rational life; feathers grow on birds and change every year; coats grow
on animals and are changed every year, with some {163} exceptions, like
the lion's beard and the cat's fur, and such; grass grows in the fields
and leaves on the trees; and every year they are renewed in great part.
Thus we can say that the spirit of growth is the soul of the earth, the
soil its flesh, the ordered arrangement of rocks its bones, of which
mountains are formed, the tufa its tendons; its blood the veins of
water which surround its heart, which is the ocean; its breathing and
increase and decrease of blood in the pulses the ebb and flood of the
sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is fire which pervades the
earth, and the vital soul dwells in the fires which from various
apertures of the earth issue in springs and sulphur minerals and
volcanoes, as at Mount Etna in Sicily and in many other places.
52.
The ancients called man the world in miniature, and certainly the name
is a happy one, because man being composed of earth, water, air and
fire, the body of the earth resembles the body of man. As man has in
him bones for the support and framework of his flesh, likewise in the
world the rocks are the supports of the earth; as man has in him a pool
of blood in which the lungs rise and fall in their breathing, so the
body of the earth has its ocean which rises and falls every six hours
as if the world breathed; as from the aforesaid pool of blood veins
issue which {164} ramify throughout the human body, so does the ocean
fill the body of the earth with innumerable veins of water. The body
of the earth lacks sinews, which do not exist because sinews are made
for movement, and the world being in perpetual stability no movement
occurs, and there being no movement, sinews are not necessary; but in
all other points they resemble each other greatly.
53.
Water is the driver of nature.
[Sidenote: Experience the Basis of Science]
54.
In explaining the action of water remember to cite experience first and
then reason.
55.
Do not forget that you must put forward propositions adducing the
above-mentioned facts as illustrations, not as propositions,--that
would be too simple.
56.
Water in itself has no stability and cannot move of its own accord,
save to descend. Water of its own accord does not cease to move unless
it is shut in.
57.
The body of the earth, like the body of animals, is intersected with
ramifying veins, which are all {165} united and constructed for the
nourishment and life of the earth and of its creatures.
[Sidenote: Water is the Blood of the World]
58.
The water which rises in the mountains is the blood which keeps the
mountain alive, and through this conduit or vein, nature, the helper of
her creatures, prompt in the desire to repair the loss of the moisture
expended, proffers the desired aid abundantly; just as in a stricken
spot in man you will see, owing to the aid which is brought, the blood
abound under the skin in a swelling, so as to succour the spot which
has been stricken; likewise, in the case of the vine, when it is cut at
its extremity, nature causes its moisture to rise from the lowest root
to the end of the extremity which has been cut, and when this moisture
has been expended nature ceases not to supply it with vital moisture to
the end of its life.
59.
Water is that which is given to supply vital moisture to this arid
earth; and the cause which propels it through its ramifications against
the natural course of weighty matter is the same which stirs the
humours in every kind of animal body.
[Sidenote: Water on Mountains]
60.
Water, the vital moisture of the earthly machine, moves by reason of
its natural heat.
{166}
[Sidenote: On the Water of Rivers]
61.
Rivers, with their ruinous inundations, seem to me the most potent of
all causes of terrestrial losses, and not fire, as some have
maintained; because the violence of fire is exhausted where there is
nothing forthcoming to feed it. The flowing of water, which is
maintained by sloping valleys, ends and dies at the lowest depth of the
valley; but fire is caused by fuel and the movement of water by
incline. The fuel of fire is disunited, and its damage is disunited
and isolated, and fire dies where there is no fuel. The incline of
valleys is united, and damage caused by water is collective, along with
the ruinous course of the river, until with its valley it winds into
the sea, the universal base and sole haven of the wandering waters of
rivers. But what voice or words shall I find to express the disastrous
ravages, the incredible upheavals, the insatiable rapacity, caused by
the headstrong rivers? What can I say? Certainly I do not feel myself
equal to such a demonstration, yet by experience I will try to relate
the process of ruin of the rivers which destroy their banks and against
which no mortal bastion can prevail.
62.
The recesses of the bottom of the sea are perennial, the summits of
mountains are transitory, whence it follows that the earth will become
{167} spherical and covered with waters, and will be uninhabitable.
[Sidenote: Transformations in Past and Future]
63.
The shores of the sea continually increase in soil, towards the middle
of the sea; the cliffs and promontories of the sea are continually
being ruined and consumed; the mediterranean seas will dry up and all
that will remain will be the channel of the greatest river which enters
into them; this will flow to the ocean and pour out its waters together
with that of all the rivers which are its tributaries.
