The Live Wave Pilot
THE LIVE WAVE PILOT
Or
The secret of the ebb and flow
of the sea and of the fixed point
Mathurin Eyquem du Martineau
1678
WARNING TO READER.
When this Treatise first appeared, some of those who did not understand its allegorical meaning, first published that it was so abstract that it could not be tasted or heard: new Edition: and to engage me even more willingly, they kindly spared me a rather curious little speech on the same subject, which they advised me to put at the end of this collection
. This is what we had to say on our part, now let the Author speak to those who will read his Work.
FRIEND READER,
Having pleased God to give me some light in Natural Philosophy, and particularly on the cause of the ebb and flow of the Sea, and on that of the Fixed Point, I have made it the subject of the Discourse that you will see later. I accompanied it with an abridged Voyage of the Indies, with the figure and the explanation of the Quadrature of the Circle so much sought after by the Ancients, the History of which was given to me by a Gentleman whom I met in my Travels. I was reluctant to add it to my Treatise on Flux and Reflux, because it can pass for a fable rather than a real History. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that to make a Voyage of the Indies, it is absolutely necessary to equip two Vessels, then to embark in one, and to make serve only the other to carry victuals. That one is obliged to go to the Fortunate Islands to wait for the wind: that from this place one sails to the Hesperides; let there be taken from it waters and salt suitable for making this voyage: that these waters and this salt being put in a vessel, have the virtue of giving during the journey all the clean winds, and that they make the journey happy: that the Port of the Indies where one is going, be in a small unknown gulf, which one supposes to be in the Kingdom of Eden, which borders the Red Sea: that it is necessary to load these Vessels with several goods which one does not commonly bring back from India; and that, finally, it only takes twenty-four hours to return from this place to Danzig: certainly all this detail seems fabulous; and whatever science it contains, anyone who would pass it off as a serious story would be unreasonable.
Having communicated this History, and this Figure to one of my friends who is a perfectly good Physicist, and having asked him to tell me his feelings about it; he assured me that both were mysterious, that they contained great secrets, and that they were not properly addressed to sailors and other sailors, but rather to the most learned men. In a word, he told me so much about it that I found myself obliged to add it to it for the second part. So don't blame me if you don't understand the meaning first, I put nothing of my own into it: I'm simply telling the story of a story or a fable, whatever you want to call it, and as sincerely as it was told to me; finally Reader take advantage of it if you can: but read it all, and suspend your judgment until the end:
Moreover, as the movements which I have observed in the sea are so numerous, that it might be confusing to treat them separately; to render them more intelligible, I have reduced them under six principal Movements, and the whole Treatise into eleven Chapters, which contain several natural and curious questions, and which serve a great deal to clarify the subject. I have commented on each of these Chapters from a familiar conversation or colloquium that I had at the Tuileries with one of my friends to whom I read this Book.
CHAPTER I.
Of the most perfect and mysterious numbers; first principles.
As I shall treat in all this Discourse of Natural Causes, it seems that previously it would be appropriate to speak of the Being of Beings; that is to say, from this first Cause, from which all the others are produced, and depend. But as it is an infinite and incomprehensible substance, that it is necessary for a singular vocation to treat a subject so eminent, that I do not feel any of it, and do not recognize in myself enough lights to penetrate so far:
I prefer to rely on what is written of it, than to undertake a Work that Men or Angels will never be able to define. I will therefore treat simply and succinctly in this Chapter of the most perfect and mysterious numbers, by which the Sages, who have carefully and exactly researched the secrets of Nature, have had a perfect knowledge of God: I will make known those for which they had the most veneration, and I will make them serve as the basis and foundation of all this discourse.
There is nothing more certain that the new Sages, infinitely more enlightened than the ancients, remained in agreement that the number three was the most perfect; because it relates to the most holy and most sacred Trinity of persons united in one God, that this number is without end, as it is without beginning, and that all the other numbers depend on it, like the effects of their cause.
After this number, followed that of seven, then that of nine, then that of ten, then that of eleven, and finally that of twelve; and those who have gone further have departed from the terms of Nature, after which there is nothing certain.
SYMPOSIUM 1.
The Friend. It is true that the ancients had great veneration for numbers, particularly for those of seven and nine; but they never said the reasons, the properties, nor demonstrated the use: If you know of the particularities, you will be pleased to tell me.
The Author. Not having read any Author who has dealt with it distinctly and thoroughly, I have sought knowledge of it in popular traditions; and in my travels having had the good fortune to meet learned Cabalists, and to confer often with them, here is what I have learned from them.
In their cabal, the seven Planets take themselves for the number of seven, so sung in their secret works.
That these seven points are masculine; and when they want to do particular works, they take one of these points, and join them to the feminine numbers; and from this union is made a compound conforming to their intention; as when we join vowels to consonants, from their mixture we form words, which express our feelings and our thoughts.
That the number nine means the Crystalline Heaven, because if we count the Heavens from degree to degree, beginning with that of the Moon, which is closest to the earth, this Heaven is the ninth, and the Philosophers wanting to imitate Nature, and compose a Heaven which resembles it, take pure waters, which have in them a degree of natural fire, and compose a Heaven, which has the same virtues and the same properties.
The tenth Heaven, which is purely a degree of very subtle fire, called the first motive, takes itself for the tenth number, because it coagulates and perfects the waters of the Crystalline Heaven, which is below, and retains it by its own virtue.
That the Empyrean Sky takes itself likewise for the eleventh number, because it is perfect, and it serves as a dwelling place for the Blessed; that there is no change or vicissitude in him. Finally, the number twelve makes the end of the circle; that is to say, when this number will have accomplished its revolution with the central fire, Nature will be entirely consumed and transmuted by it. That, sir, is what I learned from it; let us pass, please, to the second principles, which will be more intelligible.
CHAPTER II.
Second principles.
When God made the work of the Universe, he created three subjects, to use them for his purposes.
The first is the Angelic nature, which he uses to inspire in man, whom he has created free among all creatures, by an effect of his mercy and clemency, the feelings of a glorious and immortal life, by the practice of a pure and holy life.
The second, are the influences which the Stars distill down to the center of the earth, by an effect of its power, by means of which the earth and the other Elements are animated and incessantly produce the diversities of things, which we see on its theater for its ornament, the good and the utility of this man.
And the third is a globe in the center of the earth, with certain bodies, by the breaths and movements of which it causes the same influences to be rejected towards the surface; which allying themselves with the Elements are insinuated into the Mixts, and execute, by an effect of his justice, his wishes in the lower region.
Although we know that God could do all things by his word; nevertheless the Scriptures teach us that he created the world in many intervals, and by some work. He wanted it so, to let us know that all things had to work for his glory, and that man himself would be subject to it like other creatures.
