SPEECH MADE IN A FAMOUS ASSEMBLY,
BY
CHANCELLOR OF QUEEN GREAT BRITAIN, &C.
TOUCHING THE HEALING
of Wounds with the Powder of Sympathy.

IN PARIS,
At CHARLES OSMONT, in the Great Hall of the Palace, on the side of the Cour des Aydes, at the Ecu de France.
M.DC.IXXXI
With privilege of the King.

INTRODUCTION

If we consult the modern treatises on the medical art, they will answer us that the powder of sympathy is a chimera from which we have long returned and that we should not believe anything of what has been said and written on this subject.

This powder, add the same treatises, which was once thought to have the property of healing wounds even at a distance, when it was thrown on the extra-vasal blood of the injured person, was nothing other than copper sulfate (vitriol) sprayed.

We do not know what studies the authors of the said treatises have carried out on the powder of sympathy, and on what proofs they support the negation of its properties, but the definition which they give of it alone shows us that they have sinned by ignoring.

Understood in this way, it is certain that vitriol powder cannot have any curative action on the human organism: its properties being given to it above all by the different operations to which it was subjected and which appear unknown to our authors.

However, these operations are of considerable importance, since it is on them alone that the effectiveness of the product depends.

We are aware that the practices of this mode of operation will seem childish or ridiculous to superficial minds and followers of official teaching.

So it is not them that we are addressing. It is only to the curious, to the seekers, to the scholars of good faith who, at first surprised by the theories of these Schools of Occultism whose importance grows every day, despite the ridicule and the anathemas due to their beginning, have been welcomed , then recognized that there is something in nature other than what is taught by the Academies; that inexplicable phenomena occur at every instant, the determining cause of which must be still unknown natural laws, and who, to the extent of their knowledge and their means, have undertaken the search for these laws. The action of sympathy powder acting at a distance on wounds and healing them seems to belong to this order of phenomena.

We personally undertook extensive research on this subject, we tried numerous experiments, and as it happened, it was that the assertions of ancient authors found themselves in contradiction with those of modern authors and that the former were confirmed by the results of our experiments, we resolved to reproduce and publish the two most curious treatises written on this subject. By delivering them to the public we first justify our work of popularization; we then give the curious reader the means to check our experiences for themselves, and we offer the lover of bibliophilic rarities an artistic work, an exact reproduction of the edition owned by the National Library.

For reading convenience, we have only removed the long s, used in the old edition.
This reproduction is divided into two parts: the first includes the Speech made in a famous Assembly by Knight Digby, Chancellor of the Queen of Great Britain, concerning the healing of wounds by sympathy powder.

Alongside the subject forming the basis of his speech, the author relates a host of curious facts, establishes the origin of numerous legends and sayings still current in our countryside and gives a considerable overview of the physical and chemical knowledge of his time.

The second, more technical, is the Dissertation concerning the powder of sympathy, translated from the Latin of Mr. Papin, doctor of medicine from the city of Blois, by Mr. Rault.

To this second part, we added the experiences that are personal to us, indicated the procedure that we followed for the preparation of the Powder and related the healings that we obtained through its use.

G. DEMAREST.
HISTORICAL NOTICE

Sir KENELM DIGBY, English philosopher and chemist, was born at Gothurst, in the county of Duckingham, in 1603, and died in 1665.

Orphaned at three years old, he was raised in the Protestant faith and displayed remarkable abilities early on. In 1623 he was appointed Gentleman of the House by King Charles I, who professed great esteem for him.

In 1628, at the head of a squadron equipped at his own expense, he went to fight the Algerians and the Venetians, at war with the English and acquired, through the happy success of his operations, a great reputation for courage and of skill.

In 1636, he came to France and converted to the Catholic religion. When the revolution broke out in England, Digby, having embraced the king's party, was imprisoned by order of Parliament. Released in 1643, at the intercession of the Queen of France, he emigrated to the latter country, was received there with extreme kindness and enjoyed the friendship of Descartes and other French scientists.

After the Restoration, he returned to England, was very popular with Charles II, but appeared little at court, and, until his death, devoted himself entirely to his philosophical work.

Digby had married Edward Stanley's daughter, Venetia Anastasia, famous for her truly extraordinary beauty. To preserve its charms, Digby, who believed in alchemical theories and who had even encouraged Descartes to look for a way to prolong life indefinitely, invented specific products and cosmetics of all kinds.

It is even said that, for a time, he only made the beautiful Venetia eat capons fed with vipers, imagining that this type of food had marvelous virtues. Digby was unable to appreciate the value of his inventions, because Venetia Anastasia died in Page Flower.

His main works, in which he demonstrates very extensive knowledge, are: Conferences with a Lady on the Choice of a Religion (1651); Treatise on the Nature of Bodies (1644); Treatise on the soul proving its immortality (1644); Treatise on attachment to God; Healing wounds with sympathy powder (1658); Discourse on the vegetation of plants (1661).

DISCOURSE ON THE HEALING OF WOUNDS, THROUGH SYMPATHY POWDER.

BELIEVE GENTLEMEN, that you will all remain in agreement with me
that it is necessary, in order to fully penetrate and understand a subject, to first demonstrate whether it is such as we suppose or imagine:

For would we not waste time and effort needlessly in seeking the causes of this, which is perhaps only a chimera, without any basis of truth?

It seems to me to have read in some place in Plutarch that he proposes this Question, Why horses which while they were foals, were chased by the wolf, and saved themselves by dint of running well, are faster than horses. others. To which he replies that it is possible that the terror and fear that the wolf gives to a young animal, makes it make all kinds of efforts to free itself from the danger that presses it: and thus the fear loosens its joints. , stretches its nerves, and makes its ligaments and other parts which are used for running supple; in such a way that he feels it for the rest of his life; and becomes a good runner.

Or perhaps (he says) it is because the foals which are naturally fast save themselves by fleeing, while the others which are not so fast are caught by the wolf, and become its prey. And so, it is not that for having escaped from the wolf they are quicker; but their natural speed saved them from the wolf. He gives other reasons: and at the end he concludes that perhaps the thing is not true.

I find no fault, Gentlemen, with this procedure in table talk, where the main aim of the conversation is to entertain oneself gently and pleasantly, without mixing in the severity of strong reasoning, which keeps the minds bound and attentive.

But in an Assembly as famous as this one, where there are people so judicious and so profoundly learned, and who in this meeting expect me to repay them with solid reasons: I would be very sorry if, after having done my last efforts to clarify how the Powder, which is commonly called Sympathy, heals wounds naturally and without magic, without being touched, and even without seeing the injured person; doubt was raised whether such healing actually takes place or not.

In matters of fact, the determination of Inexistence and of truth depends on the relationship that our senses make to us. This is of this nature: For those who have seen the effect and the experience of it, and have been careful to examine all the required circumstances, and have been satisfied after having recognized that there is no deception, do not doubt that the thing is true.

But those who have not seen a similar experience must rely on the account and authority of those who claim to have seen them. I could produce several of which I am an eyewitness, and even, quarum pars magna fut. But as a certain and proven example in the affirmative, is convincing in determining the possibility and truth of some matter of which one doubts; I will be content, so as not to bore you at present, to bring you only one on this subject;

But it will be one of the most illustrious, brilliant, public, and proven, that has ever been, or that can be; not only for the remarkable circumstances found there; but also for the hands far above the ordinary, between which the whole affair happened. Because the healing of an unfortunate wound was made by this Powder of Sympathy in the person of a man who was illustrious, both for his beautiful letters and for his use: All the circumstances were examined and analyzed thoroughly, by a of the greatest and most learned Kings of his time, King James of England, who had a particular talent, a marvelous industry in discussing natural things, and penetrating into their substance: By his son the late King Charles:

By the late Duke of Bouquingan, their prime minister: And finally the whole thing was recorded in the memoirs of the great Chancellor Bacon, to add in the form of an Appendix to his natural history. And I believe, Gentlemen, that when you have heard this story, you will not accuse me of vanity, if I claim to be the introducer into these parts of the world, of this way of cure. So here is how the affair went.

Monsieur Jacques Hovvel, secretary to the Duke of Bouquingan (fairly well-known in France for his writings, and particularly for his Dendrologie, translated into François by M. Baudouin, it seems to me) appeared one day as two of his best friends were fighting a duel. He immediately set about separating them: He threw himself between them, and with his left hand seized the hilts of the sword of one of the combatants, while with his bare right he grabbed the blade of the other.

They, transported with fury each against their enemy, make their efforts to get rid of the obstacle that their common friend gave them from killing each other; And one sharply drawing his sword, which could not be held by the blade, cuts to the bone all the nerves, muscles and tendons of the inside of Mr. Hovvel's hand; and at the same time the other releases his guard, and delivers a sword blow to the head of his adversary, which will fall on that of his friend, who to ward off the blow, raises the already wounded hand, which by this means was cut as much from the outside as it was on the outside. inside.

It seems that a strange constellation then reigned against him; who shed his blood through the arms of his best friends; who in their staid sense would have risked all theirs to guarantee that of their friend. At least this involuntary bloodshed diverted the one they were trying to do against each other: For seeing Mr. Hovvel's face all covered with blood falling from his raised hand, they ran to him to attend, and after examining his wounds, they bandage them with one of his garters, to keep closed the veins which were all cut and bleeding profusely. They take him home looking for a Surgeon, and the first comer serves to put the first device on him.

For the second, when it came to opening the wound the next day, the King's Surgeon was sent there by his Majesty who was very fond of the said Mr. Hovvel. I was staying very close to him. And one morning as I was dressing, four or five days after this accident, he came to my room to beg me to give him some remedy for his illness; especially (he said) that he had learned that I had very good ones for similar occasions; and that his wound was in such bad condition that the surgeons feared that gangrene would set in: which happened, his hand would have to be cut off.

Indeed his face showed the pain he was enduring, which he said was unbearable, but with extreme inflammation. I answered him, that I would serve him willingly: but that when he knew how I thought of the wounded, without needing to touch them or see them, perhaps he would no longer want it, because he would believe this way of healing, or superstitious, or ineffective.

For the last (he said) the great wonders that several people have told me about your medicine, do not leave me in doubt of its effectiveness: And for the first, everything I have to say is understood in this Spanish proverb , haga se elmilagro, y hagalo Mahoma. So I asked him for some piece of fabric or linen on which there would be blood from his wounds. because he would believe this way of healing to be either superstitious or ineffective.

For the last (he said) the great wonders that several people have told me about your medicine, do not leave me in doubt of its effectiveness: And for the first, everything I have to say is understood in this Spanish proverb , haga se elmilagro, y hagalo Mahoma. So I asked him for some piece of fabric or linen on which there would be blood from his wounds. because he would believe this way of healing to be either superstitious or ineffective.

For the last (he said) the great wonders that several people have told me about your medicine, do not leave me in doubt of its effectiveness: And for the first, everything I have to say is understood in this Spanish proverb , haga se elmilagro, y hagalo Mahoma. So I asked him for some piece of fabric or linen on which there would be blood from his wounds.

He immediately sent for the garter which had served as his first bandage: And however, I asked for a basin of water, as if I wanted to wash my hands, and took a handful of powdered vitriol which I held in a cabinet on my table, and I promptly dissolved it. As soon as the garter was brought to me, I put it in the basin, noticing well what Monsieur Hovvel was doing, however:

He was talking to a Gentleman in a corner of my room, without noticing what he was doing; and just now he started, and did something as if he felt some great emotion within him: I asked him what was wrong with him, and what he felt. I don't know (he says) what's wrong with me, but I know very well that I no longer feel any pain: It seems to me that a pleasant coolness, as if it were a wet and cold towel, spreads over my hand, which took away all the inflammation I felt. Then, I replied to him that you feel such a good effect from my medicine, I advise you to remove all your plasters; only keep the wound clean and in a moderate and temperate state of hot and cold.

This was immediately reported to Monsieur de Bouquingan, and shortly afterwards to the King, who were both very curious to know what happened next, which was that after dinner I took the garter out of the water and put it on. dry over a high heat.

Barely was it completely dry (and for this purpose, it had to be well warmed up first) when Mr. Hovvel's lackey came to tell me that his master had recently felt as much pain as ever, and even greater, with such extreme pain, as if his hand had been among the hot coals. I replied that whatever had happened now, he would not fail to be well in a very short time; that I knew the cause of this new accident; and that I would give orders, and that his Master would be delivered from his pain and inflammation, before he could be returned home to assure him of it.

But that in case it was not, that it would come back to me, otherwise he had no need to return. With this he leaves, and immediately I put the garter back into the water: whereupon, although it was only two steps to his Master's house, he found it entirely without pain, and even before he arrived there, it had entirely ceased.

Long story short, he had no more pain, and in five or six days his wound was healed and completely healed. King James was punctually informed of everything that was happening in this cure: And after it was completed and perfect, he wanted to know from me how it had been done, having first mocked me (which he did always with very good grace) of Magician and Sorcerer. I replied to him that I would always be ready to do whatever his Majesty ordered me: But that I very humbly begged him to allow me, before going further, to tell him what the Author from whom I had learned secret told to the Grand Duke of Tuscany on similar occasion.

He was a Carmelite religious newly come from India and Persia, to Florence, and he had even been to China; who having made wonderful cures with his powder, since his arrival in Tuscany, the Duke told him that he would be very happy to learn from him again. He was the father of the Grand Duke who reigns today. The Religious replied that it was a secret that he had learned in the East, and that he believed that only he knew it in Europe, and that he deserved not to be not disclosed.

Which could not be done if his Highness got involved in doing it; especially since he would not do it with his own hands, and if he employed his surgeon or other valet there would soon be many other people who would know it as well as he.

Whereupon his Highness no longer wanted to press him on this. But a few months later, I had the means to give this Religious a very great pleasure, which was the reason that he did not want to refuse me his secret: And the same year he returned to Persia. So that I now believe that I am the only one in all of Europe who knows this secret.

The King replied to me that I did not fear that he would divulge it, because he would not trust anyone when experiencing this cure; but would always do it with his own hand, and that I would give him some of my powder. Which I did, and informed him of all the circumstances, and his Majesty made several trials, in all of which he had singular satisfaction. However, Monsieur de Mayerne, his first Physician, kept watch to discover what he could of this secret, and in the end he managed to find out that the King was using Vitriol.

So he approaches me, and told me that he had not dared to ask me my secret because he had known that I had made it difficult to tell the King. But now that he had learned what material he had to use, he hoped that I would communicate to him all the circumstances of what he had to do. I answered him that not only at this time, but if he had asked me from the beginning, I would have honestly told him everything. For in his hands there was no danger of such a secret being prostituted. And then I tell him everything.

Shortly afterwards he went to France to see a beautiful land which he had newly purchased near Geneva, which is the Barony of Aubonne. On this trip he went to see the Duke of Mayenne, who for a long time had been his great friend and Protector; and taught him this secret.

