The Summary of Physics Restored

148Meanwhile the sun, prince of the heavenly choir, and the higher natures, taking care of lower things, instil life-giving spirits through a constant breathing, like little streams springing from their purest fountains. Vapours, either floating thinly in the air or condensed into a cloud as into Nature’s sponge, eagerly drink that spiritual nectar and draw it to themselves by a certain magnetic power. Having received it, they swell; impregnated with that seed productive of offspring, and as though their weight had been restored, they dissolve into dew, frost, rain, or some other moist nature and fall back into earth’s bosom. That mother of the elements receives the returning moisture into her womb and, pregnant with heavenly seed, brings forth innumerable offspring in their season, more or less noble according to the seed’s power and the matrix’s disposition. The lower waters also share in this beneficence of heavenly things. Since they constitute one globe with earth, the benefits of higher things are common to them. Through water’s nature, the other elements are fermented.