To understand the order that God held during the creation of the World, and the distribution of things, according to my thought, it is necessary to consider this infinite spirit as a Worker (if we can speak thus, without offending his divine Majesty) who works a material, separates its parts, and establishes them according to their qualities, their properties, and their merit.
For this matter, I suppose that God first of all, had created the Angelic nature, incorruptible, and eternal, to worship and serve him.
Then, so as not to be obliged to create things one after the other, he suddenly created a matter which contained the four Elements, and all the seeds, which we called Chaos. That, in this matter, things were confusedly mixed up, and came out of it in order. Here is the disposition of this chaos, and how it pleased God that things came out of it.
He created by his omnipotence, in the center of this matter, a Globe, the surface of which is divided into twelve equal parts, each having in the middle a spherical body, which occupies the diameter of the part which moves circularly, on poles which are proper to it.
In the center of this Globe, from within, another body fixed and stopped like the earth in the middle of the Universe, to which God attached the spirit of fire, so that from this place extending its quality in the mass, he made it work, and brought out what was in it.
The fire, which before was above all the mass, by its nature, was no sooner enclosed in the center, than it began to act, gradually insinuated itself into matter, (as we see that it acts in water, reducing it to vapor) disturbed it, agitated it, elevated it, and caused to distil from it a pure and incorruptible quintessence, from which God created the Empyrean Heaven, where the Angels and all the Blessed Ones adore, and sing his praises.
After this quintessence, the fire being fortified, brought out a second less pure, from which, by the word of God, the lower Heavens were made and raised in roundness, like the most perfect figure, around the matter from which it was distilled.
The fire having grown stronger, brought out a third quintessence, containing the seeds of all things.
These seeds have been specified; purified, and reduced to bodies, which we call Stars. These bodies are divided into Wandering Stars, which we call Planets, and Fixed Stars. These were placed in the Firmament, and remained attached to their Heaven, like Bees to their ray: from where they throw their seeds on the earth, and there make procreations conforming to their nature. So that we can say that they are the authors of the Minerals, and of part of the Vegetables.
The Planets have been placed closer to the earth; the Sun in their middle, so that from this place, by the action of its movement, the Stars and the other Planets, were moved, excited, and cast their seeds; and the Moon in the lowest degree, so that it receives them and reflects them in the center, by the sympathy which it has with the waters and the Elementary compounds, to be then raised towards the surface, by virtue of the central causes: so that we can also say, that they are the authors of the Metals, of the great Vegetables, and of the insects, which have no order in the seeds of the compounds, which are made by copulation of male and female.
These things being done with the rest of the creatures, what remained in the midst of the Universe, has been called Corruptible Elements, of which all sublunar bodies are composed.
SYMPOSIUM II.
The Friend. It is true that the stars influence compounds, attenuate them or animate them, according to the nature of their influences; but that their influences are brought to the center, and that from the center they are reflected to the surface of the earth, by the movements of the bodies which you establish there; that these influences are the cause of the winds, rains, hails, thunder, lightning, storms and storms, which are formed in the Elemental region, I do not grant, because the orb of the earth is so prodigiously thick, that it is impossible that they can penetrate it. And when they were brought there, the bodies that you supposed there having a regulated movement, would always cause us the same temperature, either mild, or violent, and there would never be any change in the lower region.
The Author. If all the Elements were reduced to earth, pressed and united together, and petrified like Rocks, I believe that they would not penetrate them: But as air and water are penetrable and fluid, the influences penetrate them, and are brought there as the rays of the Sun penetrate a diaphanous body, and are pushed to the center with as much activity, as a flash flashes and disappears.
It is not the movement of the bodies which are at the centre, which make the temperament of the air, and its variation, it is the various qualities of the influences of the Planets, which they distribute in the time which they have marked by falling on the fixed point, and this time is always according to their strength or their weakness. There is only this subject in nature capable of receiving the influences of the Stars, and distributing them on certain days, and which one can predict: for as much as the Planets have different glances between them at the time of a new quarter of the Moon, it is as many different influences which fall; some are strong, others are weak; some are of one nature, others of another; some are to be produced the very day they fell; others the next day, and others four days later, more or less. It is necessary that there be a certain subject on whom the influences fall, who receives them, who distributes them, and brings them to light in order, to avoid confusion, which would otherwise occur in nature. This subject cannot be in a cleaner place than at the center of the Universe, because it is a firm, constant and immutable point, that the Stars and the Heavens, which revolve all around, throw their influences there perpendicularly, which they would not do at any other point.
This point must have a strong antipathy to the influences, so that they are thrown back from them to the bodies which surround it, and that these, by means of their continual breaths, raise them through the pores of the mass, to the surface, and in the middle region, to produce the effect to which they are delivered.
Of all the influences that fall down here, there are only those that occur at the time when the Planets have glances between them, at each change of quarter of the Moon, which are brought to the center, because they fall on the Moon, which has the property of reflecting them; as the rays of the Sun are reflected when they fall on a mirror, to the objects which are opposed to it, and communicate their qualities to them, as I will say in the sequel.
It is the influences which compose the Metals in the earth, and which form the constitution of the air in each quarter of the Moon, which make all the variations and changes which we see happening in the lower region.
Those which are made by the other aspects of the Planets, in other times, make no change in the constitution of the air; but they are spread over the compounds, and by means of the air insinuate themselves into them, and communicate to them their qualities and their virtues, and do not pass any further.
These twelve Bodies which surround the fixed Body (which I call Satellites here only) have the power, through their movements and their breaths, to make the waters of the sea rise and fall, as I will say immediately, after having said a word about the Elements, their qualities and mixtures.
CHAPTER III.
Elements, their qualities and mixtures.
After God had separated from Chaos the most subtle matter, had created the Stars and the Heavens from it, had placed them each in the place suitable to their nature, had established them as Sovereigns over the lower Causes, what remained at the bottom was a heavy, filthy and impure matter, containing the four Elements. The Elements were double before subtle matter, which was properly the spirit of Chaos, was separated from it: but this separation being made, they remained simple in their qualities, and stripped of all virtues; to know the fire which occupies the hot center, the earth which surrounds it, as the most opaque and impure, dry Element; the water which surrounds the earth, and which refreshes it, cold; and the air that surrounds them all, damp. These are their simple qualities.
The fire heats the air, the air moistens the water, the water cools the earth, and the earth stops the fire: And in another sense, the fire heats the earth, the earth condenses the water, the water cools the air, and the air moistens the fire, and makes it fluid. And from these qualities and mixtures, with the influences of the Stars which mingle with them, which make them double, which link them and unite them together, and give them back their first virtue, the sublunary compounds are formed.
SYMPOSIUM III.