The Duke made several experiments with it, which in any other hands than a Prince so pious and so Religious would have passed for effects of Magic and Enchantment. After the death of the Duke (who was killed at the siege of Montauban) his surgeon who helped him carry out this cure, sold this secret to several people of status, who gave him considerable sums; so that in a short time he became rich by this means. The thing having thus fallen into several hands, did not remain long in terms of secrecy; but little by little it became so widely known that today there is hardly a village barber who does not know it.

sold this secret to several people of status, who gave him considerable sums; so that in a short time he became rich by this means. The thing having thus fallen into several hands, did not remain long in terms of secrecy; but little by little it became so widely known that today there is hardly a village barber who does not know it. sold this secret to several people of status, who gave him considerable sums; so that in a short time he became rich by this means. The thing having thus fallen into several hands, did not remain long in terms of secrecy; but little by little it became so widely known that today there is hardly a village barber who does not know it.

Here then, Gentlemen, is the Genealogy of the Powder of Sympathy in our quarters, and a notable story of a cure leaked by this Powder: It is now time to come to the discussion, which is to know how this is done. It must be confessed that it is a wonderful thing, that the wound of an injured person can be healed, or its inflammation and pain increased by the application of a remedy applied to a piece of linen, or to a sword even in great distance.

And we must not doubt that if after a long and deep speculation of the whole economy and sequence of natural causes which can be judged capable of producing such an effect, we come across in the end the real ones; they must have very subtle and well-defined springs and means of action: until now, they have been enveloped in darkness, and considered so inaccessible that those who took part in speaking or writing about it (at least those I saw) were content to say a few ingenious kindnesses about it, without treating the matter very thoroughly, and rather to show the liveliness of their spirit and the force of their eloquence, as well as to satisfy their readers or listeners, by teaching them how the thing is done.

They want us to take at face value terms that we do not understand, and do not know what they mean. They pay us with conveniences, resemblances, Sympathy, magnetic virtues and similar words, without explaining to us what these terms mean. They believe they have succeeded if they weakly convince someone that the thing can be done by a natural means, and without resorting to the intervention of demons or spirits: And they in no way claim to have found convincing reasons to demonstrate how this is done.

If I did not hope, Gentlemen, to be able to gain something else on your minds; I mean, if I only believed I could persuade you by words, I would not have undertaken it. I know too well, Quid ferre recusent, quid valeant humeri. Such a design requires great fire, vivacity and sharp ideas, volubility of language, propriety of expressions, to insinuate as if by surprise, what one cannot carry away with a firm footing, and by cold, although solid, reasons. A speech of this nature is not to be expected from a foreigner, who finds himself obliged to express his feelings in a language; in which he finds it difficult to express his ordinary conceptions.

Nevertheless, Gentlemen, these considerations will not prevent me from taking on an enterprise which may seem to some people much more difficult than that which I have just described; namely, to clearly prove and convince that this healing called Sympathy can be done naturally; and to show you to the eye, and to touch with the finger, how it is done.

You know, Gentlemen, that persuasions are carried out by ingenious arguments, which, being expressed with good grace, rather tickle the imagination than satisfy the understanding. But the demonstrations are built on certain and proven principles; and although they are crudely stated, nevertheless they convince, and the conclusions are drawn from them with necessity.

They act like a screw attached to a door to knock it down, or on a metal blade to print the mark of the currency, with each turn it makes, it only approaches a little, and almost imperceptibly; and hardly makes a noise, nor does it require such great force to turn it: but its effort, although slow, is so invisible, that at last it knocks down the door, and makes the deep impression in the plate gold or silver: Instead of blows of hammers or bars (to which the ingenious speeches and flowery conceptions of beautiful Spirits can be compared) require the arms of Giants, make a lot of noise, and at the end of the tale, produce little effect.

To get into the subject; I will first lay down (according to the method of geometric demonstrations) six or seven principles as fundamental stones, on which I will build my building: But also, I will establish them so well and so firmly that there will be no difficulty in granting them to me. These principles will be like the wheels of Archimedes' machine, by means of which a child was able to attract to the earth the great carrack of King Hieron, that a hundred pairs of oxen with all the ropes and cables of his Arsenal , couldn't do just jerk off. And by means of these principles, I hope to bring my conclusion to fruition.

The first principle therefore will be That the orb or sphere of air is filled with light. If it were necessary to prove in this place that light is a material and corporeal substance, and not an imaginary and incomprehensible quality (as many of the school claim) I would do it with enough evidence. I have done this sufficiently in some other treatise which has been published for several years.

And this is not a new opinion: For several philosophers of the most esteemed among the ancients have advanced it and even the great Saint Augustine in his third Epistle to Volusien testifies that he is of this feeling. But for our present matter, whether the light be one or the other, it is enough to explain its course, and the journeys it makes, to which our senses bear witness.

It is obvious that continually emerging from its source, which is the Sun, and soaring with marvelous speed in all directions in straight lines; there, where it encounters some obstacles in its path by the opposition of some hard and opaque body, it reflects itself, it jumps from there, ad angulos œquale, and takes another course by another straight line, until she has cobbled to another side by the shock of another solid; and thus it continues to make new leaps here and there, until finally being chased on all sides by the bodies which oppose its passage, it tires and dies.

All the same then, we see a ball in a game of palm, which being pushed by a powerful arm against one of the walls, jumps from there to the opposite, so much so that it often makes the circuit of the entire game of palm, and completed its movement close to where it had started.

The second principle will be, That the light thus striking on some body, the rays which do not enter there well before, but which rebound from the surface of this body, detach and carry with themselves some small particles or atoms, all the same that the ball of which we have just spoken would carry with it some humidity from the walls against which it would tinker, if the plaster which coated them was still damp; and as it in fact carries away some tincture of the black with which these walls are colored.

The reason for this is that light, this fire so subtle and ratified, coming with such marvelous speed (for its darts are in our eyes almost as soon as its head is raised above our horizon; thus traveling so many thousands of leagues in an imperceptible space of time) and beating headlong on the body opposite it , she cannot fail to make a few small incisions there, proportionate to its rarity and subtlety:

And these small atoms cut out and detached from their trunk, being composed of the four Elements (as all bodies in the world are) the heat of the light attaches itself to and incorporates itself with the moist, viscous and sticky parts of said atoms, and it carries them far away with itself. Inexperience shows us this truth, as well as reason. When we put some damp linen or sheet to dry in front of the fire, the igneous rays striking it, those who find no entry into it, but think outside of it, carry with them moist corpuscles, which form a kind of confusion between the linen and the fire.

Likewise, the Sun illuminating the earth at its rise, which is moistened by the rain or by the dew of the night, its rays raise a mist which rises little by little to the tops of the hills; and this confusion becomes rarefied as the Sun has more force to pull it upwards, until at last we lose sight of it, and it becomes part of the air, which because of its tenuity is invisible to us.

These atoms therefore, are like Riders mounted on winged steeds who go far; until the Sun going down, took away their Pegasi, and left them all without mount, and then they rushed in multitude towards the land from which they were drawn: the greatest part and the heaviest fall at the first retreat of the Sun, and this is what we call the serene, which although it is too subtle to be seen, we nevertheless cannot fail to feel it, as an infinity of small hammers which strike our heads and our bodies, mainly those who are advanced in age; for the young, because of the boiling of their blood and the warmth of their complexion, push out of them an abundance of spirits; which being stronger than those which fall from the serene, repel them and prevent them from acting with so great effect on the bodies from which these spirits issue, as they do on those which being cooled by age, are not.

not guaranteed by such a strong emanation of spirits coming out of them. The wind that blows and is carried on all sides, is nothing other than a great river of similar atoms attracted from some solid bodies which are on the earth: and then are tossed here and there, according as they encounter causes for this effect. I remember having once seen visually how the wind is generated:

I was passing Mont Cenis on my way to Italy, at the beginning of summer; and I was already halfway up the mountain as the Sun rose, beautiful and bright. But before seeing his body (which the mountains still hid from me) I noticed his rays which gilded the summit of Mount Viso, which is a Pyramid of rock, much higher than Mount Cenis, and than all the mountains which surround it. environment. Many are of the opinion that it is one of the highest mountains in the world, after the Peak of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and it is always covered with snow.

I therefore noticed that at the place which was lit by the rays of the Sun, a fog was formed, which at the beginning did not appear to be larger than a large chicken: but which little by little increased until 'At the end the whole summit, not only of this mountain, but also of those around it, was covered with a cloud. I had already arrived at the highest point of Mount Cenis, and finding myself in the straight line which passed from the Sun to Mount Viso, I stopped to look at it, while my people finished climbing: because having more men to carry my chair than any of them, I had done more diligence than them. I was not there long when the fog seemed to gently descend towards the place where I was, and I began to feel a little coolness which came to my face, when I held it turned in that direction.

When my troop was assembled around me, we went down to the other side of Mont Cenis, towards Suze; and as we descended, we felt very perceptibly that the wind was stiffening at our backs, because the path forced us to go towards the side where the Sun was. We met passengers who were getting on where we were getting off; They told us that further down the wind was very impetuous and that it had greatly inconvenienced them, blowing in their faces and eyes; but that as they went up, they found it less annoying.

And for our part, when we arrived at the place where they had told us that the wind was so violent, we found a kind of storm: and it always increased as it descended, until the Sun having advanced , no longer attracted him by that line, but caused the wind in another quarter. The people of the country assured me that it was always done thus, when some extraordinary and violent accident did not divert its accustomed course, which is that at a certain hour of the day the wind rises at a certain rumb; and when the Sun has reached another point, another wind rises and so from hand to hand it changes rumb until the setting Sun which always brings calm, if the weather is fine; and that the wind always comes from the place of Mount Viso, opposite the Sun.

And they also told us that the daily wind is always stronger towards the bottom of the mountain, than towards the top: the reason for which is obvious: it is that the natural movement of all bodies (as well as that of heavy things) always increases in speed, as it advances towards its center: and this, in odd numbers (as Galileo ingeniously demonstrated; I also did it in some other treatise) that is to say, if in the first moment it advances by an ell, in the second it will advance of three ells, in the third of five, in the fourth of seven, and thus always it continues to increase in the same way: which comes from the density and the figure of the descending body, acting on the transferability of the Medium .

And these corpuscles which cause the wind of Mount Viso, are dense and terrestrial; caria snow being composed of aquatic parts and united terrestrial parts? together by the cold, when the heat of the solar rays disunites and separates them, the viscous ones fly away with them, while the terrestrial ones (too heavy to rise very high) fall immediately below, This reminds me of a rather remarkable thing, which happened to me while I was with my fleet in the port of Scanderonne at Alexandretta, at the end of the Mediterranean Sea.

We go down there to go to Aleppo and Babylon. I had already done what I had proposed to do in these seas: I had accomplished all my plans with happy success, and it was important to me to return to England as soon as possible; and all the more, as all my Ships had remained shattered from a combat that I had had for a few days in this port, against a formidable power, which, although the victory had finally remained with me, nevertheless did not let in such a furious dispute, to put my fleet into great disorder, and to fill my ships with wounded men.

To advise therefore of the most expedient route to come at least to a place where I could repair myself and be safe; I assembled all the experienced Captains, Pilots and Mariners of my fleet: and having proposed my plan to them, they all unanimously agreed that the safest thing was to go down to the South, and coast around all of Syria and Judea. , Egypt and Africa, and by this means we reach the mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar: and going thus close to the land, we would have regulation every night a small land wind (which they called a breeze) which would make us complete our journey in a short time; and that we would not be in such great danger of encountering the fleet of France or that of Spain, because England was then at war against these two Kingdoms,

Which we were right to try to avoid (they said) since we were now in a better position to use what remained of our strength to diligently seek some good port, where we could safely repair our wreckage, than to risking new battles; for it could well be said that we had had too much in such a long journey.

My opinion was completely contrary to theirs. I thought our best course would be to go up to the North and sail along the coast of Cilicia, Pamphylia, Lydia, Natolia or Asia Minor, cross the mouth of the Archipelago, leave the Sea Adriatic to the right, passing through Sicily, Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, the Gulf of Lion, and skirting all of Spain: reminding them that it would be a great shame for us to turn away from our best route, to avoid meeting our enemies; then that we remained come in these districts, only to seek them by all where they would be: and that the protection of which God by his goodness had condescended to assist us in so many combats in going us was a reason to hope with joy such a good from those who could happen to us when we return.

That there was no doubt about the route that I proposed to them; considered simply in itself, would not be without comparison the best and most expeditious way to leave the Mediterranean Sea and reach the Ocean: especially (I said to them) because even though we have breezes from the land while we we will be on the coasts of Syria and Egypt, we will have none at all on the coast of Libya, where are those frightful sands called the Syrtes, which are of a very large extent: that coast having no humidity (for there grows neither tree nor grass; and there is only quicksand, which once covered and suddenly buried the mighty Army of the great King Cambises.)

Gold where there is no humidity, the Sun cannot attract anything to form wind. So that we will never find there (mainly in Summer) any other wind than the regular one which has its course from the West, in the East, according to the course of the Sun (the father of the winds) if not is when it comes from extraordinary, either from the land of Italy, which is towards the North, or from the depths of Ethiopia, where are the mountains of the Moon, and the source and the cataracts of the Nile.

But then if we were close to the Sirtes, the wind from Italy would infallibly cause us to shipwreck. I reasoned thus according to natural causes, while those of my War Council held firm to their experience. Which was the cause that I would do nothing against the unanimous feeling of all: for although the arrangement and resolution of all things depended absolutely on me, it nevertheless seemed to me that I could justly be accused of obstinacy and temerity, if I wanted to prefer my opinion alone to the common opinion of all the others.

So we took that route, and went happily as far as the Syrtes of Libya. But in this place, our breezes failed us, and for thirty-seven days we had only a few Zephyrs coming from Ponant, where we were to go. We were forced to stay at the Ancre all this time, with great apprehension lest the wind come with a gust from the north.

Because this happened, we were lost; especially since our Anchors could not have held firm in these shifting sands; because under water they are of the same nature as on dry land; and so we would have been cast upon that coast and been shipwrecked. But God, who wanted me to have the honor of speaking to you today, delivered me from this peril.

And at the end of thirty-seven days we noticed the course of the clouds high in the air which came from the South-East, at first quite slowly, but from hour to hour, it hurried and pressed more and more: so that after two days the wind which had formed far away in Ethiopia, came like a great storm to the place where we were; and soon led us to the place where we were to go; because unless it came with this impetuosity and this force, it would have dissipated and lost, before reaching the end of such a long journey.

