NATURAL HISTORY. 



CENTURY IX. 



Experiments in consort touching perception in bodies 

 insensible, tending to natural divination or subtile 

 trials. 



IT is certain, that all bodies whatsoever, though they 

 have no sense, yet they have perception : for when 

 one body is applied to another, there is a kind of elec 

 tion to embrace that which is agreeable, and to ex 

 clude or expel that which is ingrate : and whether 

 the body be alterant, or altered, evermore a percep 

 tion precedeth operation ; for else all bodies would be 

 alike one to another. And sometimes this percep 

 tion, in some kind of bodies, is far more subtile than 

 the sense ; so that the sense is but a dull thing in 

 comparison of it : we see a weather-glass will find 

 the least difference of the weather, in heat, or cold, 

 when men find it not. And this perception also is 

 sometimes at distance, as well as upon the touch ; as 

 when the loadstone draweth iron, or. flame fireth 

 naphtha of Babylon, a great distance off. It is there 

 fore a subject of a very noble inquiry, to inquire of 

 the more subtile perceptions : for it is another key to 

 open nature, as well as the sense, and sometimes 



