HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THEORT. 107 



creations, which is also the indissoluble connection of body 

 and soul, and so is a most pure and noble essence, full of 

 wonderful efficacy and virtue, in which all mysteries lie hid." * 



What this was we see better in the next quotation from 

 Mehung". " Now I consider you informed of this valuable 

 truth, that there is no element which is not worked into 

 another, so that operating on one, the other is operated on. 

 For example, fire is worked into air and earth, if fire excites 

 the operation. The earth is the mother and sustainer of all 

 things ; as all things under heaven which are subject to putre- 

 faction, are produced by birth in the warmth of its womb. 

 Only the power of God allows me to return the four elements 

 again into the fifth essence, and that is called the prima 

 materia, which is mixed generically in every element." f 

 (Quae in uno quolibet elemento generice mixta est.) 



The idea that all things grew was a common one to them, 

 as well as to Dr. Johnson, of modern times, and of great 

 learning. That every thing grew from seeds, is said to be 

 the most ancient of doctrines. | There is no detail as to 

 whence the increase of volume came ; growing was the cause 

 and the explanation. As it is said in " The way of Truth,'* 

 ** so long as you boil, so long you putrefy it, and the 

 substance is exposed to putrefaction, like corn which is thrown 

 into the earth, and which is preserved in the earth itself by 

 the heat of the sun, but must putrefy by natural rain before 

 anything new will grow from it." || 



And Basil Valentine, " on the philosopher's stone," says, 

 " the vivifying power of the earth produces all things which 

 spring from it, and he who says that the earth is without life, 

 speaks contrary to truth. For the dead can supply nothing 

 to the living, and neither can the dead grow, because the 



* Museum Hermeticum, p. 84. 



t Id., p. 151. DemoDstratio Naturae. By Mehung. 



X Amtotle, quoted by Hitter, Vol. i., p. I80. 



n Idem p. 186. 