The Friend. If the Elements were simple and distinguished from each other, as you say, they would not unite, and would never form a generation; for the union comes from the sympathy of the objects, and not from the contrary; it is necessary that they are double, and that each Element contains in itself the other Elements, so that from this combination, the compounds are formed.
The Author. Without the virtue which God has placed in the central causes, which by their natural action agitate them, and the influences of the stars which mingle with them, accelerate their movement, and give them back their first form, they would be like corpses stripped of all virtues. But as these influences penetrate the earth to the center, they excite the bodies there, of which we have spoken, which reject them by their antipathy; they extend into the lower Elements, they animate them, they mingle them, they sublimate them, and of their purest parts compose their mixtures, sometimes make the sea roar, rumble the thunder, strike the lightning, and work wonders.
This would be a proper place to deal with this matter, and to show how it is done, differently from those who have written about it, and how the Stars feed and sustain themselves naturally by themselves, and will sustain themselves as long as the Author of Nature destroys them, and encloses them in their first nothingness: But that would be departing from the subject that I have undertaken, and making a large volume, instead of a prototype; this is why I postpone it to another time, to speak of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, and of the Fixed Point, which are my principal objects.
CHAPTER IV.
The Author
Before entering into the Discourse of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, and of the Fixed Point, I believed that it was necessary, for a more perfect intelligence, to draw up the figure of it in this place, in order to have recourse to it, and to show how the things which cause it, are arranged in the center of the earth. There she is :
SYMPOSIUM V.
The Friend. This figure has some relation to that of the Compasses that are printed for the Sea, by means of which the Pilots know the winds proper to their navigations; you apparently make a special explanation of it.
The Author. It is true that its rays show the winds, but to know them finely, it is necessary to have their magnet; and the Pilot who knows perfectly the use of this magnet, easily subjects the winds, and adapts them to his navigation, in all times and in all places. But as these Pilots are rare, the common attaches itself to the magnetic needle, because it shows the North Pole, and the fixed and sensitive part of our hemisphere; and it is through this that they sail, and that they are also often stopped for a very long time in ports, and cannot get out of them for lack of clean wind. This figure has another foundation and other demonstrations; here is the explanation.
CHAPTER V.
Explanation of the System or figure.
The character which is in the middle resembling a Sun, which throws twelve rays, is the Fixed Point, where resides the elementary fire, of which we have spoken (which God has placed in the center), the twelve little bodies which surround it in the form of a Globe, are those which God has given to guard it, and prevent the waters from approaching it. The two middle circles, which are within a line of each other: the lowest towards the center, shows the circumference of the Sea; the one which follows it close, marks the circumference of the earth, which contains the Sea and the limit: the two empty spaces which appear in the circle which marks the Sea, are the two parts of the Earth, from which the Sea has withdrawn, to rise, and to be full at the two points where you see it. The two large circles which surround the figure represent the faces, concave and convex, of the Tenth Heaven, which we called the first mobile. The characters which are described between these two circles, represent Heaven, divided into twelve equal parts, each of which is called by the name of some animal, terrestrial or marine, of which it has the qualities, properties and virtues in the eighth degree.
EXAMPLE.
This figure which is at the very bottom, where is written Orient, is the character of Aries:
The one which follows the side where is written Septentrion, is called Taurus:
The next, Gemini
After comes the character of Cancer
Then that of Leo
After follows that of Virgo Then
Libra Then
Scorpio
Then Sagittarius
Then comes Capricorn
Then Aquarius
And finally Pisces
As each of these parts of Heaven are simple, this one also has the simple qualities of the Elements, and for ment the universal complexion of compounds.
KNOW:
Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius have the nature of fire.
Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn, have that of the earth.
Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius, that of air.
Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces have that of water.
They have several other virtues and properties, which we will discuss later, particularly those which should serve our purpose.
SYMPOSIUM V.
The Friend. I believe that all your reasoning on the cause of the ebb and flow of the sea, of its movements, and of the fixed point, turns on this figure; here I am fully instructed: I am ready to hear you; you will begin when you please.
The Author. I persuade myself, Sir, that most of the Ancients, who wrote of the ebb and flow of the sea, had seen it only by imagination: For if they had been exposed to the voyages which the men of that time commonly make there, they would have known its various movements, and would have spoken of it.
The Romans who had the most beautiful lights of nature, and who wrote the best about it, believed that the torrid Zone was roasted by the ardent heat of the Sun and inaccessible, even Saint Augustine could not help saying, that the earth was as flat as a table, and that there were no Antipodes. However, we know from our own experience that the torrid zone is inhabited, that the climate there is tempered by the vapors which rise there every day, which oppose the rays of the sun, are reduced to dew, and sometimes to rain, refresh the country, and make it fertile; that the earth and the sea are spherical, and that there are men everywhere. Which shows their error, and their lack of experience in this matter.
The Friend. I have seen the Sea in several places on earth; but I have only ever noticed a rise and a fall, of which everyone speaks, and I believe that she has no other movements.
The Author. What you say are his ordinary movements, which cannot be ignored; but it still has some secrets, which make it rise several times, once higher than another, and descend in the same way, and has several other movements which you will see below.
CHAPTER VI.
Speech of the Sea, and of all its movements in general.
La Mer has twenty-one movements, which I have reduced to six main ones. The first is simple, and its function is to engender, produce waters, and withdraw them within itself in a certain time. The second is likewise simple, and its movement is to grow and rise, until it is full in six hours. The third is simple, like the previous ones, and its movement is to descend, and to be low tide to its last degree, for another six hours, always delaying 24 minutes of an hour each time it is full, which is forty-eight minutes for each natural day. The fourth movement contains fourteen; namely seven amounts higher one than the other, and seven descending also lower one than the other. The fifth is double; that's to say, that it fills up twice in two extraordinarily high seasons of the year. The sixth is likewise double; that is to say also that it is at an extraordinarily high time of the year, as well as the previous ones. And in another time, opposed to this one, becomes extraordinarily low.
SYMPOSIUM VI.
The Author. These, sir, are all the movements I have observed in the sea.
The Friend. There are many of them, and few people will be able to imagine them: but do they have no other explanation than the one you have just given?
The Author. I intend to let you know in a few words secrets that until now have been unknown. The cause of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea is so particular, that to make it understood, it is necessary to open the earth to the center, and put it upside down: But as it is difficult for a Painter, however expert he may be in his Art, to accomplish his Works so well that an oddball does not find there some brushstroke which he dislikes; I am already convinced that my Writings will not be to the taste of all men, that many will criticize them, even without foundation and without examining them: But those who will know Nature, who will have access with her, and caress her in the fields and in the city, among nobles and commoners, will keep silence.