From this speech we can conclude that wherever there is wind, there are also small corpuscles, or atoms which have been attracted from the bodies which are in the places where this wind comes from by the force of the Sun and the light : and that this wind is in fact nothing other than such atoms agitated and pushed somewhere with impetuosity. And so the winds are always felt from the places from which they come; as if they come from the South, they are hot; if they are Northern, they are cold; if earth alone, dry; if navy, wet; if places which produce odoriferous substances, they are odoriferous, healthy and pleasant; as they say of those who come from happy Arabia which produces spices, perfumes and good-smelling gums; and like the one that comes from Fomenay and Vaugirard to Paris in the Rosé season, which is all perfumed; on the contrary those who come from stinking places like the sulfurous places of Pozzuolo, smell bad; and those who come from infected places, carry the contagion with them.

My third principle will be, that the air is full everywhere of these corpuscles or atoms: or rather what we call our air, is nothing other than a mixture and a confusion of similar atoms, where the aerial parts dominate. It is well known that there is not at present found in nature any element pure and unmixed with the others: for the external fire, and the light acting on one side, and the internal fire of each body also pushing on its side, make this wonderful mixture of all things in all things.

In this large expanse where we place the air there is sufficient space and great enough freedom to make this mixture. Experience as well as reason confirms this to us. I saw little vipers, newly hatched from the eggs in which they were spawned, and which were not an inch long, which after having preserved them in a large curcurbite covered with a paper bound around, so that by no accident they could not come out, but full of small pinholes, so that the air can enter them freely, are increased in substance and quantity so prodigiously in six, eight or ten months of time, that it is unbelievable: and more sensibly during the season of the Equinoxes, when the air is full of these ethereal and balsamic atoms which give them their balsamic and rejuvenating virtue, which they powerfully attract.

Hence it is that the Cosmopolitan was right to say that Est in aëre occultus vitae cibus. These little vipers had only the air to feed on, and yet with this subtle meat they became in less than a year more than a foot long, and large, and heavy in proportion.

Vitriol, Saltpeter, and some other substances increase in the same way by the attraction of air alone. I remember that for some occasion seventeen or eighteen years ago I needed a pound or two of good oil of tartar; it was in Paris, where I did not then have a laboratory or an operator. I therefore begged Monsieur Ferrier (a man universally known to all the curious) to worry about it, for he had none then; but having to do it on purpose, and the calcination of the tartar being done as easily from twenty pounds as from two, and without increasing the expense, he wanted to make a larger quantity at the same time, in order to have some for himself.

When he brought it back to me, it smelled so strongly of rose water that I complained to him about the fact that he had mixed this water with it, seeing that I had begged him to do it purely from faintness, or exposure to damp air; for I firmly believed that he had dissolved the salt of tartar in the rose water. He swore to me that he had not mixed any liqueur, but that he had left the calcined tartar in his cellar to dissolve on its own: it was in the rosé season, and it seems that the air being full atoms which are drawn from the roses, and changing into water by the powerful attraction of the salt of tartar, their odor was made perceptible in the place where they had gathered together; as the rays of the Sun burn, when they are collected by a fiery mirror.

Yet another marvel occurred concerning this oil of tartar, which may serve to prove a proposition which we have not yet touched upon; but in order not to interrupt the thread of this story, I will tell you here in advance: as the rosé season was passing, Rôdeur d'eau de rosé also vanished from this oil; so that in three or four months it was completely gone. But we were quite surprised, when the following year at the house of roses, it returned as strong as before; and then towards winter she got lost again; and since then it has always kept the same order.

That's why Monsieur Ferrier keeps it as a singular rarity and I myself didn't feel at home last summer. We have in London an unfortunate and unfortunate confirmation of this doctrine, for the air there is full of such atoms. The material of which fire is made in this great city is principally charcoal, which is brought from Neufcastel and Scotland. This charcoal contains in itself a large quantity of very acrid volatile salt, which being carried away with the smoke, dissipates into the air and fills it all with it. It is so loaded with it that although we cannot see it, we perceive its effects; it spoils the beds, the tapestries, and the other fine furniture, if they are of some beautiful and dazzling color: this sooty air makes it tarnished in a short time: if one closes a room without entering it for a few months, and 'we then want to clean everything that is there, we will see a crazy black flour, which covers all this furniture, as we see a white one in the mills and in the bakers' shops, even it enters the coffers, and is seen well apparently on linen or paper, and on similar white things which are enclosed therein; caries flaps and cuffs get dirtier in a day than in ten in the countryside outside the extent of this smoke; and we see in this city in spring, when the trees are in flower, all the white flowers soiled with black soot.

Now, as this air is what the lungs of all the inhabitants attract to cool themselves, it causes the phlegm that is spit from the chest to be all black and sooty, and the acrid salt of this soot has an effect on it. very disastrous; because it makes all the inhabitants of this city very prone to inflammations, and ultimately to ulceration of the lungs.

It is so biting and corrosive that if you put hams, or beef, or other flesh to smoke in the fireplace, it dries them out so quickly that it spoils them. So those who have weak lungs, soon feel it, which is why almost half of those who die in London die of lung disease and consumption, continually coughing up blood from their ulcerated lungs.

At the beginning of this disease, recovery is very easy. Just send them to some place where there is good air. Most go to Paris, namely those who have the means to defray the expense of the trip; and they soon regained their perfect health. find out who can afford the expense of the trip; and they soon regained their perfect health. find out who can afford the expense of the trip; and they soon regained their perfect health.

The same thing, although less strongly, happens in the City of Liège or just as in London, the common people burn only this coal of earth, which is called coal. Paris itself, although the air of the country is very excellent, is not entirely free from some similar inconveniences.

The excessive and stinking sludge of this vast city mixes much bad quality with the purity of its air, filling it with corrupt atoms which come out of it, which, however, are not so pernicious as those of London. We notice that the cleanest and most polished silverware, exposed to the air, becomes livid and dirty in a short time: which comes from nothing other than these black atoms (true color putrefaction) which attach to it; and the more polished and shiny the metal, the more visible they are.

I know a person of condition (this is among my friends) who lives in a place, where on one side of the house is a small street which is inhabited only by poor households, and where only very few people pass by. -few carts and never carriages.

The neighbors behind his house, being hardly clean, empty their rubbish in the middle of the street, which by this means is completely loaded with mounds of mud. After a long time, the dump trucks which are ordered to carry the sludge everywhere, also come there. When they stir up this fermented garbage, you can't imagine what a stench and infection is everywhere.

Instantly the people of this friend of mine come running to cover with spongy and curled fabric, wool or cotton, his silver dishes and his andirons, which his servants keep very clean and shiny: because without that, in one moment everything would be black, as if it were coated with a delicate skin of ink. None of this, however, is seen in the air; but these experiments obviously convince us that it is full of similar atoms everywhere.

I cannot help adding here yet another experience, which is that we see by the effects that the rays of the Moon are cold and humid. It is certain that what is luminous in these rays comes from the Sun, the Moon having no light in itself, as evidenced by its Eclipse which occurs when the earth being opposed between it and the Sun, prevents it from do not illuminate it with its light; and then it is all black and obscure. prevents it from illuminating it with its light; and then it is all black and obscure. prevents it from illuminating it with its light; and then it is all black and obscure.

The rays therefore which come from the Moon, are those of the Sun, which striking on it, are reflected as far as us, and bring atoms from this cold and humid star, which participate in the source from which they come.

If we expose them to a concave mirror or a polished basin which assembles them, you will see that instead of those of the Sun burning in similar circumstances), these on the contrary refresh and moisten noticeably, and even leave an aquatic substance on the mirror. , viscous and sticky. It would seem that it was a vain thing to wash one's hands in a well-polished silver basin, where one would not see the water nor anything other than the reflection of the rays of the Moon: and nevertheless, if we continue to do this for some space of time, we will find our hands all wet; it is even an infallible remedy to make the doors fall from the hands, however many there may be, provided that it is repeated several times.

Let us therefore conclude from all this discourse, and from all these experiments, that the air is full of those atoms which attract bodies by means of the light which reflects them, or which leave them by the natural and interior heat of these same bodies.

body that chases them outside. It will perhaps seem impossible that there can be so great an emanation of corpuscles, which are so widespread in the air, and are carried so far by a continual flow (so to speak) without the body most often where they come from, suffers no perceptible diminution; because sometimes it is very visible" as in the evaporation of the spirit of wine, of musk, and similar volatile substances.

But this objection will be null and the two previous principles will become more credible, when we have posited a fourth, which will be that every body, however small it may be, is divisible to infinity. Not that it actually has infinite parts (for the opposite of that can be demonstrated), but that it can always divide and subdivide itself into new parts, without ever reaching the end of its division. And it is in this sense that our Masters teach us that quantity is infinitely divisible.

This is obvious to anyone who deeply considers the essence and formal reason of quantity, which is nothing other than divisibility. when we have posited a fourth, which will be that every body, however small it may be, is divisible to infinity. Not that it actually has infinite parts (for the opposite of that can be demonstrated), but that it can always divide and subdivide itself into new parts, without ever reaching the end of its division. And it is in this sense that our Masters teach us that quantity is infinitely divisible. This is obvious to anyone who deeply considers the essence and formal reason of quantity, which is nothing other than divisibility.

when we have posited a fourth, which will be that every body, however small it may be, is divisible to infinity. Not that it actually has infinite parts (for the opposite of that can be demonstrated), but that it can always divide and subdivide itself into new parts, without ever reaching the end of its division. And it is in this sense that our Masters teach us that quantity is infinitely divisible.

This is obvious to anyone who deeply considers the essence and formal reason of quantity, which is nothing other than divisibility. without ever reaching the end of his division. And it is in this sense that our Masters teach us that quantity is infinitely divisible. This is obvious to anyone who deeply considers the essence and formal reason of quantity, which is nothing other than divisibility.

without ever reaching the end of his division. And it is in this sense that our Masters teach us that quantity is infinitely divisible. This is obvious to anyone who deeply considers the essence and formal reason of quantity, which is nothing other than divisibility.

But because this speculation is very subtle and Metaphysical, I will use some geometric demonstrations to prove this truth, because they accommodate the imagination better. Euclid teaches us by the tenth proposition of his sixth book, that if we take a short line and another long one, and the long one is divided into several equal parts, the small one can be divided into as many equally equal parts. , and each of these parts still in as many others, and each of these last in as many; and so always, without ever arriving at what can no longer be divided.

But let us suppose (although it is impossible) that we can divide and subdivide a line so much that in the end we arrive at indivisibles, and see what will happen.

I therefore say that since the line resolves itself into indivisibles, it must be composed of them. Let's see if this is true. For this purpose I take three indivisibles, which to distinguish them, are AB and C, (because if three million indivisibles make a long line, three indivisibles will compose a short one.) I therefore put them in order.

First, here is A placed, then I put B next to him, so that they touch each other: I say that B must necessarily occupy the same place as A or that he does not occupy the same place. If it occupies the same place, the two together make no extension: and for the same reason neither 3 nor 3000 will make any, but all these indivisibles will unite together and the result of all will only be one indivisible.

It is therefore necessary that, not being both in the same place, but yet touching one another a part of B touches a part of A and the other part does not touch it.

I therefore add the indivisible C, a part of which will touch the part of B which does not touch A, and by this means B is the copulant or mediator between A and C to make an extension.

To do this, you see that we must admit parts in B and also in the other two, which by even supposition are all indivisible. Which being absurd, the supposition is impossible.

But to make the thing even clearer, let us suppose that these three indivisibles make an extension and compose a line: the proposition already cited by Euclid demonstrates that this line can be divided into thirty equal parts, or into as many as you please.

So that it must be granted that each of these three indivisibles can be divided into ten parts; what is against nature and the definition of an indivisible. But without dividing it into so many parts, Euclid demonstrates by the tenth proposition of his first element, that any line can be divided into two equal parts.

But this being composed of indivisibles of odd number, it is necessary that dividing it in two, there must be an indivisible, more on one side than on the other; or that the middle one is divided into two halves. So that he who denies that quantity cannot be divided infinitely, gets bogged down in incomprehensible absurdities and impossibilities: and on the contrary, he who grants it will find no impossibility, nor inconvenience that the atoms of all bodies that are in the air cannot be divided, extended and carried to a wonderful distance.

Our senses are authentic in some way. There is no body in the world (that we know of) so compact, so heavy, and so solid as gold. And yet to what strange extent and division cannot it be reduced? Let's take an ounce of this massive metal; It will only be a button as big as the tip of one of my fingers.

A gold beater will make a thousand sheets or more from this single ounce. Half of one of these leaves will be enough to gild the entire surface of a three or four ounce silver ingot; let us give this golden ingot to those who prepare the gold and silver thread to make braid, and let them put it in their spinnerets to draw it to the greatest length and subtlety they can, they will be able to reduce it to the size of a hair; and thus this net will be perhaps half a quarter of a league distended, and even more.

And in all this length, there will not be the space of an atom in the surface which is not covered with gold. This is a strange and wonderful expansion of this half-leaf. Let's do the same with all the rest of this beaten gold. It is certain that by this means, this little golden button can be so extended that it will arrive from this city of Montpellier to Paris, and can even go beyond.

How many millions of millions of atoms could this golden line not be cut with sharp scissors? Now it is easy to understand that this extension and divisibility made by crude instruments of hammers, dies, scissors, is not comparable to that which is made by light and by the rays of the Sun. For it is certain that if this gold can be drawn to such a great length by wheels and by iron spinnerets, some of these parts can also be carried away by the winged steeds of which we spoke earlier; I mean, by the rays which fly in a moment from the Sun to the Earth.

If I did not fear boring you with my length, I would tell you about the strange subtlety of the corpuscles which emerge from the living body, by means of which our English dogs will follow by smell, for several leagues, the trail of a man or a beast who will have passed by there a few hours before; and thus will find the man or the beast that one seeks.

And not only that, but they will find in a large heap of stones the one that this person has touched with his hand. It is necessary that on the earth and on this stone some material parts of the body which touched it are attached, and nevertheless this body does not diminish noticeably any more than the ambergris and the skins of Spain which send out They smell for a hundred years, without diminishing either in quantity or in smell.

In our country, it is customary to sow a whole campaign of the same type of grain, namely one year of barley, the following year of wheat, the third of beans, and the fourth the land is left fallow to manure it and to put it back in good condition by the attraction it makes of the vital spirit which is in the air; and then we start again with this same order. Now, the year that it is covered with beans, those who travel while they are in flower can smell them from a great distance, if the wind is favorable.

It is a sweet smell, but bland, and in the long run unpleasant and heady. But Rôdeur du Romarin, which comes from the coast of Spain, goes much further. I have traveled by sea along these coasts three or four times, and I have always noticed that the mariners know when they are thirty or forty leagues from this continent (I do not remember the exact distance), they have this knowledge by the sharp smell of Rosemary which comes from it. I felt it myself as strongly as if I had a branch of Rosemary in my hand, and it happened to us two or three days before we were able to discover land: it is true that the wind was contrary.

