The Summary of Physics Restored

70Water is the basis and root of everything moist, indeed moisture itself, from which every moist thing takes its name. Water may therefore rightly be defined as the source and principle of the moist element, or of moisture; its proper work is to wet things with its liquid. Things are called moist when they contain moisture or watery liquid in greater or lesser measure. Moisture can receive every quality. Thus blood and yellow bile are humours imbued with their own heat, although they have their basis in the element of water. Strong water and similar substances possess a caustic, fiery power; burning water and many essences of things extracted in the body of oil or water abound in heat, although water, their root, is cold. For nature first imprints the varied signatures of her powers upon the moist element and infuses her principal qualities into its very root. Moisture is nature's first subject, upon which her first care and labour are spent. In its liquid she dilutes and mixes her many colours and indelible tinctures. Spiritual gifts first communicate themselves to it; in it they first dwell and begin to act.