The Friend. If the men who compose were obliged to write to the taste of all the others, they would be as hindered as the one who wanted to give them all at the same time what they wanted. It should suffice not to write anything ridiculous, which is against common sense and good morals: For however miserable the Writings of a somewhat reasonable Author may be, one always learns from them things which one did not know. Just carry on.
The Author. Here is the first movement.
CHAPTER VII.
Of the first movement of the sea.
The first movement is not suitable only for the Sea, but for all nature; as being that movement by which compounds are formed, and take their being.
This movement proceeds properly from elementary fire, which insinuates itself and is produced at the center of materials, digests them, corrupts them, unites them, and causes them to vegetate.
We said before, that God had placed a body in the center of the Universe, and that he had joined to it the elementary fire, and twelve bodies which surround it, and move around it. Both this body and the whole mass of the Universe are only an animated and animating compound. The fire of which I have just spoken, is established in its center, like heat in the heart of the animal, spreads throughout the compound, animates it and makes it act. The deep waves, and the floods, which we see rising so prodigiously, and following each other in the sea, proceed from this central fire which is in it, which troubles and agitates it, as the pulse and the arteries are agitated in the animal by the movement of the heart, and the heart by the heat which is contained in it; and this is the first movement.
The bodies which move around this central fire, are like the lungs of all this compound, and make the second movement, as I will say hereafter.
SYMPOSIUM VII.
The Friend. I believed that there was no other elementary heat than that of the Sun; that it served for the composition of the Mixtes, and to make them vegetate: but it seems that you make the fire perform these functions which you establish in the center, and give it the domination of the compound.
The Author. The Sun and the other Planets are objects distinguished from the Elements: For although they have their simple or mixed qualities, they are not for that reason Elements; it is they which contain the principal seeds of things, and the Elements the bodies into which the seeds are thrown, and specified each according to their nature. The Sun is the chief Lord, and the true Dominator of the crude compounds. It is used to organize the bodies, to give them the form, and several other virtues of which the Elements are devoid, as God gives the form to the man, and embellishes his Soul of the virtues which it pleases. The central fire, which I call in this place tyrant of the world, which each subject receives at birth, however small it may be, is nevertheless that which sustains it, and the subject is only destroyed by its deprivation.
There is still another fire full of love and sweetness, which distills from the eternal Source, or first Motive, of which I spoke at the Symposium of the Chapter of Numbers, which is the Principle of things, to which nothing resists. It penetrates everything, resolves everything, sublimates everything, and coagulates everything that pleases it; occurs in its Sphere, and makes all things new. Here are the second and the third Movement.
CHAPTER VIII.
Of the second and third movement of the Sea.
I will explain the two and third Motions of the Sea jointly, because they have only one cause. It is these two Movements that make up its Flux and Reflux; this great Wonder of the world, which has made men write so much.
This infinite Spirit, who made the Work of the Universe, placed in the center a body of which we have spoken, which we called fixed, and joined to it this elementary heat which we called central; which, by means of the superior Causes, produces, gives birth to, vegetates and excite all the things that we see in the world, occupies the center of them, excites concupiscence, which is only corrected in animals by reason; and their being ceases only by its privation, as I have said.
This point has twelve principal rays, which correspond to the twelve Bodies of which I have spoken above. He inspires them, and gives them movement and action, as he inspired the Heavens, the compounds which are below, and gave them also movement and action: And God, as the first Cause, established the order of Movement, ordered some of these Bodies to turn to the right, and others to the left: as the first mover to go from East to West, and to the lower Heavens, from West to East.
These twelve Bodies surround this fixed point in the form of Globe, are like the lungs of an animal, which aspires and breathes; and in this aspiration and respiration, by means of their breaths, they cause the waters of the Sea to rise and fall: like an animal which inhales and breathes, lowers and raises its sides; or like two men who would each have a pipe, pierced at the bottom with two holes, opposite each pipe, and arranged so that the ends of the pipes, with the holes, would be under water, in the middle of a round vessel, which would be full of them: the four holes of the two pipes corresponding directly to the four parts of the circumference of the vessel; which would blow one after the other through the upper end of the pipes; and by force of the wind would cause the waters to rise and fall successively in the four parts of the vase which would be opposite them, as they succeeded each other, to catch their breath: Or else, who would blow through the stem of a pipe, where there would be a weight at the other end; which would catch their breath to breathe again, and would raise this weight as before, which had lowered to the hole of the pipe while they took their breath.
They keep the fixed point by their breaths, and prevent the Sea from approaching it, like the kernel of a pavi (variety of peach, note of LAT) prevents the flesh from approaching its almond, which occupies its center, and in which resides all the virtue: For if the Sea approached the center, and surmounted it, there would no longer be order in the Universe: everything would be destroyed as the animal is destroyed, and its being ceases, when the natural heat is attacked and overcome. e by phlegm its opposite.
These bodies correspond to the twelve Signs of the first Motive, and bear their same names. They receive the influences of the Stars by the rays of the center, and communicate them to the Elements, and to all the Compounds.
Four of these most principal Signs of contrary qualities are fixed and arrested at the four principal parts of the World, as bastions: viz., hot Aries in the Eastern part: cold Cancer in the Northern part: moist Libra in the Western part, and Capricorn, of dry quality, in the Southern part.
The other eight move circularly each with respect to its radius; not like the Heavens around the earth, but each on its own Poles; like a bee in its cubicle, and make their turn or revolution in twelve hours and twenty-four minutes, by different movements: like Taurus and Pisces in the Eastern part, turning inside on the side of Aries, which is in between.
Virgo and Scorpio, in the western part, also turning inwards towards the center, on the side of Libra, which is also in between.
Leo and Gemini, in the northern part, turning inwards towards the center, on the side of Cancer, which is in between.
Sagittarius and Aquarius, in the Southern part, turning inwards on the side of Capricorn, which is also in-between.
Four of these eight always face towards the center, while the other four have it on the surface; that is to say, when the face of these, which have it towards the center, begins to turn, and to rise to the surface. The face of those who have it on the surface begins to turn inward; so that there are always four of the eight, which have their face towards the center, for each space of six hours twelve minutes, and the other four on the surface, and make their entire revolution in twelve hours twenty-four minutes. These Movements are proper and natural to these Bodies as to the first Mobile, and to the lower Heavens to go from East to West, and from West to East; and to the Planets to move in their Epicycles, ascend to their Apogees, and descend to their Perigees.
These signs, or Bodies, are also called Winds, of which the four principal ones are, Aries, in the Eastern part, which we call East.
Libra, in the Western part, which we called West. Cancer in the Northern part, which we called North: And Capricorn in the Southern part, which we called South.
The other eight are Winds which partake of these, and derive their names from them.