Some stories tell us that vultures came from two or three hundred leagues to smell the carrion of dead bodies that had remained on the ground after a bloody battle. And we knew that these vultures had come from so far, because there were no birds of this type nearer. They have a very keen sense of smell, and the rotten and stinking atoms of these dead bodies must have been carried in the air as far as that; and that these birds having once caught this odor followed it to its source because it is stronger the closer it is.

We will end here what we had to say concerning the great extent of the corpuscles which issue by means of the Sun and the light of all the bodies composed of the four elements, fill the air and are carried to a wonderful distance from the place and body from which they have their source and origin. The proof and explanation of which things have been the aim and aim of all my discourse up to now.

Now, Gentlemen, I must please let you see that these corpuscles which fill and compose the air are sometimes attracted by a route entirely different from that which their first universal causes should make them follow. And this will be our fifth Principle.

We can notice in the course and in the economy of nature, several kinds of Attractions, like that which is done by Suction, by which I saw a lead ball at the bottom of a long rifle precisely worked, follow the air, which a person sucked at the mouth of the cannon, with such impetuosity and stiffness, that it broke his teeth.

The attraction of water or wine which is done by a Siphon is similar to this: by means of it we pass a liquor from one vase to another without disturbing it and without causing the faeces to rise. There is another kind of attraction which is called magnetic, by which the magnet attracts the iron. Another Electric, when the Carabé, or the Jayet attracts straw.

Another of the flame, when the smoke of an extinguished candle attracts the flame of a burning one, and brings it down to light the extinguished one. Another is Filtration, when a wet body rises through another dry body, or the opposite is done. And finally when fire or something hot attracts air and what is mixed with it.

Another is Filtration, when a wet body rises through another dry body, or the opposite is done. And finally when fire or something hot attracts air and what is mixed with it. Another is Filtration, when a wet body rises through another dry body, or the opposite is done. And finally when fire or something hot attracts air and what is mixed with it.

We will only speak here of the last two types of attraction. I have explained the others enough elsewhere. Filtration may seem to those who do not consider it carefully enough, and who do not examine all the circumstances, a hidden marvel of nature; and a person of mediocre and limited reasoning will attribute it to some occult virtue and property, and will be convinced that in the filter there is a secret sympathy which causes the water to rise against its nature: but he who examines it as one should observe everything that is done there, without omitting any circumstance, he will see that there is nothing more natural, and that it is impossible for it to happen otherwise.

And we must make the same judgment of all the deepest mysteries and the most hidden secrets of Nature, if we took the trouble to discover them, and if they were examined properly. So here is how filtration is done: we put a long strip of cloth or cotton, or some spongy material, in a terrine of water or other liquor, leaving a good amount hanging over the edge of the terrine. part of the tongue. And we soon see the water rising through the sheet, and passing over the edge of the vessel and dripping through the bottom end of the tab, onto the earth or into some vessel.

And gardeners even use this method to water their flowers or young plants little by little in summer; as also Apothecaries and Chemists, to separate liquors from their faeces or residences. To understand the reasons why the water rises like this, let's look closely and in detail at everything that is happening there. The part of the sheet which is in the water becomes wet, that is to say, receives and soaks the water among its initially dry and spongy parts.

This sheet swells and swells when receiving water; because two bodies joined together require more movement than one of them would do if it were alone. Let us consider this increased swelling and extension in the last thread of those which touch the water, namely in that which is on the surface; which, to be distinguished from the others, is marked by both ends (like a line) and is A. B. and the thread which immediately follows and is above it, namely CD and the next EF then GH and so to the end of the tongue.

I therefore say that the net AB, expanding and growing by means of the water which enters its fibers, gradually approaches the net CD which is still dry, because it does not touch the water, but when AB is so enlarged and swollen by the water which enters it, that it fills all the void and all the distance which was between it and CD and that it even presses against CD because of its greater extension than was the space between them; then it wets CD so that the net AB being compressed, the external part of the water which was in it coming to be pushed onto CD seeks place there, and enters its fibers; and wets them all the same as in the beginning its outer and higher part had itself become wet.

CD being thus wetted, will expand as did AB and therefore pressing against EF it cannot fail to have the same effect in him, which had previously received it into himself by the swelling and dilatation of AB and so on. in hand each thread wets its neighbor down to the last thread of the tongue. And there is no need to fear that the continuity of the water will break when climbing this ladder of ropes, nor will it fall back, for these rungs, so easy to climb, make the ascent very easy for him; and the woolly fibers of each thread seem almost to extend a hand to him at each step to help him climb easily.

And thus the ease of going against the mountain combined with the fluidity of water and the nature of quantity which always tends towards the unity of the substances and bodies it covers, when! there is no more powerful cause to break it and divide it, so that this water holds together in one piece, and passes over the edge of the terrine: after which, its journey is even easier: because it goes its natural inclination always descending downwards, and if the end of the tongue hangs lower, outside the terrine, than is the surface area of ​​the water in the terrine, the water drips onto the ground, or into some vessel submitted: as we see that a heavy rope being hung on a pulley, the end which is the longest and heaviest, falls to the ground and removes the other shorter and lighter, making it pass over the pulley.

But if the outer end of the tongue, which is outside the bowl, was horizontal with the surface of the water, and did not hang lower than it, the water would stand motionless like two basins of a scale where there would be equal weight in each of them. And if we emptied the water which is in the terrine in such a way that its surface became lower than the tip of the tongue; in this case the rising water having become heavier than the descending on the other side outside the terrine, it would recall that which had already come out and ready to fall, and would make it turn back, and turn backwards on its not, and enter the terrine to mix with the water there.

So you see all this mystery which at first was so surprising, unfolded and made as familiar and natural as seeing a stone fall from above; it is true that to demonstrate this with exact and complete rigor, some other circumstance would have to be added; which I did at length in some other speech, where I treated this matter on purpose. But what I have just said is enough on this occasion to give some insight into the means by which this so famous Attraction takes place.

The Other Attraction which is made by fire, which attracts the ambient air, with the corpuscles which are in the air, goes like this. The fire acting according to its nature (which is to push a continual river or exhalation of its parts, from the center to the circumference, and out of its source) carries away in itself the air which is added to it and attached to the sides; as the water of a river carries with it earth from the channel or bed through which it flows.

For the air being humid, and the fire dry, they can do no less than attach and stick to each other. Now a new air must come from the surrounding places; to fill the place of him who is carried away by the fire; because otherwise there would be emptiness in this in-between; what nature abhors.

This new air hardly remains in the place it comes to fill; for the fire which is in a continual current and emanation of its parts, immediately carries it with it, and attracts this new air: and thus a constant and continual current of air is formed, as long as the action of fire continues .

We see the experience of all this daily. For if we have a good fire in a room, it draws the air through the door and through the windows: which if we close, but none-less there is some crack or crevice through which the air can enter , approaching it, we will hear a noise and hiss that the air makes when rushing to enter it (which is the same cause which produces the sound of organs and flageolets) and which would be held between these slots and fire, he would feel an impetuosity of this artificial wind which would mope him and freeze on the side where it strikes. while he would burn himself on the other side which is towards the fire; and a wax candle held in this current of wind would melt and spoil by its flame blown against the wax, in a quarter of an hour, which candle being in a calm place where its flame could rise straight up, would last four hours at burn.

But if there is no passage through which the air can enter the chamber, then part of the vapor from the wood which should be converted into flame and rise up the chimney, descends against its nature (to supplement the lack of air) in this chamber, and fills it with smoke; and in the end the fire suffocates and goes out for lack of air.

Hence it is that Chemists are right in saying that air is the life of fire, as well as of animals. But if we put a basin or bucket of water in front of the fire on the hearth, there will be no smoke in the room, even if it is so well closed that no one can enter. of air. For the fire attracts parts of this water (being a liquid substance and easy to move and stir from its place) which become rarefied in air and by this means perform the function of air.

All this is more evident, if the chamber is small: for then the air contained therein is rather removed and carried away. And it is because of this attraction that we make big fires in rooms where there has been furniture or plague-infected people, to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps away the walls, the floor, and all parts of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to them, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it.

It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere. for then the air which is included in it, is rather removed and carried away.

And it is because of this attraction that we make big fires in rooms where there has been furniture or plague-infected people, to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps away the walls, the floor, and all parts of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to them, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it. It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere. for then the air which is included in it, is rather removed and carried away.

And it is because of this attraction that we make big fires in rooms where there has been furniture or plague-infected people, to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps away the walls, the floor, and all parts of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to them, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it.

It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere.

And it is because of this attraction that we make big fires in rooms where there has been furniture or plague-infected people, to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps away the walls, the floor, and all parts of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to them, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it.

It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere. And it is because of this attraction that we make big fires in rooms where there has been furniture or plague-infected people, to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps away the walls, the floor, and all parts of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to them, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it. It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere.

to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps the walls, the floor, and all places of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which occur. were attached to it, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and the smoke which comes out of it.

It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere. to disinfect them, because this flood of air which is attracted there by the fire, sweeps the walls, the floor, and all places of the room, and detaches the rotten corpuscles, acts, corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which occur. were attached to it, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and the smoke which comes out of it.

It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere. corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to it, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it .

It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere. corrosive and poisonous which are the infections which were attached to it, and draws them into the fire, where they are partly burned, and partly carried away by the chimney, with the atoms of the same fire, and of the smoke which issues from it . It is by this means that the great Hippocrates (who penetrated so far into Nature) disinfected and cured an entire province or region of the plague, setting great fires everywhere.

Now this manner of Attraction is done not only by simple fire, but also by what participates in it; that is to say by hot substances. And what is the reason and the cause of the one, is also likewise of the other. Because the spirits or igneous parts evaporating from such a substance or hot body, take away the adjacent air, which must necessarily be nourished by another air, or by some material which takes the place of the air as we have said basin or bucket of water placed in front of the fire to prevent smoke.

It is on this basis that Doctors order the hot application of pigeons, or young dogs, or other hot animals to the soles of the feet, or pulse of the hands, or to the stomach or navel of their patients, to draw out their bodies from the winds or evil vapors which infect them.

And in times of plague and universal infection of the air, pigeons, cats, dogs, and similar hot animals are killed, which continually cause great perspiration and evaporation of spirits, because the air, by the attraction which takes place, taking the place of the spirits which came out in this evaporation, the pestiferous and infectious atoms which are scattered in the air, and which come with it, attach themselves to their feathers, their hair, or their furs. And for this same reason, we see that bread coming hot from the oven attracts foam from the barrel (which spoils the wine) if we put it hot on the basket; and that onions and similar very hot bodies which continually exhale their igneous parts (which is known by the strength of their odor) become tainted by the infection of the air if they are exposed to it: which is one of the signs to recognize if the entire air mass is universally infected.

And we can reduce to this head, the great attraction of the air which is done by the calcined bodies, and particularly by the tartar rendered all igneous by the extreme action of the fire on it, which accumulates there and collects. corporifies among its salt. Because I noticed that it attracts to itself nine times more air than what it weighs itself. For if you expose to the air a pound of salt of tartar well calcined and burnt, it will return to you ten pounds of good oil of tartar, thus attracting and embodying the air around it, and that which is mixed among the air: as happened to Monsieur Ferrier's tartar oil, which I spoke about above.

But it seems to me that all this is little, at the price of the attraction of the air which was felt by the body of a certain Nun in Rome, of which Petrus Servius, Physician to Pope Urban eighth, mentions in a book which he published concerning the marvelous accidents which he noticed in his time. Without such a guarantor, I would not dare produce this story; although the Nun confirmed it to me herself, and many Doctors from the Faculty of Medicine of Rome also assured me. She was a Nun who, through excess of youth, vigils and mental prayers, had heated her body so much that it seemed as if she were on fire, and that her bones were all dried up and charred.

This heat then, this internal fire, attracting the air powerfully; this air was corporified throughout his body, as it does in the salt of tartar: and the passages therein being all open, it ends up on all sides where the serosities of the body are, which is the bladder, and from there it released water through urine, and this in an incredible quantity: because for a few weeks, it released more than two hundred pounds of water every 24 hours. With this illustrious example I will put an end to the experiments that I have put forward to prove and explain Fat-traction which is made of the air by hot and igneous bodies which are of the nature of fire.

My sixth Principle will be, that when fire or some hot body attracts the air, and what is in the air; if it happens that there are dispersed atoms in this air which are of a similar nature to the body which attracts them, the attraction of such atoms is much more powerful than if there were only bodies of different nature: and these atoms stop, attach themselves and willingly mingle with this body: the reason for this is the resemblance and convenience which they have of one with the other.

If I did not explain what this resemblance and convenience consists of, and what it means; I would expose myself to the same censure and blame as that with which I imposed at the beginning of my speech those who speak vulgarly and lightly of the Powder of Sympathy, and similar wonders of nature. But when I have clarified what I mean by such suitability and resemblance, I hope you will be entirely satisfied.

I could show you that there are several kinds of resemblances which cause union among bodies: but I will be content to speak here only of three of the most notable. The first resemblance will be concerning weight, by which bodies of the same degree of gravity assemble together.

The reason for this is obvious; because if a body were lighter, it would occupy a higher position than the other less light one; as, on the contrary, if a body were heavier, it would descend lower than one less heavy. But having the same degree of gravity, they hold together very well in the same balance, as we can see with the eye in this nice experiment that a few curious people produce, to convey how the four Elements are situated one above the other according to their weight or heaviness.

They put in a vial the spirit of wine dyed red, to represent fire; spirit of turpentine dyed blue, for air: common water dyed green, to represent the element of water: and powdered enamel, or filings of some solid metal , to take the place of the earth. You see them on top of each other, without any mixing. And if you suddenly blur them together by some violent agitation, there is a real Chaos, a confusion such that it seems that there is not a single atom of these bodies which is not pell-mell without any rank. But stop this agitation, and you immediately see each of these four substances go to its natural place,

The second resemblance of bodies which attract and unite is those which are of similar degrees of rarity and density. The nature and effect of quantity is to reduce to unity all the things in which it is found, except that some other stronger power (such as different substantial forms which multiply it), does not prevent.

And the reason for this is obvious: because the essence of quantity is divisibility or a capacity to be divided which is worth as much as that which would be said to be made several; from which it follows that of itself it is not several: it is therefore of itself and of its nature, a continuous extension. Since then the nature of quantity in general tends towards unity and continuity; it is necessary that the first differences of quantity, which are rarity and density, produce a similar effect of unity and continuity of bodies which agree in the same degree with them.

As proof of this, we see that water unites and is easily and strongly incorporated with water, oil with oil, spirit of wine with spirit of wine, quicksilver to quicksilver; but it is difficult for oil and water to unite; nor also mercury with the spirit of wine, and other bodies of dissimilar density and tenuity. The third resemblance of bodies which unites them and makes them hold together strongly is that of the figure.

