NO I CM O RCA NUM. 381 



tion of the Nature of heat from the inner parts of the earth. For 

 heat and cold, in small quantities, destroy one another ; but if they 

 be present in great masses, and, as it were, in regular armies, then, 

 after a conflict, they remove and expel each other in turn. It is said, 

 also, that cinnamon and sweet herbs retain their perfumes longer 

 when placed near drains and foul-smelling places, on account of their 

 refusing to come out and mingle with fetid smells. It is certain that 

 quicksilver, which of itself would reunite in a mass, is prevented by 

 human saliva, hog s-lard, turpentine, and the like, from combining 

 its particles, owing to the want of sympathy of its parts with such 

 bodies ; from which, when spread around them, they draw back, so 

 that their Flight from these intervening bodies is more energetic than 

 their desire of uniting with parts like themselves; and this is called 

 the mortification of quicksilver. Moreover, the fact that oil does not 

 mix with water is not simply owing to the difference of weight, but to 

 the want of sympathy between these fluids ; as may be seen from the 

 fact that spirit of wine, though lighter than oil, yet mixes well with 

 water. Hut most of all is the Motion of Flight conspicuous in nitre, 

 and such like crude bodies, which abhor flame ; as in gunpowder, 

 quicksilver, and gold. But the Flight of iron from one side of the 

 magnet is well observed by Gilbert to be not a F light, properly so 

 called, but a conformity, and a meeting in a more convenient position. 

 11. Let the eleventh Motion be that of Assimilation^ or of Self- 

 Multiplication^ or of Simple Generation. By Simple Generation we 

 do not intend that of integral bodies, as plants or animals, but of 

 bodies of similar texture. We mean that by this motion bodies of 

 similar texture convert other bodies of a kindred nature, or which 

 are, at least, well disposed and prepared for them, into their own 

 substance and Nature. Thus flame, over vapours and oily substances, 

 generates new flame ; air, over water and watery substances, multi 

 plies itself, and generates new air ; spirit, vegetable and animal, over 

 the rarer particles both of water and oil, in its food multiplies itself, 

 and generates new spirit ; the solid parts of plants and animals, as 

 lc:ives, flowers, flesh, bone, and the rest, severally, out of the juices of 

 their food assimilate and generate a successive and ever-renewed 

 substance. For let no one adopt the wild fancy of Paracelsus, who 

 (forsooth, blinded by his fondness for distillations) would have that 

 nutrition took place by separation alone ; and that in bread and meal 

 lie concealed eye, nose, brain, liver ; in the moisture of the c.trth, 

 root, leaves, and flowers. For as the artisan out of the rude mass of 

 stone or wood, by separation and rejection of what is superfluous, 

 brings forth leaf, flower, eye, nose, head, foot, and the like ; so, he 

 asserts, Archojus, the internal artisan, educes out of food, by separa 

 tion and rejection, the several members and parts of our body. Hut 

 leaving these trifles, it is mo&amp;lt;t certain that the several parts, as well 

 similar as organic, in vegetables and animals, do first attract, with 

 some degree of choice, the juices of their food which arc alike, or 

 nearly so for all, and then assimilate them, and convert them into 

 their own Nature. Nor does this Assimilation, or Simple Genera 