Like Pisces and Taurus in the Eastern part; namely, Pisces, East-South-East, and Taurus East-North-East. Virgo and Scorpio in the Western part; namely, Virgo, West Northwest, and Scorpio, West Southeast. Aquarius and Sagittarius in the Southern part; namely, Aquarius, Southeast, and Sagittarius, Southwest. Leo and Gemini, in the northern part; namely, Leo North-West, and Gemini, North-East.
This is where all the other Winds come from, which I won't name because they would only confuse, and they are useless about us.
The Winds and the breaths are natural to these bodies, as to the Stars and the Heavens to influence, and their breath is regulated like the aspiration and respiration to the Fishes and the Animals, and are agitated and put out of this rule by the influences of the Stars; just as the pulse of man is put out of its natural course by means of fever, which is most often caused only by some malign influence of the stars and planets, which excite the center, urge the humors, disturb the constitution, and disturb it.
Thus, the natural agitation of the waves of the sea, and the movement of its ebb and flow, are excited by our central fire, the movements and the breaths of these bodies which we have just named; and here is how it is done.
I suppose that the sea is full at the Signs of Aries and Libra, of our figure, where it is low, and that it wants to become full at the Northern and Southern parts, where the Signs of Cancer and Capricorn are, where it is full. The two Signs of Leo and Gemini, which are at the sides of Cancer, having the face towards the center, turn outwards; namely, Leo on the right, and Gemini on the left; and little by little their movements carrying their breaths towards the waters which are raised on the side of the Signs of Taurus and Virgo, drive them out and raise them in equal force along the line towards the point of Cancer; which by its direct and continual breath elevates them to the point which is limited to them; as a jet of water is lifted and pushed in height, following also the height and the force of the water,
The signs opposed to Gemini and Leo, which are Aquarius and Sagittarius, turn at the same time as these, and in the same way, by means of their breaths, push the waters which are at the sides of Scorpio and Pisces: and with the assistance of the direct and continual breath of Capricorn, raise them of equal force along the line, like the preceding, and on this side, to the point which is ordered to them: So that in six hours twelve minutes, which is half the time of their revolution, the sea becomes full in the southern and northern parts; and low tide in those of East and West, where the waters decline towards the center along the line which passes from East to West, with the faces of the Signs of Taurus and Pisces, of Scorpio and Virgo, which are in these two parts,
And when the sea wants to rise, and become full in the eastern and western parts, where the signs of Aries and Libra are, the signs of Taurus and Pisces, which are at the side of Aries, face towards the center, turn outward; namely, Taurus on the right, and Pisces on the left on the side of Aries, blow with equal force, as the faces rise: they drive the waters towards the Signs of Aquarius and Gemini, and with the assistance of the direct and continual breath of Aries, raise them along the line to the point determined for them: and the Signs opposed to them; namely, Aquarius and Scorpio, who have their faces towards the center, rise at the same time as these, little by little with their breaths, and in the same way as we have said,
So that in six hours twelve minutes, it is high tide in the two parts of the East and the West, and low tide in the same time in those of the North and the South; so much so that in twelve hours and twenty-four minutes there is high tide in the four parts of the world: and it is never high tide in one part, but not in that which is opposite to it, and low likewise; because the Signs, which previously had raised the waters to the previous height of the sea, return within, decline to complete their revolution, and no longer sustain them; except for the fixed ones, which stop them at their perigee, support them there, until they are taken by the Winds of the other Signs, which rise little by little, take them, and raise them towards the surface.
When the sea is at its perigee, when it would not be raised by the breaths of the Signs, as I have just said, the waters which are at their last period, being no longer sustained by the Winds which have raised them, and being put in their fullness, would naturally descend on the two sides where the sea is low, and would be equal over all the land. four and fifth hour of their lesson, than at the first and last hour; and it must be so, so that by means of this rule the earth may be fixed and stopped at the center of the Universe, giving rest to men, and to the rest of creatures.
SYMPOSIUM VIII.
The Friend. Are there no other Winds there than those which come from the Signs which you have just named in the centre?
The Author. There are two kinds of them, the first are those which come from the influences of the Stars, which are brought to the center, which communicates them to the Signs which surround it; these produce them and bring them to light, as you have seen in certain times, according to the principles of Astrology, which are the true Winds on which one must base, because one knows them by the aspects of the Stars, and one predicts them several years before they arrive.
The second are not Winds, but reputed Winds by the vulgar. They are vapors and exhalations generated in the earth by the Sun, and the central heat; which, acting in concert on the water which is in the earth, urge it to come out; and as it cannot withdraw, and rejoin itself promptly with its whole, evaporates, and gains the height, extends into the concavities of the earth; the heat follows her, presses her as before; it tries to escape, and having found the way, it comes out like smoke, agitated by the wind, through the crack of a badly closed door or window, it passes with haste, and rises in the middle region. Ordinarily, this is done in the morning, when the Sun begins to heat up and open the pores of the earth: what I have seen several times at the foot of the Alps, in the Pyrenees Mountains, and several other places, both full and high, particularly in Cayenne, and in the Islands which are near the Line, where the vapors rise every day, refresh the air of the Country, and temper it. But as these vapors and these exhalations do not have a certain principle, on which one can sit a solid judgment, on the hour and the time of their rising, the time of their duration, and the side which they will rise and which they will blow; whether their Winds will be hot or cold, dry or wet; whether their Winds will be mild, mediocre, or violent; we do not put them in the rank of the Winds which have their certain principles, like those of our Signs; so much so that these vapors rise only in humid and aquatic climates, and subject to great heat, extend very little; and the Pilots never put their vessels at sea on Winds of this nature, because they are of short duration, they would soon abandon them, and contrary ones might be found, which would oblige them to relax: they wait for one of our master Winds to leave the port, because it is often enough to make their trip, if it would be five hundred leagues, if it is well managed.
The Friend. It is true that few people know how to distinguish the Winds, which are produced by the vapors of the earth, and of the water, from those which come from the Stars, whose difference is very great; for these have a certain principle, and their rules, and the others have none. But tell me if the bodies that you showed me, blow when they turn towards the center, as when they turn towards the sea and raise it; why the Winds blow on the land and on the sea, several days on the same side; since following the course of the centric Signs, they only have to blow for six hours twelve minutes? why sometimes the Winds decline from one point to another, and shortly afterwards return to their first point? why the Winds sometimes change from the point where they are, to the point which is opposite to them,
The Author. If these bodies aspire and breathe as animals do, as we have said, let them make their breath when they turn towards the sea, and raise it with their breaths, they cannot breathe, when they turn towards the center, which is the time they aspire: For if a calm and temperate animal, aspires and breathes a thousand times in an hour. It takes twelve hours and twenty-four minutes for these bodies to inhale and breathe once; for this reason you see that they do not blow when they turn towards the center; also it would be superfluous, since their breath would produce no effect there; the U-turn they make towards the center serves them only as a refreshment, and to regain new strength to breathe again as before.
