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and tenacious bodies), then the bodies are softened, as in hot 

 iron ; or flow, as in metals ; or melt, as in gums, wax, and the 

 like. ' The contrary effects of heat, therefore (hardening some 

 substances and melting others), are easily reconciled/ because 

 the spirit is emitted in the former, and agitated and retained in 

 the latter ; the latter action is that of heat and the spirit, the for- 

 mer that of the tangible parts themselves, after the spirit's 

 emission. 



But when the spirit is neither entirely retained nor emitted, 

 but only strives and exercises itself, within its limits, and meets 

 with tangible parts, which obey and readily follow it wherever 

 it leads them, then follows the formation of an organic body, 

 and of limbs, and the other vital actions of vegetables and ani- 

 mals. These are rendered sensible chiefly by diligent observa- 

 tion of the first beginnings, and rudiments or effects of life in 

 animalculse sprung from putrefaction, as in the eggs of ants, 

 worms, mosses, frogs after rain, etc. Both a mild heat and a 

 pliant substance, however, are necessary for the production of 

 life, in order that the spirit may neither hastily escape, nor be 

 restrained by the obstinacy of the parts, so as not to be able to 

 bend and model them like wax. 



Again, the difference of spirit which is important and of ef- 

 fect in many points (as unconnected spirit, branching spirit, 

 branching and cellular spirit, the first of which is that of all 

 inanimate substances, the second of vegetables, and the third 

 of animals), is placed, as it were, before the eyes by many re- 

 ducing instances. 



Again, it is clear that the more refined tissue and conforma- 

 tion of things (though forming the whole body of visible or 

 tangible objects) are neither visible nor tangible. Our in- 

 formation, therefore, must here also be derived from reduction 

 to the sphere of the senses. But the most radical and primary 

 difference of formation depends on the abundance or scarcity 

 of matter within the same space or dimensions. For the other 

 formations which regard the dissimilarity of the parts con- 

 tained in the same body, and their collocation and position, are 

 secondary in comparison with the former. 



Let the required nature then be the expansion or coherence 

 of matter in different bodies, or the quantity of matter relative 

 to the dimensions of each. For there is nothing in nature more 

 true than the twofold proposition that nothing proceeds from 

 nothing and that nothing is reduced to nothing, but that the 

 quantum, or sum total of matter, is constant, and is neither in- 

 creased nor diminished. Nor is it less true, that out of this 

 given quantity of matter, there is a greater or less quantity, 

 contained within the same space or dimensions according to the 

 difference of bodies ; as, for instance, water contains more than 