I do not want here to use the ingenious thought of this great character, who wants the continuity of bodies to result from a few small connections which hold them together, and which are different to bodies of different nature. But in order not to dwell too widely on each particularity (I fear that I have already done so too much) I will only say roughly as an obvious thing, that each type of body affects a particular figure. We see this clearly among the different kinds of salt. Pound them separately, dissolve, coagulate and change them as much as you like, they always return after each dissolution and coagulation to their natural figure, and each atom of the same salt always affects the same figure.

Common salt always forms into cubes with square faces. Nitre salt in six-sided columns. The ammonia salt is a six-pointed hexagon, just as the snow is sexangular. The pentagonal urine salt: to which Mr. Davisson attributes the pentagonal figure of each of the stones which were found in the Bladder of Mr. Pelletier, numbering more than eighty. Because the same immediate efficient cause, which is the Bladder, had printed its action both in these stones and in the salt of the urine.

And so with several other salts. Distillers have noticed that if they pour the water that has been distilled from it onto the dead head of some distillation, it soaks into it, and comes together immediately: whereas if you pour some other water into it, it floats, and has great difficulty incorporating itself into it.

The reason is that this distilled water, which seems a homogeneous body, is nevertheless composed of corpuscles of different natures, and consequently of different figures (as Chemists show it to the eye) and these atoms being driven out by the action of the fire outside their rooms, and like beds which were suitable for them with very exact accuracy, when they return to their old dwellings, that is to say to these doors which they left empty in the dead heads, they adapt themselves there, by joining amiably, and commemorate together.

And the same happens when it rains after a great drought; because the earth immediately drinks this water which had been attracted by the Sun: whereas any other foreign liquor would only enter with difficulty. Now that there are pores of different shapes in bodies which seem to be homogeneous, Mr. Gassendi affirms it, and tries to prove it by the dissolution of salts of different shapes in common water.

When (he says, or for this purpose) you have dissolved in it common salt as much as it can take, suppose for example a pound; if you only have one more scruple about it, it will leave it intact in the end, as if it were sand or plaster; nevertheless it will still dissolve a good quantity of nitre salt.

And when it no longer touches this salt, it will dissolve as much salt ammonia; and so other salts of different figures. Whatever the truth of this particular (which I have examined in some other place) we see that by the economy of nature, bodies which possess similar figures, mix more easily, and unite more strongly. Which is the reason why those who make strong glue to glue together broken vases of porcelain, or crystal, or similar materials, always mix among their glue powder of the same body as the one they want to mend. And even the Goldsmiths when they want to solder pieces of gold or silver together,

Having thus traversed the reasons and causes why bodies of a similar nature attract each other more powerfully than others, and why they unite more quickly and more strongly together; let us see according to our Method, how the experiment confirms my reasoning: because with the physical things, it is necessary to refer in last resort to Inexperience; and any speech which is not supported thereby, must be repudiated, or at least suspected as illegitimate.

It is an ordinary practice that when a man has burned his hand, for example, he holds it for a short time in the fire; and by this means, the igneous bodies or atoms of the fire of the hand mingling, and attracting each other, and the stronger ones (which are those of the fire) winning over the others, the hand is much relieved from the inflammation she was suffering from.

It is an ordinary remedy (although annoying but for a more annoying evil) that those who have bad breath hold their mouth open to the mouth of a private, as much as they can, and by the reiteration of this remedy, they are finally cured, the great private stench attracting to itself and carrying away the least, which is that of the mouth.

Those who have been bitten or stung by a viper or a scorpion, hold on the sting a scorpion, or a crushed viper's head, and by this means the poison which by a kind of filtration advanced to reach the heart , retraces its steps, and returns to its main source, where there is a greater quantity, and leaves the injured part entirely free of this venom.

In times of plague we carry toad powder around us, or even a living toad or spider (enclosed in some convenient vessel) or arsenic, or some other similar poisonous substance; which draws infection from the air to itself, which otherwise might infect the wearer. And this same toad powder also attracts all the poison of a pestilential anthrax.

Farcin is a venomous and contagious humor in a horse's body; hang a toad around his collar in a bag, and he will be infallibly cured; the toad which is the greatest venom attracting to itself the venom which is in the horse. And this same toad powder also attracts all the poison of a pestilential anthrax. Farcin is a venomous and contagious humor in a horse's body; hang a toad around his collar in a bag, and he will be infallibly cured; the toad which is the greatest venom attracting to itself the venom which is in the horse. And this same toad powder also attracts all the poison of a pestilential anthrax. Farcin is a venomous and contagious humor in a horse's body; hang a toad around his collar in a bag, and he will be infallibly cured; the toad which is the greatest venom attracting to itself the venom which is in the horse.

Evaporate water in an oven or other well-closed chamber; if there is nothing that attracts this vapor, it will attach itself everywhere to the walls of the oven, and as it cools, it recondenses there into water: but if you put a basin or bucket full of water in some way. place of the oven, it will attract to itself all the steam which filled the chamber, so that after that, nothing wet will be found there.

If you distill mercury (which resolves into smoke and passes into the container) put a little in the channel of the cover, and all the Mercury from the still will collect there, and nothing will pass into the container. If you distill the spirit of salt or vitriol, or the balm of sulfur, and leave the passage free between the spirit and the dead head, from which it came the spirits will return to the dead head, which being fixed and unable to rise, attracts them to itself.

In our country (and I believe it is the same here) we stock up for the whole year on deer and deer pâtés, in the season when their flesh is better and tastier, which is during the month July and August; they are cooked in earthenware pots, or hard rye crust, after having seasoned them well with spices and salt; and being cold, they are covered with six fingertips of fresh melted butter, to prevent the air from entering them.

However, we notice, with all the diligence we can do, that when living animals which are of the same nature and species are in Rut, the flesh which is in these pots feels it powerfully, is greatly altered, and has the taste strong, because of these bookish spirits who come out of living animals in this season, and are attracted to dead flesh of their same nature. And then we have the trouble of preventing this flesh from spoiling.

But this season having passed, there is no longer any danger for the rest of the year. Wine merchants notice in this country and everywhere where there is wine, that in the season when the vines are in flower, the wine which is in the cellar ferments, and grows a small white dregs ( which it seems to me is called the mother) on the surface of the wine; which is in disorder until the flowers of the vines have fallen; and then this agitation or fermentation having subsided, all the wine returns to the state in which it was before.

And it is not only today that this remark was made: for (to say nothing of several others who speak of it) Saint-Ephrem the Syrian, in his last Testament (nearly thirteen hundred years ago) reports this same circumstance of wine, which suffers agitation and fermentation in the barrel at the same time as the vines exhale their spirits in the countryside: and thus uses a similar example of the dry onions which germinate in the attic, when those which are sown in the Garden begin to emerge from the earth and perfume the air with their spirits.

Wanting to indicate by such known examples of nature, the communication which is between living persons and the souls of the dead. This is because these vinous spirits which emanate from the flowers fill the air on all sides (like the spirits of Spanish Rosemary which we spoke of earlier) they are attracted into the barrels by the wine which serves as their source, and who has an abundance of similar spirits. And these new volatile spirits arise, excite the most fixed spirits of the wine, and cause fermentation, as if sweet wine or new wine were poured into it.

For in all fermentation there is a separation of the earthly parts and the oily parts, which are rejected outside the essential parts; and thus the lightest rise to the surface, and the heaviest become tartar lees which fall to the bottom. But if in this season one does not take enough care to keep the wine in a clean and well-tempered place, and to keep the vessels full and well corked, and to carry out the other diligences which are ordinary to Coopers; we run the risk of seeing the wine become much worse: because these volatile spirits evaporate, they take with them the spirits of the wine that they have excited and with which they have mixed.

Just like Monsieur Ferrier's tartar oil. attracting the volatile spirits of the rosés scattered in the air in their season, underwent a new fermentation and created every year a new attraction of similar spirits, because of the affinity that this oil had contracted with these spirits in its first birth; and then afterwards was deprived of it, as the season sat down.

And it is for this same reason that a tablecloth or napkin, stained with cod or red wine, is easily cleaned by washing it in the season when these plants flower; whereas at all other times these stains do not yield to washing, but it is not only in France and in places where the vines are close to the wine that this fermentation takes place.

In England, where we do not have enough vines to make wine, the same thing is observed, and even more so. Although no wine is made in our country, we nevertheless have a very great abundance of it brought in from outside. It comes mainly from three places, the Canaries of Spain and Gascony.

Now these regions being in different climates and degrees of latitude and consequently one warmer than the other, and where the same trees and plants flower rather than each other, it happens that this fermentation of our different wines advances more or less, depending on whether the vines from which they come flower sooner or later in their country, being consistent with the reason that each wine more readily attracts the spirits of the vines from which it comes than from others.

On this occasion, I cannot refrain from making a small digression to develop another effect of nature that we see quite often, and which is no less curious than the main one that we are dealing with. It will perhaps seem to have its causes and its motives even more obscure; nevertheless they depend in many circumstances on the same principles, although in others they also differ. It's touching the marks that happen to children, when their mothers during their pregnancies want to eat something.

To proceed in my usual order, I will first offer some examples. A Lady of high status that many of this Assembly know (at least by reputation) has on her collar the figure of a stone, as exact as a Painter or a Sculptor could represent: because it has not only the color, but also the size, advancing over the flesh, as if it were in semi-relief.

This Lady's mother being pregnant with her, she wanted to eat blackberries; and her imagination being filled with them, the first time she saw them, one fell by accident on her collar; the blood was immediately and carefully wiped from this blackberry, and she did not smell anything else from then on; but the child being born, the figure of a berry was seen on his collar, in the same place where the fruit had fallen on that of the mother; and every year at the blackberry season, this impression, or to put it better, this excrescence swells, grows, itches, and becomes inflamed.

Another girl who had a similar mark, but from a strawberry, was even more inconvenienced: because in the strawberry season, not only did it itch and become inflamed. but it burst like an abscess, and an acrid and corrosive humor arose from it: until a skilful surgeon removed everything from it, down to the roots, by means of a cautery, and since then, it has not He has never felt any change in this place, which previously bothered him so much, having remained there only as a simple scar.

So, let us try to understand, if we can, the causes and reasons for these marvelous effects. To begin with, I say that in the actions of all our senses there is a material and corporeal participation, that is to say that some atoms of the body which act on the senses enter their organs which serve as their pipes. to lead them and bring them to the brain and the imagination.

This is evident from smells and flavors. And as for hearing; the agitated external air causes a movement in the membrane or eardrum of the ear, which gives a similar movement to the hammer attached to it; which beating on its anvil, causes a reciprocal movement of the air enclosed within the ear: and this movement of the air is what we will call sound. For sight, it is obvious that the light reflected from the body which is seen, enters the eyes, and cannot but bring with it some emanations from the very body which reflects it; according to what we established in the second principle.

It only remains to show that the like is done in the grossest of our senses which is touching. For if it is true, as we have shown, that every body sends a continual emanation of atoms outside itself, there no longer remains any difficulty. But to make this truth even more manifest, and to remove all the possibility of doubting it, I want to show it obviously to the eye, and everyone can experience it in a quarter of an hour if they have this curiosity, and even in less time. It only remains to show that the like is done in the grossest of our senses which is touching.

For if it is true, as we have shown, that every body sends a continual emanation of atoms outside itself, there no longer remains any difficulty. But to make this truth even more manifest, and to remove all the possibility of doubting it, I want to show it obviously to the eye, and everyone can experience it in a quarter of an hour if they have this curiosity, and even in less time.

It only remains to show that the like is done in the grossest of our senses which is touching. For if it is true, as we have shown, that every body sends a continual emanation of atoms outside itself, there no longer remains any difficulty. But to make this truth even more manifest, and to remove all the possibility of doubting it, I want to show it obviously to the eye, and everyone can experience it in a quarter of an hour if they have this curiosity, and even in less time.

I think you know the great affinity that is between For and quicksilver; if For touches it, the mercury attaches to it, and whitens it so that it no longer appears to be gold, but only silver. If you throw this bleached gold into the fire, its heat drives out the mercury, and the gold returns to its first color; but if you repeat this process several times, For will calcine, and then you can grind it and reduce it to powder.

And there is no solvent in the world that can properly calcine and burn the solid body of gold, other than mercury. I am speaking of that which is already formed by nature, without committing myself to speaking of that which is mentioned in the secrets of the Philosophers. So take some mercury in some porcelain bowl or other clean vessel, and handle it with the fingers of one hand, and if you have a gold ring on the other hand, it will become white and charged with mercury, without you approaching it in any way.

Moreover, if you put a gold blade or a golden shield in your mouth, and you put only the finger of one of your feet in mercury, and hold it there a little, the gold which is in your mouth will be all white and covered with mercury: and if you put this gold in the fire to evaporate all the mercury, and you repeat this procedure enough times, your gold will be calcined, as if you had physically joined the mercury by amalgam.

And all this will be done even more quickly and more efficiently, if instead of common mercury, you use antimony mercury, which is much hotter and much more penetrating: and even when chasing it with fire, it will take away with it him a good quantity of the substance of gold: so that by repeating this operation often, you will no longer have any gold left to continue these trials. If therefore cold mercury thus penetrates the whole body, we should not find it strange that the subtle atoms of a fruit composed of many igneous parts go there more easily and more quickly.

I will show you again in the following how similar spirits and emanations also suddenly penetrate into the steel, although it is so hard and cold; e: that they make their residence there for several months and several years. In a living body, such as that of man, the internal spirits help and contribute greatly to the external spirits, such as those of the fruit, to make their journey easily to the brain.

The great Architect of nature, by manufacturing the human body, a masterpiece of corporeal nature, placed internal spirits there, like sentinels, to report their discoveries to their General, that is to say to the imagination, which is like the mistress of this whole family, so that man can know and recognize what is done outside of his Kingdom, in the big world; and that he may avoid what could harm him, and seek what is useful to him.

For these sentinels or internal spirits, and all the inhabitants of the sensitive organs, cannot judge alone. So that if the thought or the imagination is greatly distracted to some other object, these internal minds do not only know whether the man has drunk the wine which he has just swallowed; if he saw someone who just greeted him while he was staring at them; if he heard the tune that had just been sung or played on the violins near him.

For internal minds carry all their acquisitions to the imagination; and if it is not more strongly occupied with some other object, it forms ideas or images, especially since the external atoms brought back by these internal spirits to our imagination build there a similar edifice, or rather a model in small, completely resembling the large bodies from which they come.

And if our imagination no longer has to do with these atoms significant for the present, it stores them in some proper place in its store, which is memory, from where it can recall them and resume whenever it pleases.

And if it is some object which causes the imagination some emotion, and which touches it more closely than the common objects which enter it, it sends back its satellites, the internal spirits, to the confines to bring him more particular news: and hence it comes that when a man is surprised by the unexpected sight of some person, or of an object which already has an eminent place in his imagination, either from desire, or diversion , then this man immediately changes color, and becomes red, then pale, then red again, at various times, depending on whether these ministers who are these internal spirits, go quickly or slowly towards the object, then return with their relationships towards the imagination which is their mistress.