In the number of bodies that I have shown you, there are fixed and mobile; the fixed ones are Aries in the East, and Libra in the West. Cancer in the northern part, and Capricorn in the southern part. These four are called Master Winds; when the influence is distributed to one of these bodies, the wind blows without interruption, towards the opposite side of the Sign which is blowing, and continues little or much, according as the influence is strong, or whether it is confirmed in the next quarter of the Moon. If the influence is confirmed, as often happens, the wind blows for whole months from the same side: If the influence is distributed to the mobile Signs, the wind only blows on their side for six hours twelve minutes, which is the time they use to rise with the sea, and make it full; then little by little, they carry their wind to the Fixed Sign, or Master Wind of the side they turn, and join it there, until they have completed their revolution; and when they begin to rise again, they resume their same Winds, and continue thus, as long as the influence lasts, and until it is consumed, or another causes it to cease.
The Friend. How does it come about that those who go to long courses are obliged to navigate by several kinds of Winds, which they call rums (sic - LAT); that some Winds carry them a hundred leagues, others sixty, and others thirty, more or less?
The Author. Mariners always find these Winds in the same place, they are regulated, and have no other cause than the influences of the Stars, and our centric Signs, which repel them. But their distance in distance, and their diversity, arises from the unevenness of the earth; for whoever could see under the sea the figure of the earth, as it is arranged in itself, would see that the diversity of its figures, its concavities and its conduits, opposing the Winds which issue from the center, cut them and divide them into several parts, before they are at day; that this is what makes the diversity of the rumps (sic, other spelling in the text - LAT) of the Winds; whether they are strong or weak, oblique or straight, and push the Vessels a little or a lot according to their strength and the arrangement of their conduits; as if to oppose to the mouth with a bellows, bodies shaped differently; which without difficulty, by blowing, would ward off the Winds, directly or sideways, according to their disposition.
The Friend. Where do the great gusts of wind come from, which we always see in Spring, the Winds follow the Sun, that they rise and set with it, and that we sometimes see clouds that go on one side and the others on another?
The Author. When there are several influences to distribute to the fixed Signs, that is to say, several Stars in a quarter of the Moon, pour their influences together, the strongest takes the upper hand, and reigns; that which follows, or approaches its force, being impatient to reign, sometimes escapes, blows, and opposes the first: but as its influence must be consumed before the latter can reign, it withdraws until the first has had its day. And if it happens that the first ceases, and that the last reigns, it is because the latter rose when the other was at its end. And though the influence is consumed, the clouds keep rolling, though nothing pushes them, because of the movement that the influence has given them, that's where the changes come from.
A strong influence being at one of the four fixed Signs, and that there come others to the mobile Signs, which are at its side; these Signs being all in the same part of the world, conspiring to the same end: when the mobile Signs, which are on the two sides of the fixed one come to turn on its side, they join their Winds there: For then the wind is so great, that it works wonders; but that only lasts three or four hours; especially since these Signs are enclosed within with their breaths. This wind is renewed eight hours later, if the influence still lasts; not of the same strength, but to some degree less.
And when one sees in the Spring the Eastern Winds rising, and following the Sun, a good General must beat the fields, march the artillery, and the baggage, and order that the Soldiers follow their Prince, like their Captain, to overcome his enemies: A Courtier, that the Nymphs and the Dryads follow Apollo, and pay him the Court like Diana. A Theologian, that one works for Heaven, and that one converts the souls: And a Physicist, that the Sun opens the prisons in which the Winds are retained, that it attracts them and makes them follow in its course, that is to say, the heat of the Sun opening the pores of the earth, excites the central heat; and both together bring out from the concavities of the earth, corpuscles, or hot and humid vapours, very light and subtle, which rumble as they come out, like those which come out of a green wood which is burned by fire; and how these vapors issue from the wood as the fire presses them; likewise these corpuscles or aerial humidity come out as the Sun passes and opens the pores of the earth; and as we see them rising, it seems that they are Winds which rise, follow the Sun, and set with it; it is an omen of good weather when it happens.
And as for the diversity of the Winds that we notice blowing at the same time, some on one side, and others on another, it should be known that the Winds at their beginning always raise with them some vapors in the air, from which the clouds are formed: this is particularly seen at sea, when the wind wants to change the fustor wind (sic - LAT), pushes directly into the air, from the bottom of the sea, a very subtle vapor, mixed with a little exhalation. season; this vapor increases, and spreads little by little. And if the wind must be vehement, the Dolphins in the Mediterranean, and the Porpoises in the Ocean, rise on the sea, and discover themselves. These clouds go in the direction that the wind blows them: Another wind contrary to this, willing to rise to reign, also causes other vapors and exhalations to rise on the side that he wishes to rise; these vapors take over, condense and multiply little by little; form clouds like the preceding ones, and run on the side that the wind which made them rise, pushes them.
As this change takes place suddenly, the clouds of the first wind which were in the process of going, still roll, as long as the wind which pushes them is appeased, until the other clouds join them, and bring them to their side: which makes those who are ignorant of the principles of Nature say, that the Winds come, and blow immediately from above; that they watched them, and saw them, as if the spirits were visible. They must know that the wind is an agitated air, by the spirits of our centric Signs, excited by the influences of the Stars, their superiors, who have fallen, and have made their impressions on the central fixed point, which he has distributed to them as I have said, makes them blow extraordinarily, and raise with this air, vapors and exhalations, which form the clouds that we see in the middle region: This air is hot or cold, dry or humid, according to the quality of the spirit which pushes it, and whether it is pure or charged with vapours: For if the Winds blew immediately from above, they would have to come from the Stars, or from a certain part of the two: that being so, they would produce neither vapors nor exhalations; the Winds would roll, and would have no stability, because the Stars and the Heavens, which roll and go every day from East to West, and to which their cause would be attached, would carry them with them, and make them circumnavigate the earth in twenty-four hours, which is not. For if the Winds blew immediately from above, they would have to come from the Stars, or from a certain part of the two: that being so, they would produce neither vapors nor exhalations; the Winds would roll, and would have no stability, because the Stars and the Heavens, which roll and go every day from East to West, and to which their cause would be attached, would carry them with them, and make them circumnavigate the earth in twenty-four hours, which is not. For if the Winds blew immediately from above, they would have to come from the Stars, or from a certain part of the two: that being so, they would produce neither vapors nor exhalations; the Winds would roll, and would have no stability, because the Stars and the Heavens, which roll and go every day from East to West, and to which their cause would be attached, would carry them with them, and make them circumnavigate the earth in twenty-four hours, which is not.
