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been either falsely assigned, or mixed with fable, or most 

 rarely discovered from neglect. For if one were to allege 

 that there is an enmity between the vine and the cabbage, 

 because they will not come up well when sown together, 

 there is a sufficient reason for it in the succulent and ab 

 sorbent nature of each plant, so that the one defrauds the 

 other. Again, if one were to say that there is a harmony 

 and friendship between the corn and the corn-flower, or the 

 wild poppy, because the latter seldom grow anywhere but 

 in cultivated soils, he ought rather to say, there is an enmity 

 between them, for the poppy and the corn-flower are pro 

 duced and created by those juices which the corn has left 

 and rejected, so that the sowing of the corn prepares the 

 ground for their production. And there are a vast number 

 of similar false assertions. As for fables, they must be 

 totally exterminated. There remains, then, but a scanty 

 supply of such species of harmony as has borne the test 

 of experiment, such as that between the magnet and iron, 

 gold and quicksilver, and the like. In chemical experi 

 ments on metals, however, there are some others worthy of 

 notice, but the greatest abundance (where the whole are so 

 few in numbers) is discovered in certain medicines, which, 

 from their occult and specific qualities (as they are termed), 

 affect particular limbs, humors, diseases, or constitutions. 

 Nor should we omit the harmony between the motion and 

 phenomena of the moon, and their effects on lower bodies, 

 which may be brought together by an accurate and honest 

 selection from the experiments of agriculture, navigation, 

 and medicine, or of other sciences. By as much as these 

 general instances, however, of more latent harmony, are 

 rare, with so much the more diligence are they to be in 

 quired after, through tradition, and faithful and honest 



