The Summary of Physics Restored

102The first things opposed through hostile qualities were light and darkness. Two qualities were present in light, heat and dryness, and as many in darkness, coldness and moisture; they were wholly opposed to one another because they were intense. But after those two most ancient principles of Nature came together, and the dark, material and feminine principle was formed and impregnated with light by the bright, formal and masculine principle, all the matter of the Universe and all its regions received the grace of light, distinguished, however, by their own degrees and differences. For that fiery tincture of the luminous Spirit left nothing unpenetrated. The four qualities too, previously intense but abated through mixture in formed matter, grew together most aptly, entered into friendship and agreed upon a temperament. Thus, now harmonious, they passed into the homogeneous family of the Elements, so that thereafter nothing hostile or resistant might remain in the generation of compounds to disturb Nature’s tranquil motion.