These subtle vapours, and exhalations of which I have just spoken, which rise in the air, come from below; for the Dolphins, and the Porpoises which rise from the bottom of the sea to the surface, testify that there is change at the bottom, and announce it to the Mariners, who stand on their guard. I know that there are people in the world who are very learned and knowledgeable in several things; which nevertheless ignore the natural causes, and the means which God has established in the Universe; who say that the Winds are vapors and exhalations which come out of the earth, blow and make the Winds that we feel. This is not because if the winds came out of the land, the vapors which would come out of it would not make such a sudden change at sea as that which we see there; and cannot be brought to sea, muddy the air, and make furious tempests and thunderstorms within a quarter of an hour, which often destroy ships, which are more than a thousand leagues from land, and in places where there is no bottom: which undoubtedly marks that they start from the center, and leave by the sea, which is an Element more flexible and penetrable than the earth. And if it were true that the vapors and the exhalations which form the clouds that we see in the middle region, were properly the Winds which commonly blow, it would always be necessary that these vapors and these exhalations, which cannot rise by themselves, had a cause which produced them, which pushed them, and made them come out of the earth, and agitated them in the middle region; as the air is pushed and agitated there by the spirits of the Winds; this cause could only be the general agent, which is nothing other than the central fire, which moves and agitates all things. If this central heat acted of itself immediately, and without a dominant cause, it would incessantly bring out of the earth, where there is always water, the exhalation and the vapor from all sides with precipitation, as fire would bring out that which would be in a pot which it would boil, through a lid pierced with several holes, straight and oblique; which would make a perpetual fog in the lower region, darken the day for us, give us continual rains, cause us pestilential diseases, and deprive us of the sweetness of life. Certainly, if the Winds were really the vapor and the exhalation, and that they made themselves, and without dominant cause, it would be necessary to renounce the principles of Astrology, established and followed for more than four thousand years; by means of which certain prognostics are made every day; times when we must have Winds, Rains, Hail, Thunder, Storms, and many other things that we admire daily; there would never be certain Winds, sometimes several Winds would blow together from all the places of the earth, as I said, would be contrary to each other, would prevent the navigation and the commerce of men: It is necessary that there be in this lower Universe a certain cause, on which the influences of the Stars fall, and that it distributes them in order to avoid confusion; this cause must be fixed as an end, so that the influence may meet it when it falls. What is there in the world more fixed than the central point of the Universe, which contains this spirit of elemental fire, which occupies the center of all things; it is he who receives, by means of the Moon, all the influences of the Planets, which keeps them and distributes them in order to the sublunary compounds, according to their properties and their destinations.
The Friend. It is enough to speak of the Winds, and of their nature, please let us speak a little of a new opinion and contrary to yours, which is followed by many people; here is the substance.
Some Philosophers making the System of the world, considered that the Sun was fixed and stopped at the center of the Universe, having only a movement of ascent and descent, that the Firmament was fixed and without movement, and that the earth moved in the Ecliptic instead of the Sun.
The Author. It is not without reason that this opinion makes noise, because if we place the earth between the Heavens, at the very place of the Sun, and if we give it the same movements, it makes us see so many celestial appearances of those which are demonstrated to us by Thico and the others; that it may surprise the judgment of those who are not fully versed in this science: but for those who have the theory and the practice of it, it gives them enough light to recognize its falsity, and to conclude in favor of that which we follow, as having its principles better established and more certain; here are my reasons.
About two thousand years ago, Aristarch Samian (and some other before him) making the System of the World, had the thought that the Sun was fixed and stopped, and that the earth and the Heavens moved around it, because (he says) the earth produces so many things which have life and movement, that the cause must not be less than its effect; but this opinion was not followed, it remained as if extinguished or dormant, until the time of Copernicus, who revived it and supported it with a quite extraordinary System. As it is useless about me, you will excuse me, please, from reporting it at length; I will only pose the main points, to express my thoughts, referring those who want to know more, to his Book, and to the machines of the System, which was very artistically composed with that of Thico, and many others, by the RRs. PP. Jesuits, in their House of Clermont in Paris.
I therefore suppose, according to this System, that the Sun is at the center of the Universe, instead of the earth, that the Firmament is fixed and without movement, that the earth is placed in the Ecliptic, between the other Planets, at the place where we put the Sun, and that it has two principal movements: The first on its center, making a turn in twenty-four hours from West to East: The second, in the Ecliptic line of the Zodiac, that it goes around it, also East in three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours and fifty-three minutes, according to his calculation; these movements being the principal ones, and which make the question, I will not speak of the others.
To be more intelligible, I will use a method so familiar that the less enlightened will be able to understand it, and use it with great ease, and will discover by its means the various movements of the Stars and the Heavens; as a certain rule which falls under the senses, and which the ancients made use of, before the invention and use of instruments.
To know which it is of the earth or of the Heavens, which moves and makes a turn in twenty-four hours, it is necessary to suppose the earth fixed and stopped at the center of the Universe, and that the Firmament revolves around the earth.
This supposition made, it is necessary to endeavor to know the poles on which it makes this movement. Take for example that of the North, which is on our horizon, examine the Stars which are on its side, attach yourself to that which makes its turn the smallest, which is the first of a constellation of seven Stars, which we call Little Dipper, otherwise the North Star, which serves as a guide for all Northern Mariners.
This Star being discovered, walk in a direct line towards the South, as long as you know that it is visible on the horizon, for twelve hours only, this time makes it judge that it is the exact half of its daily movement; that the North Pole is then in the horizon, and that you are precisely in the middle of Heaven between the two poles, North and South; for if you were closer to the North Pole than to the South Pole, this Star would be more than twelve hours on the horizon, depending on whether you were near or far from it; and the opposite, if you were nearer the South Pole than the North Pole.
From this place at six o'clock in the evening, look to the East, notice there a Star which will rise on the horizon in a direct line, lead this Star of the eye, and you will find that at midnight precisely it will always be on your head, and that at six o'clock in the morning, it will set and disappear.
We call the route of this Star, Equinoxial Line, because it is precisely between the two Poles of North and South, where the fastest movement of the Firmament takes place, and the Equinoxes of Spring and Autumn, when the Sun passes through them. This line is constant and immutable, like the poles, and separates Heaven and earth into two equal parts, one towards the North, and the other towards the South.
This observation made, return to the Pole, notice that as you approach it, it rises on the horizon, and when you have walked a quarter of the surface of the earth, which is according to the Geographical divisions, two thousand seven hundred French leagues, you will have it directly on your head, and the Star will revolve all around like a small circle; will never change as long as you remain at this point, but will sink towards the horizon when you leave it, and withdraw to the side of the Line. Nothing causes this variation except the movement of man, when he changes place, and approaches or moves away from the Poles, or from the Line; for the Mountains, the Cities and the Castles, which are fixed and attached to the earth, always have their same degree of elevation, without vicissitude or change.
