The Summary of Physics Restored

130Since water is the world’s menstruum, it contains and cherishes the seeds and elements of things. While it circulates, the true elements of Nature also revolve: they are present in earth as in a matrix and vessel of generation, and in water as in a menstruum. Thus the elements of earth, water, and air are present in vapour and are sublimed and enriched with it. These are not the bodies of earth, water, and air, which have their own spheres and constitute the world’s regions, but Nature’s spiritual elements themselves, which dwell concealed within those bodies. From them, stones and other bodies can be generated in the air through the cooking action of fire. For wherever all the elements meet, excellently mixed as they are in vapour, bodies can be generated. Yet when such generation occurs outside a suitable matrix, as in the air, imperfect mixed bodies are produced, less through a defect of mixture than through a defect of matrix.