[Sidenote: On the Earth's Vibration]
64.
The subterranean courses of water, like those which are made between
the air and the earth, are those which continually consume and deepen
the beds of their currents. The earth which is carried by rivers is
discharged at the end of their course, that is to say, the earth
carried from the highest part of the river's course is discharged at
the lowest depth of its course. Where fresh water arises in the sea,
the miracle of the creation of an island is manifest, which will be
discovered sooner or later in proportion as the quantity of water is
greater or less. And an island of this kind is formed by the deposit
of earth and stones made by the subterranean current of water in the
channels through which it passes.
{168}
[Sidenote: Nature's Law]
65.
Nature never breaks her laws.
66.
Nature is constrained by the cause of her laws which dwells inborn in
her.
67.
Without reason no effect is produced in nature; understand the reason
and you will not need experience.
[Sidenote: Cause discovered by Effect]
68.
Before I proceed further I will make some experiments, because it is my
intention to cite the experiment first and then to demonstrate by
reasoning how such an experiment must necessarily take effect in such a
manner. And this is the true rule by which investigations of natural
phenomena must proceed; and although nature herself begins from the
reason and ends in the result, we must pursue the contrary course and
begin, as I said above, from experience and by it seek out the reason.
[Sidenote: Repetition of Experiment]
69.
Before deducing a general rule from this case repeat the experiment two
or three times and see if the same results are produced.
{169}
[Sidenote: Example of preceding Rule]
70.
It several bodies of equal weight and shape are dropped one after
another at equal intervals of time, the distances between each
successive body will be equally increased.
The experiment to prove the above-mentioned theorem respecting motion
must be made thus: Take two balls of equal weight and shape and let
them fall from a great height so that when they start falling they
touch one another, and let the investigator stand on the ground and
watch whether the contact is maintained during their fall. This
experiment must be repeated several times, so that the trial may not be
marred by any accident and the experiment vitiated and the spectator
deceived.
[Sidenote: Necessity of Analysis]
71.
We know definitely that sight is infinitely swift and in an instant of
time perceives countless shapes, nevertheless it only sees one object
at a time. Let us take an example. You, O reader, will see the whole
of this written page at a glance, and you will instantly realize that
it is full of various letters, but you will not realize at that moment
what these letters are nor what they signify; wherefore you will have
to proceed word by word and line by line to take cognizance of these
letters. Again, if you wish to reach the summit of a building you must
mount step by step, {170} otherwise it will be impossible for you to
reach the summit. And therefore I say to you whom nature has drawn to
this art, if you wish to attain to a thorough knowledge of the forms of
objects, you will begin by studying the details, and not proceed to the
second until you have committed the first to memory and mastered it in
practice, and if you do otherwise you will be wasting your time and
protracting your studies. And remember first of all to acquire
diligence, which signifies speed.
[Sidenote: Vision]
72.
Of the nature of the eye. Here are the forms, here the colours, here
the form of every part of the universe are concentrated in a point, and
that point is so great a marvel! O marvellous and stupendous
necessity! thou dost compel by thy law, and by the most direct path,
every effect to proceed from its cause. These things are verily
miracles! I wrote in my Anatomy how in so small a space the visual
faculty can be reproduced and formed again in its whole expanse.
73.
In many cases one and the same thing is attracted by two violent
forces,--necessity and power. The water falls in rain and by necessity
the earth absorbs the humidity; the sun causes it to evaporate, not of
necessity, but by power.
{171}
[Sidenote: Unconscious Reasoning]
74.
The pupil of the eye in the air expands and contracts according to
every degree of motion made by the sun. And with every dilation or
contraction the same object will appear of a different size, although
frequently the relative scale of surrounding circumstances does not
allow us to perceive these variations in any single object we look at.
[Sidenote: The Eye]
75.
The pupil of the eye dilates and contracts in proportion to the variety
of bright and dark objects which are reflected in it. In this case
nature has afforded compensation to the visual faculty by contracting
the pupil of the eye when it is offended by excess of light and by
causing it to dilate when offended by excess of darkness, like the
opening of the purse. And nature here behaves like the man who has too
much light in his house and closes half the window, or more or less of
it according to need; and when night comes he opens the window
altogether so as to see better inside his house, and nature here adopts
a continued process of compensation, by continually regulating and
readjusting the expansion and contracting of the pupil, in proportion
to the aforesaid obscurity and light which are continually reflected in
it.
