The Summary of Physics Restored

143Yet 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.