is an intermediate nature between the spiritual and the bodily, sharing in both the Ethereal and the Elemental. The former belongs to the order of higher things, the latter more to that of lower things. In it the first marriage of Heaven and Earth was celebrated, through which Heaven dwells even at the centre of the earth. Those who confuse innate heat with radical moisture are therefore mistaken, for they differ no less than smoke and flame, the Sun’s light and air, or Sulphur and Mercury. In mixed bodies radical moisture is the seat and food of innate, heavenly fire and the bond linking it to the elemental body. That fiery power, however, is the form and soul of mixed bodies. In seeds, this moisture is the immediate guardian and capsule of the fiery spirit imprisoned in the seed, until external heat advances it towards generation in a suitable womb. Finally, this radical substance is Vulcan’s workshop in every mixed body: the hearth in which the immortal Fire is kept, the first mover of all the individual’s faculties.

This radical moisture is the universal balsam, Nature’s most precious Elixir, the Mercury of life perfectly sublimed by Nature. Bountiful Nature has given every individual in her store a dose of it, weighed upon a just balance. Whoever has deserved to draw forth this great treasure, hidden in the heart and recesses of Nature’s offspring, and skilfully unfold it from the elemental wrappings that obscure it, may glory in having obtained the greatest support of human life and the most precious panacea.

THE FIRST AND SECOND EXEMPLARS OF THINGS.

The order of reason and Creation requires that the first exemplars of things were first engraved in heavenly Natures and then transmitted to lower ones. There they exist far more perfectly, both because of the greater fineness and excellence of matter and because their abodes are nearer to eternity. Among us they are much baser, being carved in coarser and cheaper matter and more remote from their eternal principle. Nothing has therefore been copied in this outermost margin of the World that was not first delineated in the heavenly expanse. Nor is there any species of lower nature that does not acknowledge the dominion of some corresponding higher nature and carry within it that nature’s hidden seal and signature. Thus lower things depend upon higher ones.

THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE.

The World is like an animal of double nature, for it possesses both sexes. Its upper, heavenly part is active and masculine; this lower, elemental part is passive and feminine. The globe of the Earth is the womb in which Heaven’s fruitful seed is received and fostered. From the male side flow life and strength; from the female side corruption and death break forth into generated things.

Since higher and lower bodies drew their origin from the same principles as from parents, yet did not receive an equal lot, it is just that those which glory in being exalted to nobler substances and worthier offices should bestow some of their resources upon brothers of a lower station, needy and suffering want, and provide for their life and preservation. For since the World had to be composed of unequal natures, divine providence arranged that the more powerful should willingly aid the weaker and supply strength to the languishing. Thus Love is the indissoluble bond of the parts of the Universe.

In this sublunary region, Nature suffers sickness through a defect of proportion or balance among the Elements, whether in quantity or in qualities—that is, through excessive intensity or relaxation. Discord arises in natural music, and an ill mixture in bodies. When that consonance of the Elements which results from proportion and constitutes balance is removed, the matter and form of the whole mixed body adhere poorly. Nature is disturbed and stumbles, entangled in confusion. Hence diseases, and finally death, invade disordered and faltering Nature.

This discord of the principles has either an inward, radical cause, such as defective seed, faulty generation or old age, or an external, accidental cause, such as excessive fullness or depletion, from which arise excess or deficiency in the humours and spirits. It may also arise from putrefaction, deadly poison, wasting, grief, injury or some obstruction inflicted upon the organs of life, and similar things that do violence to Nature.

THE FOUR QUALITIES ARE NATURE’S HARMONIC TONES.

The four radical qualities of the Elements are like Nature’s harmonic tones. They are not mutually contrary but different, standing apart at definite intervals. From their proportionate difference, intensity and relaxation arises Nature’s perfect harmony, perceptible to the intellect and analogous to vocal Music, which is apprehended by sense. Although low and high tones are the extremes in Music, they are not contraries but the boundaries of the intervening tones, which are composed and tempered in different proportions from those two extremes. Thus heat and cold, dryness and moisture are extreme qualities in Nature. They are not therefore contraries, but boundaries of the middle, intervening qualities, which arise from the mixing and tempering of the extremes.