But besides these passages of which we speak, which go from the brain to the external parts of the body by means of the nerves, there is also a great passage from the brain to the heart, by which the vital spirits rise from the heart to the brain to be made animals; and through this, the imagination sends to the heart a part of these atoms which it received from some external object; and there they cause a boiling among the vital spirits; which according to the nature of the occurring tons, either make a blossoming and dilation of the heart or they constrict it and sadden it; and these two different and contrary actions are the first general effects, from which then come the particular passions; which do not require me to pursue them further in this place, having done so very particularly elsewhere, where I treated this matter on purpose. Besides these passages, which are common to all men and women, there is another one very particular to women, which is, from their brain to the womb: by which it sometimes happens that vapors rise to the brain if violent and in such large numbers, that they hinder the actions of the brain and the imagination, and cause convulsions and madness, and other marvelous accidents; and through the same channel, the spirits or atoms pass with great freedom and speed to the matrix, when necessary.

Now consider how one person's strong imagination works wonderfully on another who has it weaker and more passive. We see at all times that if a person yawns, all who see him yawn are excited to do the same. If we find ourselves among people who laugh excessively, we find it difficult to stop ourselves from laughing, even though we do not know why the others are laughing.

If one enters a house where everyone is sad, one becomes melancholy; for as that one said, Si vis meflere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi. Women and children, being very moist and passive, are the most susceptible to this disagreeable contagion of the imagination.
I knew a woman who, being very melancholic and subject to mother's illnesses, believed herself to be possessed, and performed strange actions, which among the less informed people passed for supernatural effects and of a possessed person. He was a person of condition; and all this was caused by a great resentment she had at the death of her husband.

She had four or five young ladies with her, some of whom were her relatives, others who served her in her room. All these became possessed like her, and performed equally prodigious actions. These young girls were separated from his sight and his communication, and as they had not yet contracted such deep roots of evil, they were all healed by the absence alone of what infected them: and this very Lady was also healed by doctor, who purged his atrabilary humors, and restored his womb to good condition. There was no deception or dissimulation there.

I could make a long and notable narration of similar things that happened to the Religious of Loudun: but having formerly made it in a private discourse on my return from their country, where I discerned everything very exactly, I will not say anything about it. more for this time, and I will not add anything else to this subject, except to remind you that when there are two luts, or two harps close to each other, tuned to the same key, you touch a string in one of the harps, another which is consonant with the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches it.

What Galileo very ingeniously explained. There was no deception or dissimulation there. I could make a long and notable narration of similar things that happened to the Religious of Loudun: but having formerly made it in a private discourse on my return from their country, where I discerned everything very exactly, I will not say anything about it. more for this time, and I will not add anything else to this subject, except to remind you that when there are two luts, or two harps close to each other, tuned to the same key, you touch a string in one of the harps, another which is consonant with the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches it. What Galileo very ingeniously explained.

There was no deception or dissimulation there. I could make a long and notable narration of similar things that happened to the Religious of Loudun: but having formerly made it in a private discourse on my return from their country, where I discerned everything very exactly, I will not say anything about it. more for this time, and I will not add anything else to this subject, except to remind you that when there are two luts, or two harps close to each other, tuned to the same key, you touch a string in one of the harps, another which is consonant with the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches it.

What Galileo very ingeniously explained. but having previously made it in a private speech on my return from their country, where I discerned everything very exactly, I will say no more about it this time, and I will not add anything else to this matter, except from you remember that when there are two lutes, or two harps close to each other, tuned to the same tone, you touch a string in one of the harps, another which is consonant with it in the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches her.

What Galileo very ingeniously explained. but having previously made it in a private speech on my return from their country, where I discerned everything very exactly, I will say no more about it this time, and I will not add anything else to this matter, except from you remember that when there are two lutes, or two harps close to each other, tuned to the same tone, you touch a string in one of the harps, another which is consonant with it in the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches her.

What Galileo very ingeniously explained. another which is consonant to it in the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches it. What Galileo very ingeniously explained. another which is consonant to it in the other harp, will move at the same time, although no one touches it. What Galileo very ingeniously explained.

To therefore apply to our subject everything that I have reported on this subject: I say that since it is impossible for two separated people to be so close to each other as is the child of its mother, when it is still in her womb: we can conclude from this that all the effects of a strong and vehement imagination, acting on another weak, passive and tender one, must be more effective in the mother acting on her child, than when the imaginations other people act on those who have nothing to do with them.

And as it is impossible that any Master of Music, however expert and exact he may be, could ever tune two harps in consonance with each other, so perfectly that the two bodies of the mother and child; so it therefore follows that the concussion which is made of the main cord of the mother, which is her imagination, must produce a greater tremor in the consonant of the child (also her imagination) than does the cord touched by a lute on the string which is consonant to it in the other.

And when the mother sends spirits to some part of her body, others of a similar nature must go to the same part of the body of her child. Now let us recall in our memory how the mother's imagination is filled with these bodily atoms which come from the courn or the strawberry which had fallen on her collar or on her breast; and her imagination being then in great emotion by this accident, it happens that she must send a good part of these atoms to the child's brain, and also to the same part of her body as that where she received the first blow, and between which and his brain pass such frequent and rapid messengers as we have depicted.

The child also for his part (who has his parts tuned in consonance with those of his mother) cannot fail to observe the same movement of spirits between his imagination and his collar, or his breast. what his mother does among her family; and his spirits being accompanied by the atoms of the stone which his mother sent to his imagination, they make a deep and permanent impression on his delicate skin: for which effect, that of his mother is too hard.

As if one fires a pistol loaded with powder only, against marble, the powder has no other effect than dirtying it a little, but it is immediately cleaned by rubbing it: on the contrary if one discharges it against the face of 'a man, the grains of powder penetrate his skin, and attach themselves to it and really remain imprinted there throughout his life, and make themselves known and seen by their own bluish black color which they always retain. Likewise the little grains or atoms of the fruit which passed from the mother's neck to her imagination, and from there to the same place on the child's skin,

The reason for this is, that the atoms of the thing of desire removed by the light, go to the brain of the pregnant woman through the channel of the eyes, as well as other more material atoms, coming from bodily touch, would go there by the conduit of the nerves. And from these corpuscles, the mother forms in her imagination a complete model of the large and total from which they emanate.

That if the woman is only attacked internally, these atoms which are in her imagination only travel to her heart, and from there to the imagination and the heart of the child, and thus only cause 'a strengthening of the passion in both, which can be moved to such violent impetuosity, that if the mother does not enjoy the desired object, this passion can cause the ruin of both, at least significantly harming their health , and make a great alteration in their bodies.

However, if some unexpected blow surprises the mother in some part of her body, the spirits which reside in the brain are immediately sent there by her imagination, as happens, not only in these cases of desire, but in all other similar cases. shocks of surprise among men as well as among women, and these spirits move there with all the more impetuosity as the passion is more violent: just as a person who passionately loves another, quickly runs to the door every time someone comes to knock on it, or Hylax in limine latrat, always hoping that it is the one who entirely occupies his thoughts (because, qui lover ipsi sibi omnia fingunt) who comes to visit him.

And these spirits moved by this unexpected blow, being then mixed with the corpuscles or atoms of the desired thing which so powerfully occupied his fancy, they lead them to the affected part of his body, and again to the same part of the child's body, as well as to his imagination. And after that everything that happens is the same thing, both to the child and to the mother, as when the berry or strawberry fell on the breast or on the collar of the Ladies about whom I spoke to you.

Allow me, Gentlemen, to extend my digression with one more word, to tell you of a marvelous accident, known to the entire Court of England, in confirmation of the activity and impression that the mother's imagination makes on the body of the child she is pregnant with. A lady relative of mine (she was my Niece of Fortescu, daughter of Count Arondel) sometimes came to see me in London.

She was very beautiful and well made; and she knew it well, taking great pleasure in it, and being very happy not only to maintain her approval, but also to add to it what she could. She convinced herself that the flies she put on her face gave her a lot of ornament: this is why she was very careful to wear the most curious ones. But as it is very difficult to maintain moderation in things which depend more on opinion than on nature, she wore them in excess, and took charge of them all over her face.

Although it hardly came back to me, and I could have taken the liberty of telling her my feelings about it, and she would have found it good: nevertheless it did not seem to me to be in season to tell her anything that could sadden her. or shock the least in the world, while with so much kindness and gentleness she came to pay me her pleasant visits.

However, one day I decided to mock her in such a way that she would not be displeased, remembering that ridentem dicere verum quid vetat; And so I brought down our discourse on her present pregnancy, recommending that she take care of her health, of which she was quite negligent, according to the custom of vigorous young women, who do not yet know what it is to be subject to indisposition.

She thanked me for my care, telling me that she did not believe that she should do anything extraordinary for her health, which was so good, although she was fat. 'At least,' I told him, 'so you should have regard for your child. — O for that, she said, there's nothing I won't do that can contribute to her good. 'But,' I replied, 'see how many flies you've gotten in your face; aren't you afraid that your child will be born with similar marks on his? carries flies?

“So you haven’t heard,” I replied, the marvelous effects which the imaginations of mothers have on the bodies of their children while they are pregnant; I'm going to tell you some of them. And so I told him several stories on this subject, such as that of the Ethiopian Queen who gave birth to a white child, which was attributed to the portrait of our Lady which she had in the alley of her bed, and to which she had great devotion: the other of a woman who gave birth to a hairy child for the same reason as a portrait of Saint John the Baptist in the desert, dressed in a camel's hair tunic.

I also told him about the strange antipathy that the late King James had against a drawn sword, the cause of which was attributed to the fact that some Lords of Scotland one day violently entered the cabinet of the Queen his mother while she was was pregnant with him, and made dispatches with his Prime Minister who was Italian, whom they killed with swords and threw him at his feet: and were so barbaric, that they almost did not also wound the Queen, who hoped to save his minister by throwing himself between them: at least his skin was slightly broken in various places.

Bucanan makes mention of this Tragedy in his History.

So much so that King James, his son, had such an aversion to a drawn sword throughout his life that he could not see it without extreme emotion. And although very courageous in all other circumstances, he could never defeat himself. in this particular defect.

I remember that when he gave me the Order of Knight, and it came to the ceremony of touching my shoulder with the point of a sword, he could not force himself to look at her, but turned his head on the other hand, so that instead of touching my shoulder, he almost poked me in the eye, had it not been for the Duke of Bouquingan, who knew well what would happen, to guide her with his hand, as it should go.

I told him several similar stories, to make him understand that a sort of imagination of the mother, could make some notable impression on the body of his child to his great detriment. And after that, consider, I said to him, how you are always attentive to your flies; you have them continually present to your imagination; you have looked at yourself more than ten times in your little mirror, since you have been in this room, do you not have reason to fear that your child will be born with a face covered with spots similar to your flies, or rather than all the black which is divided into several small portions does not assemble into one, and comes to the middle of his forehead, to the most visible and remarkable place on his face: how you are always attentive to your flies; you have them continually present to your imagination; you have looked at yourself more than ten times in your little mirror, since you have been in this room, do you not have reason to fear that your child will be born with a face covered with spots similar to your flies, or rather than all the black which is divided into several small portions does not assemble into one, and comes to the middle of his forehead, to the most visible and remarkable place on his face: how you are always attentive to your flies; you have them continually present to your imagination; you have looked at yourself more than ten times in your little mirror, since you have been in this room, do you not have reason to fear that your child will be born with a face covered with spots similar to your flies, or rather than all the black which is divided into several small portions does not assemble into one, and comes to the middle of his forehead, to the most visible and remarkable place on his face:

A stain as big as a golden shield would look good in this place: Ah, my God! she said, rather than that happening to me, I will no longer carry flies during my pregnancy.

And in fact, just now she took them off and threw them all away.
When her friends saw her after that completely without flies, they asked her where it came from that she, who was recognized as the most curious at the Court in matters of flies, had suddenly left them, and that she did not wore more; She replied that her Uncle, in whom she had a lot of faith, had assured her that if she carried one during her pregnancy, her child would come straight into the world with a black spot in the middle of the forehead, as large as a golden shield. This apprehension was so vividly engraved in her imagination that she dreamed of it continually.

And so this poor Lady who was so afraid that her child would have some mark on his face could nevertheless prevent him from being born with a black spot in the middle of his forehead, the size and the way she looked. is it always figured in his imagination. She was a girl, moreover very beautiful, and it has been a few months since I saw her, still bearing that mark of the force of her mother's imagination.

I do not want to talk to you, Gentlemen, about the woman from your neighborhood in Carcassonne, who a few months ago gave birth to a prodigious monster, resembling exactly an extraordinary monkey which she took pleasure in seeing often during her pregnancy, because you You must know the story better than I: nor also that of Saint-Maixent, which could not be diverted from going to see during her pregnancy an unhappy child of a poor passenger, who was born without arms, gave birth at the end of her term of a similar monster, which had not only some small protruding excrescence from the shoulders, to mark the places from which the arms should have descended: and less of the one who, wanting to see the execution of a criminal who had his neck cut, was so frightened by it, and the impression of it remained so vividly imprinted in her imagination, that she immediately fell into labor of child, and barely could she be transported to her home, when she gave birth there a few weeks before her due date, of a child whose head was separated from the body, both parts still shedding blood, in addition to the which had already abundantly flowed from it and spread throughout the mother's womb, as if the Executioner's blow had only just recently been given to this poor little body.

These three examples, and several other well-proven ones, which I could allege to you although they clearly demonstrate the admirable power of the imagination, would commit myself too far if I wanted to try to clarify the causes and to develop the difficulties which would be found there much greater than in any of the previous examples of which I have spoken to you: especially since these minds have had the strength to cause essential and so terrible changes in bodies entirely finished forming in all their perfection, and that it seems that one could believe that in one of them there was a transmutation of a species into another and introduction of a new informing form in the subject matrix, of a nature totally different from that which had been there first: if at least what most Authors tell us at the time of the animation of the child in the mother's womb, is well determined and true. This digression has already been too long. Is modus in rebus,

To return therefore to the main channel and thread of our discourse, the experiments and examples which I have just reported subsequently and in confirmation of the reasons which I had alleged, show us sufficiently that the bodies which pull the atoms dispersed in the air attract more powerfully those who are of their nature, than they do the heterogeneous or foreign. as does wine, vinous spirits, the fermented tartar oil of a leaven of rosés, the volatile spirits of rosés, the flesh of deer or deer in pâtés, the spirits of venison from similar animals, and so on. others that I have just deduced for you.

