56!^ NOVCM OIIGAJ^UAT. f BOOK II. 



0. The direction of molion (which is the fifth method of 

 action) is of no small use. We adopt this term, when speaking 

 of a body which, meeting with another, either arrests, repels, 

 allows, or directs its original motion. This is the case principally 

 in the fignre and position of vessels. An upright cone, for 

 instance, promotes the condensation of vapour in alembics, but 

 when reversed, as in inverted vessels, it assists the refining of 

 sugar. Sometimes a curved form, or one alternately contracted 

 and dilated, is required. Strainers may be ranged under this 

 head, where the opposed body opens a way for one portion of 

 another substance and impedes the rest. Kor is tliis process or 

 any other direction of motion carried on externally only, but 

 sometimes by one body within another. Thus, pebbles are thrown 

 into water to collect the muddy particles, and syrups are refined 

 by the white of an e^g, which glues the grosser particles together 

 80 as to facilitate their removal. Telesius, indeed, rashly and 

 ignorantly enough attributes the formation of animals to this 

 cause, by means of the channels and folds of the womb. He 

 ■^ught to have observed a similar formation of the young in eggs 

 wliich have no wrinkles or inequalities. One may observe a real 

 result of this direction of motion in casting and modelling. 



6. The effects produced by harmony and aversion (which is 

 the sixth method) are frequently buried in obscurity ; for these 

 occult and specific properties (as they are termed), the sympathies 

 and antipathies, are for the most part but a corruption of philo- 

 sophy. JSTor can we form any great expectation of the discovery 

 of the harmony which exists between natural objects, before that 

 of their forms and simple conformations, for it is nothing more 

 than the symmetry between these forms and conformations. 



The greater and more universal species of harmony are not, 

 liowever, so wholly obscure, and with them, therefore, we must 

 commence. The first and principal distinction between them is 

 this ; tliat some bodies differ considerably in the abundance and 

 rarity of their subg^tance, but correspond in their conformation ; 

 otliers, on tlie contrary, correspond in the former and differ in 

 the latter. Thus the cliy mists have well observed, that in their 

 trial of first principles sulphur and mercury, as it were, pervade 

 the universe ; their reasoning about salt, however, is absurd, and 

 merely introduced to comprise earthy dry fixed bodies. In the 

 other two, indeed, one of the m.ost universal species of natural 

 harmony manifests itself. Thus there is a correspondence be- 

 t^^'een sulphur, oil, greasy exhalations, flame, and, perhaps, the 

 substance of the stars. On the other hand, there is a like cor- 

 respondence between mercury, water, aqueous vapour, air, and 

 perhaps, pure inter-sideral a}ther. Yet do these two quaternions, 

 or great natural tribes (each within its own limits), differ im- 

 mensely in quantity and density of substance^ whilst they gene* 



