510 ON GENERATION. 



I say ? It far exceeds even any estimate we can form of the 

 rational soul ; for the nature of generation, and the order that 

 prevails in it, are truly admirable and divine, beyond all that 

 thought can conceive or understanding comprehend. 



That it may, however, more clearly appear that the remark- 

 able virtues which the learned attribute to the spirits and the 

 innate heat belong to the blood alone, besides what has 

 already been spoken of as conspicuous in the egg before any 

 trace of the embryo appears, as well as in the perfect and adult 

 foetus, the few following observations are made by way of further 

 illustration, and for the sake of the diligent inquirer. The 

 blood considered absolutely and by itself, without the veins, in 

 so far as it is an elementary fluid, and composed of several 

 parts of thin and serous particles, and of thick and concrete 

 particles called cruor possesses but few, and these not very 

 obvious virtues. Contained within the veins, however, inas- 

 much as it is an integral part of the body, and is animated, 

 regenerative, and the immediate instrument and principal seat 

 of the soul, inasmuch, moreover, as it seems to partake of the 

 nature of another more divine body, and is transfused by divine 

 animal heat, it obtains remarkable and most excellent powers, 

 and is analogous to the essence of the stars. In so far as it is 

 spirit, it is the hearth, the Vesta, the household divinity, the 

 innate heat, the sun of the microcosm, the fire of Plato ; not 

 because like common fire it lightens, burns, and destroys, but 

 because by a vague and incessant motion it preserves, nou- 

 rishes, and aggrandizes itself. It farther deserves the name of 

 spirit, inasmuch as it is radical moisture, at once the ultimate 

 and the proximate and the primary aliment, more abundant 

 than all the other parts ; preparing for and administering to 

 these the same nutriment with which itself is fed, ceaselessly 

 permeating the whole body, cherishing and keeping alive the 

 parts which it has fashioned and added to itself, not otherwise 

 assuredly than the superior stars, the sun and moon especially, 

 in maintaining their own proper orbits, continually vivify the 

 stars that are beneath them. 



Since the blood acts, then, with forces superior to the forces 

 of the elements, and exerts its influence through these forces 

 or virtues, and is the instrument of the Great Workman, no 

 one can ever sufficiently extol its admirable, its divine faculties. 