The History of Tarantulas, in the Kingdom of Naples, is famous. You know how the venom of this beast rises through the wounds of those who have been stung by it, up to their brains and their hearts, excites in their imagination an impetuous desire to hear certain melodious tunes; because they almost all like different tunes. So when they hear a tune that they like sung, they dance incessantly, and by this means they sweat profusely, so much so that this sweat evaporates a good part of the venom, besides the sound of the music excites a movement and causes agitation. among the airy and vaporous spirits which are in the brain, and within and around the heart, and diffused through the whole body of those who hear it, in proportion to the nature and cadence of such music:

as when Thimotheus carried Alexander the Great vehemently to such and such passions as he wanted: just as when the sound of one Lute makes the strings of another tremble, by the movements and tremors that it causes in air, without otherwise touching or approaching them. We also see, often times, that sounds which are only movements in the air cause similar movements in water.

As when the sharp sound which is caused by rubbing hard with the finger on the rim of a glass full of water, excites a quivering, swirling and splashing of a few drops of water, as if dancing to the rhythm of this sound .

And the harmonious sound of the bells, in the countries where they are made to go to music, and to certain tunes, does the same on the calm surface of the neighboring rivers, and mainly at night, when there is no other movement which shocks and breaks this one. For the air being contiguous or rather continuous with the water, and the water being very susceptible of movement, there takes place in the water a movement similar to that which was begun in the air.

And the same contact which is between the agitated air and the water, which by this means is similarly agitated, is also made between the agitated air, and the vaporous spirits which are in the bodies of those who have been bitten by the Tarantula, which spirits are consequently moved by this agitated air, that is to say, by this sound, and this all the more effectively as this agitation or sound, is proportionate to the nature and temperament of the injured.

And this internal agitation of these spirits and vapours, helps to discharge them of the vaporous poison of the Tarantula which is mixed among all their humors: as the stagnant waters, and the airs corrupted and putrefied by rest and by the mixture of Other bad substances are refined and purified through movement. But when winter arrives, which numbs these animals, they no longer feel this pain. But when they returned from the season in which they were stung, their illness returns and they have to dance like they did the year before.

The reason is that the heat of summer heats, sours and enhances the venom of the beast, so that it becomes malicious and furious again as before, and this heated venom evaporating and spreading in the air, the leaven of this same venom which still remains in the body of those who have been bitten, attracts it to itself, and a fermentation takes place which also infects the other humours, the smoke of which coming to the brains of these poor Sick people, it produces these strange effects.

It is no less known in places where there are large dogs or mastiffs (as in England) that if a man has been badly bitten by one of these dogs, they try to kill him, even if he is not not then enraged, lest the becoming, the leaven of this canine anger which remains in the body of the bitten, does not attract the enraged spirits of the same dog as a result of which man would also become enraged. And this is practiced not only in England where there are such dangerous mastiffs, but also in France according to the report of Father Cheron, Provincial of the Carmelites of this pal, in his Examen de la Théologie Mystique, newly printed, and which I have just to read.

I will tell you nothing of the artificial births that are made from the flesh of some other man to remedy the deformity of those who have lost their own due to extreme cold; which new born ones rot as soon as the people from whose substance they were taken die as if this little flesh haunted on another face lived on the spirits which it attracts from its first source or root.

But it is time for me to come to my seventh and last Principle. This is the last turn of the screw, which, as I hope, will completely tear down the door which prevented us from entering into the knowledge of this marvelous mystery, and which will print a legitimate mark on the doctrine that I put forward, to make it pass for good money.

This principle is, that the source of these spirits, or the body which attracts them to itself, also carries with them what accompanies them, and what is attached, stuck and united to them. This conclusion requires little proof, being self-evident. If there are sweets, pins and ribbons attached to the end of a long rope, or chain, or if there is tar or wax, gum or glue, and let me take this chain by one end and draw it towards me until the far end comes between my hands,

I am therefore going to report to you only a few proven experiences as a result of this principle, which will still very powerfully confirm the previous ones. The great fertility and wealth of England consists of pastures for the food of cattle.

We have the most beautiful ones in the world, and also an abundance of animals, mainly oxen and cows.

There is no poor household that does not have a cow to provide them with milk. It is the main food of poor people, as well as in Switzerland. This is why they take great care of the good condition and health of their cows.

If it happens that when boiling milk it swells so much that it spills over the pan and falls into the fire, the good woman or the servant immediately abandons everything she is doing and runs to the frying pan which she removes from the fire, and at the same time takes a handful of salt, which is always kept in the corner of the chimney, to keep it dry, and throws it onto the embers where the milk had spilled.

Ask her why she does this, and she will tell you that it is to prevent the cow who gave this milk from having udder pain: because otherwise she would have made it hard and ulcerated, and would urinate blood, and finally she would be at risk of dying. Not that such an extremity would happen to her for the first time, but nevertheless she would suffer harm from it; and if this happened often, the cow would surely die in the end.

It might seem that there is some superstition or folly in this. The infallibility of the effect guarantees the latter: and for the first, many believe that the cow's disease is supernatural and the effect of some witchcraft, and thus that the remedy that I have just mentioned is superstitious: but it is easy to disabuse them of this persuasion, by telling them how things are going according to the foundations that I have proposed. the cow would surely die in the end. It might seem that there is some superstition or folly in this.

The infallibility of the effect guarantees the latter: and for the first, many believe that the cow's disease is supernatural and the effect of some witchcraft, and thus that the remedy that I have just mentioned is superstitious: but it is easy to disabuse them of this persuasion, by telling them how things are going according to the foundations that I have proposed. the cow would surely die in the end. It might seem that there is some superstition or folly in this.

The infallibility of the effect guarantees the latter: and for the first, many believe that the cow's disease is supernatural and the effect of some witchcraft, and thus that the remedy that I have just mentioned is superstitious: but it is easy to disabuse them of this persuasion, by telling them how things are going according to the foundations that I have proposed.

The milk falling on the hot coals is converted into steam, which disperses and filters throughout the air; and there it encounters light and solar rays which reach even further, and increase and extend its sphere of activity. This vapor of milk is not simple or alone, but it is composed of atoms of fire which accompany the smoke or vapor of this milk, and mingle and unite with it. Now the sphere of this vapor extending to the place where the cow which gave the milk is located, its udder which is the source from which this milk came out, attracts this vapor to itself, and it stops there and attaches himself to it, and with it. the igneous atoms that accompany it.

The udder is a glandular part, and very tender, and therefore very subject to inflammation: this fire therefore heats it, inflames it and makes it swell, and consequently causes it to become hard, and ultimately ulcerated. The inflamed and ulcerated udder is close to the bladder, which consequently it also impregnates; and this covers the anastomoses of the veins which end there; and hence they overflow and throw their blood into the bladder, from which it empties and comes out in the ordinary way of urine.

But for cows, bleeding is a fatal and irremediable evil. But why does salt remedy all this? This is because it is of a nature very contrary to fire: the latter being hot and volatile, the other cold and fixed, so that where they meet together, the salt knocks down the fire. rushes and kills its action. What we can notice in a fairly ordinary accident.

Chimneys that are loaded with soot catch fire easily. The immediate remedy for it is to fire a gunshot into the chimney: and that causes the burning soot to loosen and fall, and the disorder ceases: but if one has no gun or stick to fire, we throw a quantity of salt on the fire below; and this quells and hinders the atoms of fire which would otherwise rise incessantly and join with those above, which thereby lacking nourishment, consume themselves and come to nothing. The same thing happens to the atoms which are accompanying the steam of the milk. The salt rushes them and strangles them on the spot.

And if some save themselves and escape by the great effort they make and leave with this vapor, they are nevertheless accompanied by the atoms and spirits of salt which attach themselves to them, which like good fighters do not leave never take them, they have the upper hand over their adversary. And you will notice in passing that there is no more excellent balm for burns than the spirit of salt in moderate quantities.

It is therefore established that it is impossible to employ any more effective means to prevent the bad effect of fire on the cow's udder than to throw a sufficient quantity of salt on its milk spilled among the coals. This effect affecting the preservation of the cow's udder following the burning of its milk, reminds me of what several people told me they saw in England. When doctors examine the milk of a nurse for the child of some person of condition, they test it by various means before definitively judging its goodness: such as by taste, by smell, by its color, by its consistency, etc.

But those, on whose milk this last test was carried out, felt very tormented at the udder and breast, and particularly while their milk was being boiled: and therefore after having once endured this evil, they no longer wanted to consent to their milk being taken out of their sight and presence; although they willingly submit to any test other than that of fire.

To confirm this experience of the attraction that the cow's udder makes a fire together with the vapor of the burnt milk, I am going to tell you another of a similar nature, the truth of which I myself have seen more once, and which you can experiment easily. Take a dog's garbage every time he makes it, and always throw it into the fire, at the beginning you will only see him a little heated and moved, but in a short time you will see him as if he were all burned, panting and sticking out his tongue, as if he had just been running for a long time. Now this evil happens to him because his intestines attract the vapor of his burned excrement, and with this vapor, the atoms of fire that accompany them; they deteriorate and become inflamed, so that the dog always having a fever, and no longer able to take food, its sides tighten and shrink; and in the end he dies. It would not be appropriate to divulge this experience among a few people and nations who are too prone to misuse it.

Because the same thing that happens to animals would happen to men, if we did the same with their excrement. A remarkable thing in this connection happened to one of my neighbors during my last stay in England.

I saw him often, because he was a man of great intrigue in business, and I needed such a character then. One day I found him very sad, and the woman all in tears: asking why, they told me that their little one was in very bad shape; that he had a fever, and the whole body was swollen; which could be seen by the redness of his face: that at every opportunity he made an effort to have a bowel movement, and yet that he hardly passed any material, which was all loaded with blood, and that he was reluctant to suckle.

And what troubled them more was that they could conjecture no probable cause for all this disorder; because her nurse was in very good health, had her milk as they could wish for it, and in all other things we had had the necessary care. I tell them on the spot that the last time I had been at their house. I had noticed a peculiarity of which I then intended to warn them: but that at the time something else had distracted me from it, and that afterwards I no longer remembered to tell them.

It was that the child having made a sign of wanting to be put on the ground, as soon as he was there, dropped his garbage, and the nurse immediately took a shovelful of ashes and embers, with which she covered them, and then threw the everything in the fire.

The mother began to apologize to me for having been so negligent in correcting this bad habit of the child; saying that as he grew older, he would correct it himself. I replied that it was not for this consideration that I was giving him this speech, but to find the cause of their child's illness, and then the remedy.

And thereupon I told them of a similar accident, which had occurred two or three years previously to the child of one of the most illustrious Magistrates of the Parliament of Paris, who was brought up in the house of a Physician of great reputation in that time. same city. I also tell them what I have just reported to you, Gentlemen, touching the dogs' excrement.

And I made them think about what they have heard said various times, and which is done quite often in our country. It is that in the villages where it is always very muddy during the winter, if it happens that there is some farmer who is cleaner than the others, and who keeps the avenues of his house more clearly than his neighbors , the cads are very happy to come there at night, or when it is dark, to let loose their stomachs there, doubting that in such villages there is hardly any convenience of ease: apart from the fact that in such places thus properly accommodated, these gallant cads are out of danger of sinking into the mud, which otherwise could climb over their shoes: but the good housewives, opening the door of their home in the morning, find there a present whose unpleasant odor transports them with anger. Those who have been instructed in this game, will immediately redden a spit or a shovel in their fire, then push it thus hot into the excrement, and when the fire is extinguished, they heat it again, and often repeat the same thing.

However, the rascal, who made this filth, feels a pain and colic in the intestines, an inflammation at the base, a continual desire to go to the stool, and he is barely free of it before he suffers an annoying fever. throughout that day, which is why he was careful not to return there another time. And these women, for having thus protected themselves from such affronts, are ignorantly considered witches, and for having made a pact with the Devil, then that they torment people in this way, without seeing or touching them. This Gentleman did not reject what I had just told him, and was even more confirmed when I told him that he looked at the foundation of his child, that without doubt he would find it very red and inflamed, and that when he visited it, we saw as soon as he was loaded with postulates, and as if excoriated.

Hardly any time passed before this poor, languid little darling did not make, with great pain and pitiful cries, some bit of matter, which instead of allowing it to be thrown into the fire, or covered with embers, I had it put in a basin of cold water, which I had taken to a cool place.

This we continued to do every time the child suggested it, and he began to improve immediately, and in two or three days he was doing very well. But fearing to bore you too much, I will only tell you about one experience, quite familiar in our country; and afterwards I will make a summary of everything I have told you, to show you the force and value of the conclusion of this entire speech.

We therefore have, as I have already told you, excellent pastures, which feed and fatten the cattle so abundantly, that it often happens that oxen acquire such an excessive excess of fat that it finally spreads in large quantities on their legs and even on their feet: which causes them to suffer from discomfort under the soles of their feet, which throw out a lot of pus and rotten matter: which prevents these oxen from being able to walk.

The owners are very sorry about this, because although their oxen are no less worth eating, they are nevertheless finding it difficult, especially since they cannot take them to London (where there is a large volume of fatted oxen, for all of England, as Paris is for Auvergne, Normandy and other parts of France) they must be killed in the place, where their flesh is not worth selling, half (and even less) what it would sell for in London.

So here is the cure for this evil. We must be careful where the ox, or cow, or heifer places its sick foot on the ground, on the first step it takes after getting up in the morning, and in this same place it is necessary to cut a mound or turf of all the earth included under the extent of the said foot, and place this mound on a tree, or in a hedge exposed to the north wind. And if this wind comes to blow on this clod of earth, the ox will be perfectly healed in three or four days: but if we expose it to the South, and the South-West wind reigns (which in Toloze we call d 'As much, in Montpellier le Marin, in Italy le Scirocro) his evil will increase.

These circumstances will not seem superstitious to you when you consider that during the rest of the night, matter or pus accumulates in quantity under the diseased foot of the ox, who then comes to take his first step in the morning, he first presses his apostulated foot against the ground, on which this matter or pus is imprinted and attaches strongly and in abundance.

This earth or turf being placed and exposed in a clean place to receive the dry and cold wind of the kiss, the cold and dry atoms of this wind mix with the pus; which extends its spirits throughout the air. the ulcerated foot, which is the source, attracts them; and with these, it also attracts these cold and dry atoms, which cure it, especially since this evil requires nothing other than to be dried and refreshed.

But if we expose this turf to a hot and humid wind, it must have quite the opposite effect. on which this matter or pus is imprinted and attaches strongly and in abundance. This earth or turf being placed and exposed in a clean place to receive the dry and cold wind of the kiss, the cold and dry atoms of this wind mix with the pus; which extends its spirits throughout the air. the ulcerated foot, which is the source, attracts them; and with these, it also attracts these cold and dry atoms, which cure it, especially since this evil requires nothing other than to be dried and refreshed.