{172}
[Sidenote: Water surrounding the Globe Spherical]
76.
When you collect facts relating to the science of the motion of water,
remember to place under every proposition the uses to which it may be
applied, in order that this knowledge may not be fruitless.
77.
This is a difficult question to answer, but I will nevertheless state
my opinion. Water, which is clothed with air, desires naturally to
cleave to its sphere because in this position it is without gravity.
This gravity is twofold,--the gravity of the whole which tends to the
centre of the elements, and the gravity which tends to the centre of
the waters of the spherical orb; if this were not so the water would
form a half sphere only, which is the sphere described from the centre
upwards. But I see no means in the human mind of acquiring knowledge
with regard to this. We must say, as we say of the magnet which
attracts iron, that such a virtue is an occult property of which there
is an infinite quantity in nature.
78.
In the motion of earth against earth the repercussion of the portion
struck is slight.
Water struck by water, eddies in circles around the spot where the
shock has taken place.
The reverberation of the voice continues for a {173} great distance
through the air; for a greater distance through fire. The mind travels
for a still greater distance through the universe; but since it is
finite it does not penetrate into infinity.
79.
If the water which rises on the summits of the mountains comes from the
sea, whence it is propelled by its weight to a greater height than that
of the mountains, why has this portion of the element of water the
power to elevate itself to such an altitude and to penetrate the earth
by so great an expenditure of labour and time, when the residue of the
element of water, whose only obstacle is the air which does not impede
it, is not able to raise itself to a similar altitude? And thou who
didst devise this theory, go and study nature, so that thou mayst cease
to acquire such opinions of which thou hast made so great a collection,
together with the capital and interest which thou dost possess.
[Sidenote: On the Law of Gravity]
80.
The sphere of the earth has gravity which increases in proportion to
the lightness of the element which contains it.
Fire is light in its sphere and its lightness increases in proportion
to the weight of the element which contains it.
{174}
No primary element has gravity or lightness in its own sphere.
81.
The motion made by bodies which possess gravity to the common centre is
not produced by the tendency of the body to find this centre, nor is it
caused by attraction made by the centre, as by a magnet, drawing the
weight towards it.
82.
Why does not the weight remain in its place?
It does not remain because it has no resistance.
And whither will it tend?
It will tend to the centre of the earth.
And why not along other lines?
Because the weight which meets with no resistance will descend by the
shortest way to the lowest depth, and the lowest depth is the centre of
the earth.
And how does a weight find the centre of the earth with such directness?
Because it does not proceed at random, wandering by diverse courses.
[Sidenote: Phenomena governed by Mechanical Laws]
83.
Instrumental science, that is to say, mechanics, is the most noble and
most useful of sciences, inasmuch as by means of it all living bodies
which have movement act; and this movement has {175} its origin in the
centre of gravity which is placed in the middle, dividing unequal
weights, and it has dearth and wealth of muscles and lever also and
counter-lever.
84.
Since these things are far more ancient than letters, it is no wonder
if in our day no records exist to tell how these seas filled so many
countries. But if some record had existed, conflagrations, floods,
wars, changes of tongues and laws have consumed all that is ancient;
sufficient for us is the testimony of objects born in the salt waters
and found again in the high mountains far off from the seas of those
times.
[Sidenote: Heat the Vital Principle]
85.
Heat causes moisture to move, and cold arrests it; as is seen in a cold
country which arrests the motion of the clouds in the air. Where there
is life there is heat, where there is vital heat there is movement of
moisture.
[Sidenote: Against those desiring to correct Nature]
86.
The act of cutting out the nostrils of a horse is a piece of ludicrous
folly. And the foolish indulge in this practice as though they
considered nature had failed to supply necessary wants, and man had
therefore to supplement her work. Nature made two apertures in the
nose, which each in {176} itself is half as large as the lung pipe
whence breath proceeds, and if these apertures did not exist the mouth
would abundantly suffice for breathing purposes. And if you said to
me, Why has nature thus provided animals with nostrils if respiration
through the mouth is sufficient?--I would answer that nostrils are made
to be used when the mouth is employed in masticating its food.
[Sidenote: Of Trees]
87.
If a tree has been stripped of its bark in some spot, nature makes
provision for this and gives a greater supply of nourishing sap to the
stripped portion than to any other, so that in place of what has been
taken away the bark grows thicker than in any other spot. And so
impetuous is the motion of the sap that when it reaches the spot which
is to be healed, it rises higher like a bounding ball, in bubbles, not
unlike boiling water.
