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But the internal consents and avoidances of bodies, or their affections and disagreements, vulgarly, and often superstitiously, called by the name of sympathies and antipathies (whence we unwillingly use the expression) are exceeding rare, as being either falsely attributed to things, mixed with fables, or overlooked and neglected. Thus there is said to be an enmity between the vine and the colewort, because they thrive not well when planted near each other, whereas the reason is, that both of them are succulent, and powerfully attract the moisture of the earth; whence they mutually defraud each other. So there is said to be a consent, and friendship, betwixt corn and the red poppy, because they both grow only in ploughed ground, whereas there rather seems to be an enmity between them, because the poppy grows from such a juice of the earth, as was left and rejected by the corn, so that the sowing of corn prepares the ground to yield poppies. And there is a great number of these false reasons, and fictitious solutions of consents or sympathies prevailing. But fables are here to be absolutely rejected, whence there will remain but a slender stock of such consents as are approved by certain experience, like those between iron and the loadstone, gold and quicksilver, &c. though there are some others also found worthy of observation in chemical experi

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ments upon metals*. But the most are to be observed in certain medicines, which, by secret and specific properties, regard either certain parts, or humours of the body, or certain diseases, and sometimes individual natures†.

Nor are the consents between the motions and changes of the moon, and the affections and passions of the inferior bodies, to be omitted; so far as they may be observed, and collected, from the experiments of agriculture, navigation, and medicine, or otherwise, with the requisite severity, and justness of choice and judgment . And the less common all the instances of secret consents are, with the greatest diligence they ought to be enquired into, upon the footing of faithful history and just relation; provided this be done without levity, or credulity, and with a proper degree of doubt, suspension, and tradition §.

There is still another consent of bodies, in the way of operating, which, though it seems inartificial, is yet of excellent and various use, and ought therefore to be enquired into by the means of careful observation; viz. a disposi

* See Becher's Physica Subterranea.

+ See Mr. Boyle of Specific Remedies.

‡ See the Sylva Sylvarum, and History of Winds.

§ See Sylva Sylvarum, under the articles Imagination, Sympathy, &c.

tion, or indisposition, to unite by simple composition, or apposition: for some bodies easily and readily mix and incorporate; but others with difficulty, and unwillingly. Thus powders mix best with waters; but calxes and ashes with oils, &c. And not only the instances of the propensity or averseness of bodies to mix, are to be collected ; but likewise the instances of the arrangement of parts; their distribution and digestion upon mixture; and, lastly, those of predominancy after the union is made*.

The seventh and last method, or means of practice, is to operate by changing, and variously combining the former six. But till each of those shall have been farther enquired into, it will not be seasonal to offer any examples of this method. The series, or chain, of this kind of alternation, or different combination of ways, as it may be accommodated to the production of particular effects, is, indeed, exceeding difficult to be understood; though extremely powerful in the effecting of works. But mankind labour under the utmost impatience, with regard to this

*It deserves to be attentively considered, how ready and commodious a thing practice would prove, if all the assistances here pointed out, were procured; and employed, as they might be, according to the design of this piece.

kind of enquiry and practice *; though it be like a clue to the labyrinth of great works †. And thus much by the way of illustrating sovereign instances.

51. In the twenty-seventh, and last place, among our prerogative instances, come magical instances; by which we understand such wherein the matter, or efficient, is but small, compared with the greatness of the work, or effect, produced: so that though these instances were common, they would still be almost miraculous; some of them at first sight, and others even when attentively considered. Nature, indeed, of herself, affords these sparingly; but what she may do, when farther searched and entered into; and after the discovery of forms, latent processes and concealed structures; will appear to posterity t.

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That is, they have not patience to go through the enquiry, which alone directly leads up to practice; or they preposterously desire to obtain the end, without enduring the means.

The reader may have some tolerable notion of the thing here meant, by carefully reading over the author's Histories of Life and Death; of winds, and of Condensation and Rarifaction; and understanding to what discoveries they lead; or what the tendency is of the whole.

Little progress has been hitherto made in this medullary part of physics; for men have frequently mistaken, or

These magical effects, so far as we can hitherto conjecture, are produced three ways; viz. (1.) by self-multiplication, as in fire, and those poisons, called specific; as also in motions, which pass and increase, as they go, from wheel to wheel; (2.) by excitation, or invitation, in another body; as the loadstone animates numberless needles, without loss, or diminution of its virtue and we find the same kind of virtue in yeast, &c. (3.) by the preoccupation of motion, as we above observed in gunpowder, guns, and mines *.

The two former of these methods require the discovery of consents; and the third, the measure of motions. But whether there be any method of changing bodies in their smallest parts, and transposing the more subtile textures, or structures, of matters (which is a thing that regards all kinds of transformations in bodies; so that art might thus quickly effect, what nature is a long while in bringing about. We have hitherto no certain indications. For as in things that are solid, true and useful, we aspire to the ultimate, or highest perfection; so we perpetu

wilfully deserted, the road that leads to it; though this was not only pointed out, but entered by the author; as appears remarkably in his .Sylva Sylvarum; History of Life and Death; History of Winds, &c.

Aph, 36.

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