But if we expose this turf to a hot and humid wind, it must have quite the opposite effect. on which this matter or pus is imprinted and attaches strongly and in abundance. This earth or turf being placed and exposed in a clean place to receive the dry and cold wind of the kiss, the cold and dry atoms of this wind mix with the pus; which extends its spirits throughout the air. the ulcerated foot, which is the source, attracts them; and with these, it also attracts these cold and dry atoms, which cure it, especially since this evil requires nothing other than to be dried and refreshed.

But if we expose this turf to a hot and humid wind, it must have quite the opposite effect. whoever is the source attracts them; and with these, it also attracts these cold and dry atoms, which cure it, especially since this evil requires nothing other than to be dried and refreshed. But if we expose this turf to a hot and humid wind, it must have quite the opposite effect. whoever is the source attracts them; and with these, it also attracts these cold and dry atoms, which cure it, especially since this evil requires nothing other than to be dried and refreshed. But if we expose this turf to a hot and humid wind, it must have quite the opposite effect.

Here, gentlemen, are all my wheels formed. I admit that they are badly filed and not very polished, but let's see if assembling them and putting them together, they will make the machine work, that if these well assembled wheels bring the conclusion, this unshakable carrack to safe harbor, you will have the kindness to forgive my coarse language and harsh expressions, and passing over words, you will be satisfied with the pure truth of things.

So let's apply what we have said to what is done when we think of an injured person, with the Powder of Sympathy. Let us consider Mr. Howel injured in the hand and this great inflammation which occurred to his wound. We take our garter covered with blood from the wound, we dip it in a basin of water where we have dissolved Vitriol, and we hold the basin, by day in a cabinet in the moderate heat of the Spring Sun, and at night by the chimney, so that the blood which is in the garter is always in a natural temperament, neither hotter nor colder than the degree required for a healthy body. What then (according to the doctrine which we have just established) must happen from all this?

First, the Sun and the light will attract from a great distance and extent, the spirits of the blood that are on the garter. And the moderate heat of the hearth which acts gently on the composition (which amounts to the same thing as if one carried the whole thing dry in its pouch, to make it feel the temperate heat of the body) makes these atoms grow outside, like the water which gathers in circles in filtration, and pushes what rises, to make it go faster and more easily, and makes them expand and filter, and thus themselves walk far in the air , thus helping to attract the Sun and light.

Secondly, the spirits of Vitriol incorporated with the blood cannot fail to make the same journey with the atoms of this blood.

Third party, the wounded hand expires and nevertheless continually exhales an abundance of hot and igneous spirits, which overflow like a river out of the inflamed wound, which cannot be done unless the wound consequently attracts the air which is closest to it.

Fourthly, this air attracts other air, the nearest one, and this one again: and thus there is a current of air attracted all around the wound. Fifthly, with this air finally come the atoms and spirits of blood and Vitriol, which were diffused and spread far into the air by the attraction made of them by light or the Sun.

And perhaps even from the beginning the orb or sphere of these atoms and spirits extended over this great distance without needing the attraction of air or light to bring them there. Sixth, these blood atoms, finding their own source and the original root from which they came, stop and attach themselves there and thus return to their natural beds, and primitive dwellings whereas the other air is only fleeting, and evaporates as soon as it comes; as when he is swept up the chimney, as soon as he is drawn into the bedroom by the door.

Seventhly, the atoms of the blood having joined inseparably with the vitriolic spirits, both these and these jointly imbibe together in all the recesses, fibers and orifices of the veins which are discovered in the wound of the patient, confirm this wound, and finally heal it imperceptibly.

Now to know why such an effect or healing happens so happily, we must examine the nature of Vitriol, it is composed of two parts, one fixed, the other volatile. The fixed which is its salt, is acrid, biting, and in some degree caustic. The volatile is innocuous, sweet, balsamic and astringent and this is why Vitriol is used, as a sovereign remedy in eye drops for inflammations of the eyes, and when they are corroded and as if scratched with a acrid and burning mood or flux: and the same in injections, where it soon cures excoriations, and in the best plasters to quench the blood and incarnate wounds. But those who know how to extract the sweet oil from Vitriol, which is its pure, volatile part, know that there is not in all nature a balm that is similar to this oil.

Because this balm or sweet oil heals in a very short time all kinds of wounds which are not fatal: it heals and consolidates broken veins of the chest, and even lung ulcers, an incurable disease without this balm. Now it is this volatile part of the Vitriol which is carried away alone by the Sun (the great distiller of nature) and which by its means expands in the air, and which the wound or the injured part attracts and incorporates with its blood , with its humors, and with its spirits: this being the case, we cannot expect any other effect from this volatile Vitriol, except that it closes the veins, that it stops the blood, and that in a short time, it heals the wound .

The method and primitive way of using this Sympathetic remedy was to take only Vitriol (even the most common) as it came from the Druggists, without any preparation or addition whatsoever; and dissolve it in fountain water or rather ployé water, in such a quantity that by dipping polished iron (for example a knife) in it, it changes color, as if it were changed into copper.

And in this water we soaked some linen stained with the blood of the wound we wanted to heal, if the linen was dry; but if it was still fresh and damp from the blood, it was only necessary to sprinkle it with loose powder of similar Vitriol, so that this powder was incorporated and soaked into the still damp blood; and keep one or the other in a temperate place; namely the powder in a box in the pouch, and water (which does not admit of this convenience) in some room where the heat is moderate. And each time we put new vitriolic water or new powder on new linen or other bloody fabric, the person felt new relief; as if then his wound had actually been thought of by some sovereign medicine. And for this subject we would remain this way of thinking evening and morning.

But now most of those who use this remedy of Sympathy, diligently use Roman Vitriol or Cipre, then they calcine it to whiteness in the Sun. And besides that, no one adds Tragaganthus gum to it, easy is inventis addere. For my part, I have seen such great and marvelous effects from the vitriol of eighteen deniers per pound alone, like powder which is prepared more expensively today.

However, I do not blame the present practice, on the contrary I praise it, because reason supports it.

First, it seems that the purest and best vitriol must have the best effect.

2. It seems that moderate calcination, such as that of the Sun, removes superfluous humidity from the vitriol, which only weakens it, and even this calcination does not in any way affect what is good about it: like who would cook a clear broth, until it becomes jelly or consumed, he would make it more nutritious.

3. It seems that the exposure that we make of Vitriol to the Sun, to calcine it there, makes its spirits more disposed to be carried into the air by the Sun, when it is necessary, because we cannot doubt that some part of this ethereal fire of the Solar rays is incorporated with Vitriol (as we see with the eye, by calcining Antimony with a fiery mirror, because it greatly increases its weight, almost by half ).

And in this case, the part of this luminous substance which remains in the Vitriol thus calcined, will be very disposed to be removed into the air by similar light and Solar rays: as we see that to make a pump better attract the water from a well, one first throws a little water into it from above: but light easily removes this substance which is con-natural to it, it removes more easily what is incorporated with it.

4. These Solar rays corporified with Vitriol, can still communicate to it some virtue more excellent than it had: as we see that Antimony calcined in the Sun, becomes, from the poison that it was before, a very sovereign and medicinal balsamic, and a most excellent corroborative of nature.

5. Tragaganthe gum, having a glutinating faculty, and being otherwise very innocent, can help to consolidate the wound. can still communicate to it some virtue more excellent than it had: as we see that Antimony calcined in the Sun, becomes, from the poison that it was before, a very sovereign and balsamic medicine, and a very excellent corroborating of nature.

5. Tragaganthe gum, having a glutinating faculty, and being otherwise very innocent, can help to consolidate the wound. can still communicate to it some virtue more excellent than it had: as we see that Antimony calcined in the Sun, becomes, from the poison that it was before, a very sovereign and balsamic medicine, and a very excellent corroborating of nature.

5. Tragaganthe gum, having a glutinating faculty, and being otherwise very innocent, can help to consolidate the wound.

I could, Gentlemen, add to what I have just told you, several very important considerations concerning the form and essence of Vitriol; whose substance is so noble and the origin so admirable, that we can with good reason say that it is one of the most excellent bodies that nature has produced.

The Chemists assure us that it is nothing other than a corporification of the universal spirit which animates and perfects everything that exists in this sublunary world, which is abundantly attracted by an appropriate Magnet; by means of which I myself in a short time, by the mere exposure of it to the air, attracted more than ten times its weight with a celestial Vitriol, marvelous in purity and virtue: privilege, which was only given to him and to the pure virgin Saltpeter.

But to properly anatomize the nature of this transcendent individual can nevertheless say in some way universal and fundamental to all bodies) it would require a much broader discourse than everything I have yet told you: but as I have already spoken to you for so long, it would be an extreme indiscretion for me to abuse your kindness (who have listened to me so far with so much patience and deliberation) if I undertook to enter into new material, or embark on new questions. This is why postponing this until another time (when you please order me) and returning for the present to the general consideration of this Cure.

I will finish this speech after I have said two or three more words to you which are not of little importance, to confirm everything I have previously announced. I have deduced for you the wonderful causes of the great effects of this Powder of Sympathy, from their first root.

These fundamental causes are so linked one to another, that there seems to be no fault or interruption between them in all their sequence: but we will still be strengthened in the belief of their virtue and efficaciousness. , and that it is they which really produce the effect of so many beautiful cures, if we consider that when we practice some change in one of these causes or in all of them together, we immediately see and perceive an effect quite different. from the first.

If I had never seen a watch or clock, I would be very surprised and amazed to see a hand or needle regularly marking the hours on the Quadrant plate, and that it turns and makes its entire circle every twelve hours without me seeing anything pushing this needle. But if I look the other way, I see wheels, springs, and counterweights which are in continual movement: which having considered, I immediately suspect that these wheels are the cause of the movement or whirling of the needle ; although I cannot discern or recognize how these moving wheels move the hand of the Quadrant, because of the plate which is between the two.

I therefore reason thus within myself, saying that every effect must necessarily have a cause; and that every body moved must also by necessity receive its movement from some other body which touches it. Now I see no other body which makes the needle of the Quadrant move and turn, other than the wheels: therefore I am strongly convinced that they are the ones who move the needle. But after I have stopped the movement of one of these wheels, or removed the counterweight, or left the stopped wheel free, the needle immediately returns to its ordinary train, and that making some wheel go faster with my finger, or that changing the counterweight, the needle hastens and advances in proportion more than it did: then I am convinced and entirely satisfied, and I conclude absolutely, that these wheels or counterweight are the true cause of the movement of the needle.

Likewise, if preventing the action of any of the causes which I have established for the true foundation of the Powder of Sympathy, I impair, delay or prevent the healing of the place, I can boldly conclude that the above-mentioned causes are the legitimate and true ones, and that no others should be sought. Let us therefore examine our matter in this way.

I have said that the light carrying away these atoms of Vitriol and blood, and expanding them to a great extent in the air, the wound attracts them and is first relieved, and then afterwards healed by the spirits of the Vitriol which is balsamic. But if you put the basin or the powder with the blood-stained linen, in a cupboard made in a wall in some corner of a cold room, or in a cellar where the light never shines, and from where the air does not come out, and therefore is corrupted, and smells the stench, in this case, the wound will not feel any effect of this powder: and the same will happen, if having placed the basin or the powder in some corner, you cover them with many thick, suffocating and spongy blankets, which soak the atoms which could escape from them, and which retain the light and the rays which enter there and which stop there and are lost there.

Also, if you let the vitriolated water in which the linen is soaked freeze into ice, the injured person will initially feel a great cold in his wound, but when everything is frozen, he will feel neither good nor bad, especially since it freezing cold constipates the pores of the water which then does not allow the spirits to escape.

If we wash stained linen, in vinegar or lye, which by their penetrating acrimony carry away all the blood spirits, before applying Vitriol, it will have no effect; but if we only wash it with simple water, it will still do something, because it does not wash away everything, nevertheless the effect will not be so great, as if the linen had not been washed at all; for then it is full of all the spirits of the blood.

The same cure is carried out by applying the remedy to the sword which injured the person, except that the sword has been strongly heated in the fire, because it would evaporate all the spirits of the blood; which would render the sword unfit for this cure. And here is the reason why Fon can think the sword: It is that the subtle spirits of the blood, penetrate into the substance of the blade of the sword, up to the extent that the blade has been carried in the body of the sword. wounded, and they make their residence there, without anything being able to drive them away, except, as I have said, fire.

As proof of this, hold it over a moderately hot stove, and you will see coming out of the side of the blade opposite the fire, a small humidity which will resemble the stain that the breath makes on a mirror or on the same polished blade: and if you look at it through some glass which greatly magnifies objects, you will see that this dew of spirits consists of small bubbles or swollen bladders.

And when once they have completely evaporated, you will no longer see them on this sword, if it were not pushed back into some living body. Not even from the beginning you will see them anywhere else, except precisely on the part of the blade which entered the wound.

This subtle penetration of these spirits into the hard steel, helps in the belief of the entry of similar spirits into the skin of a fat woman, as I had promised you, treat the sixth principle, to notice in its place. Now then while these spirits are in the sword, it will serve to heal the wounded: but after the fire has once chased them away, the remedy applied to this sword will do nothing at all.

Furthermore, if some violent heat accompanies these atoms, it inflames the wound; but common salt can remedy this, the humidity of the water moistens the wound, and the cold causes the injured person to shiver. To confirm all these particularities, I could tell you several notable stories.

But I have already exercised your patience too much, and therefore I will not mention it here; but I offer to discuss them in particular with those of this worthy Assembly, who might be curious to hear them. it inflames the wound; but common salt can remedy this, the humidity of the water moistens the wound, and the cold causes the injured person to shiver.

To confirm all these particularities, I could tell you several notable stories. But I have already exercised your patience too much, and therefore I will not mention it here; but I offer to discuss them in particular with those of this worthy Assembly, who might be curious to hear them. it inflames the wound; but common salt can remedy this, the humidity of the water moistens the wound, and the cold causes the injured person to shiver.

To confirm all these particularities, I could tell you several notable stories. But I have already exercised your patience too much, and therefore I will not mention it here; but I offer to discuss them in particular with those of this worthy Assembly, who might be curious to hear them. and therefore I will not make any mention of it here; but I offer to discuss them in particular with those of this worthy Assembly, who might be curious to hear them. and therefore I will not make any mention of it here; but I offer to discuss them in particular with those of this worthy Assembly, who might be curious to hear them.

I therefore end, Gentlemen, by representing to you that all this mystery is governed by natural means and circumstances, although by very subtle spirits and springs. It seems to me that my speech has quite obviously shown you that in this cure there is no need to admit an action by an Agent distant from the patient, I have traced to you a real communication from one to the other, namely of a balsamic substance which mixes bodily with the wound.

It is a puny cowardice and smallness of heart, and a crass ignorance of understanding, to pretend some effect of magic or charm, and to limit all the actions of nature to the grossness of our senses, when we have no not sufficiently considered or examined the causes and principles on which we should base our judgment.

Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vin-dice nodus. Incident.
(Nor does God intervene, unless he is worthy of the wine-say knot. Incident.)

END V3.0