[Sidenote: The Leaves of Plants]
88.
Nature has so placed the leaves of the latest shoots of many trees that
the sixth leaf is always above the first, and thus in continued
succession unless the rule is obstructed. And this she has done for
two useful purposes in the plant: firstly, since the branches and the
fruit of the following year spring from the bud or eye which is above
and in contact with the juncture of the leaves, {177} the water which
feeds the shoot may be able to run down and nourish the bud, through
the drop being caught in the hollow whence the leaf springs. And the
second advantage is that as these buds shoot in the following year, one
will not be covered by the other, since the five shoots spring on five
different sides.
[Sidenote: From Known to Unknown]
89.
In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it
is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will
prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a
step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between
the air and the wind.
[Sidenote: On the Flight of Birds]
90.
The reason of this is that small birds being without down cannot
support the intense cold of the high altitudes in which the vultures
and eagles or and other great birds, well supplied with down and
clothed with many kinds of feathers, [fly]. Again, the small birds,
having delicate and thin wings, support themselves in the low air,
which is denser, and they could not bear up in the rarer air, which
affords slighter resistance.
[Sidenote: On the Structure of Wings]
91.
The shafts formed in the shoulders of the wings of birds have been so
devised by ingenious nature {178} as to occasion a convenient pliancy
in the direct impetus which often occurs in the swift flight of birds,
since she found it more practical to bend a small part of the wing in
the direct flight than the whole of it.
[Sidenote: On a Fossil Fish]
92.
O time! swift devourer of all created things! How many kings, how many
nations, thou hast overthrown, how great changes of kingdoms and
diverse vicissitudes have succeeded one another, since the marvellous
body of this fish, which perished in the caverns and intricate recesses
[of the mountain]. Now undone by time, thou liest patient in this
confined spot; with thy fleshless and bare bones thou hast built the
framework and the support of the mountain that is above thee.
[Sidenote: We live by Others' Death]
93.
Unconscious life remains in what is dead, which when reunited to the
stomach of living men, reacquires sentient and conscious life.
[Sidenote: Against Doctors]
94.
Men are chosen to be physicians in order to minister to diseases of
which they are ignorant.
95.
Every man wishes to amass money in order to give it to the physicians
who are the destroyers of life; they ought therefore to be rich.
{179}
96.
Take pains to preserve thy health; and thou wilt all the more easily do
this if thou avoidest physicians, because their drugs are a kind of
alchemy, and there are as many books on this subject as there are on
medicine.
97.
Oh! meditators on perpetual motion, how many vain projects of similar
character you have devised! Go and join the seekers of gold.
[Sidenote: Against the Seekers of Perpetual Motion]
98.
The water which flows in a river moves either because it is summoned or
driven, or because it moves of its own accord. If it is summoned,--and
I mean sought after,--who is the seeker? If it is driven, who is the
driver? If it moves of its own accord, it gives evidence of reasoning;
and reasoning in bodies which continually change their shape is
impossible, because in such bodies there is no consciousness.
[Sidenote: Against Occult Sciences]
99.
I wish to work miracles. I may have less than other and less energetic
men; and those who wish to grow rich in a day live a long time in great
poverty, as happens, and will always happen, to alchemists, who seek to
make gold and silver, and to the engineers who wish from still {180}
water to obtain life and perpetual motion, and to the supreme
fool,--the necromancer and the magician.
[Sidenote: Of Astrology]
100.
There is no part of astronomy which does not depend on the visual lines
and on perspective, the daughter of painting; because the painter is he
who by the necessity of his art has begotten perspective, and it is
impossible to do without lines which include all the various figures of
the bodies begotten by nature and without which the art of geometry is
blind. And while the geometrist reduces every surface surrounded by
lines to a square, and each body to the figure of the cube, and
mathematics do the same with their cube roots and square roots, these
two sciences deal only with the continuous and discontinuous quantity,
but they do not deal with the quality which constitutes the beauty of
the works of nature and the ornament of the world.
101.
Here the adversary will say that he does not want so much knowledge,
and the mere skill of depicting nature will suffice him. To which I
make reply that there is no greater error than to trust to our
judgement without other reasoning, as experience, the enemy of
alchemists, necromancers and other foolish intellects, has in all times
proved.
{181}
[Sidenote: Against Alchemists]
102.
The lying interpreters of nature affirm that quicksilver is the common
seed of all metals. They do not bear in mind that nature raises
substances according to the diversity of things which she wishes to
produce in the world.
[Sidenote: Against Necromancy]
103.