After this establishment, which may have served as the basis and foundation for Geography, and for all its parts, I say, if the earth moved on its center, outside the center of the Universe, and outside our celestial Equinoxial Line, its movement of longitude would cause us to change our horizon every day, and the circle which is described around the North Pole by its Star (which lets us know the time of day and night, in whatever season of the year, and in whatever Northern part we are yons) would get lost.
The Line of the diurnal movement of the earth, not agreeing with the Celestial Equinoxial Line, which makes the middle of the Arctic and Antarctic Poles, would change the Poles, would make lose the measurements of the heights which one takes in navigation, on the Poles (which we know by their Stars and the magnetic needle) so there would be no order in navigation; you would have to give up your trade, which is most important, because there would be no security.
The fixed earth and in the center of the Universe, makes us every day the fixed Stars perpendicular to a certain hour; and the earth revolving the center of the universe, by its movement of longitude, would incessantly change the hour and the situation for us.
The mobile earth by its movement of longitude, would change us the East and the West, the North and the South, would make a very great disorder in Geography, on which it takes all its measures; and in navigation, because it would change the points of the Winds.
The fixed earth in the middle of the Universe, makes us see the middle of the Sky and a constant horizon; and the earth, by its movement of longitude, incessantly changes the horizon, and cuts the sky into unequal parts.
The fixed earth in the middle of the Universe, makes us see the Stars of North and South, always from an equal distance; and the earth in its movement of longitude, from the Sign of Cancer to that of Capricorn, would bring them closer and further from us by forty-seven degrees or thereabouts.
The men who live under the first degree of Cancer, in the Northern part, who would like to discover new Stars in the Southern part, would discover them without leaving their place, in six months, that they would be carried there by the movement of the earth.
The earth fixed and stopped at the center of the Universe, served to find the movement of the Heavens, and its Poles, the movement of the Sun and of all the Stars; which we could not have done with certainty, if it had been mobile.
The fixed earth at the center of the Universe, means that men who are under the Poles always have the Stars which are close to them, which turn on their heads, and only the movement of man makes the change. The earth moving on its center, from West to East, would cause the vapors and exhalations from which the clouds are formed, which would be pushed by the Winds from the East to the West, to pass four times faster than the bullet of a cannon, and would leave us behind those which would come from the West with almost the same speed; because the movement of the earth on its center would be of an incomprehensible rapidity; on the contrary, we daily see the clouds go from West to East, and from East to West, with an equal movement, when they are pushed by an equal wind.
If the earth moved on its center, the Line of its motion would always vary, with respect to the Firmament, because of its movement of longitude, would cause the Stars to rise sometimes earlier, sometimes later, and would set likewise: would rise once directly, another time obliquely, and would never observe any regularity, because of the various movements of the Earth, which would incessantly change the horizon.
In a word, every grave and heavy body tends naturally downwards, where its center is: the earth is a grave and heavy body, consequently it would tend to its center, which is downwards, if it were not there. Its center is the center of the Universe, as the lowest point, and the farthest from the Heavens and from pure things; therefore it follows that the earth is at the center of the Universe; for if it were otherwise, it would be against nature, and we could maintain that the stones, and other heavy bodies, which we would throw into the air, would support themselves there, and would roll around the earth, which is their center; as the earth would roll around the center of the Universe, which is its own; because a part of a body has the same property as its whole; and all the demonstrations that can be given to the contrary are false and abusive.
To these reasons must be added those which are alleged by some authors who have written against this opinion, which are, when the earth would reach the points of the solstices, by its movement of longitude, the long artificial days, and the long artificial nights, would be unequal.
When it would reach the points of the Equinoxes, in the months of March and September, the Equinoxes would not occur over the whole earth, as when the Sun passes through it.
The shadows of the Eastern stilles (sic - LAT) would be of unequal size, the Sun being at the same elevation.
Heavy things would not fall at right angles on flat surfaces.
A stone's throw would carry farther one way than the other.
The Birds which would rise to the middle region, could not catch up with their nests.
If the earth were not in the middle of the Universe, we would never see exactly half of the Sky, the Planets and the Stars would not always appear of equal size in the East, in the West, and in the South, because they would not be everywhere equally distant from the earth.
Lunar Eclipses would not always occur when the Moon and Sun are diametrically opposed; but only sometimes, when they were not at the points of the Ecliptic; which is contrary to appearances.
Let us now examine things according to nature, if there is more reason for the Sun to be stable in the place where Copernicus puts it, than the earth.
If the Sun is the male, and the Earth the female, as is not in doubt; the Earth, as the most material, heaviest, most impure and corruptible, must be at the lowest point, and the farthest from pure and spiritual things. It must be fixed and stopped there, to await and constantly receive the influences of the stars, like a theater, on which each must make his character, exercise his action, and produce an effect in conformity with his nature.
If the Sun were below, this order would be irregular and against nature, which orders movement and above to the male, and below and stability to the female, to receive the influence of the male, which otherwise would be lost, because his womb would not be in its center, and would not generate.
If the Sun were fixed and stopped, it would be like a man who watches, calm and temperate, who produces nothing, whatever he could: However, it is necessary that it works to spread its seed or its influence, that it warms itself by its movement, that it communicates its heat to the Stars, that it animates them, that it dilates them, and obliges them to pour theirs; what they would not do, if they were not excited and animated by the love of the Sun; that is to say, that the love of the Sun, as of every creature, is the motive of movement, and movement the cause of heat, heat the source of radiance and light, and radiance and light that of influence, and influence the testimony of love, which is the end of the circle, and the accomplishment of all things.
So that if the Sun were without movement, we could certainly say that it would be without love, and if it were without love, it would be without action, without heat, without light and without influence: and the Stars which are in the Heavens, which draw their light from that of the Sun, would also produce no brightness, nor any influence. Everything would be extinct, without life and without action, and would be on the inclination of its first nothingness. This is my opinion against the System of Copernicus, to which must be added the disposition of the Holy Scriptures.
Joshua tells us in the Old Testament that he stopped the Sun by his prayer in the middle of its course. And the Gospel, (which are the words spoken by Jesus Christ himself, son of God) that Heaven will pass away, but his words will not pass away. Therefore, let us conclude that the earth is fixed and stopped at the center of the Universe; that the Sun and all the Heavens revolve round about, and pour their influences therein. In addition to the fact that the true Sages are not unaware of these truths, they still know sufficiently that the Firmament, in addition to its daily movement, makes some progress from the West to the East, that it will pass there by succession of times, and that nature gives us every year celestial fruits on certain days, a thousand times more excellent than Manna; which can make happy the men who know them, and who know how to use them.
The Friend. It is true that the common opinion, and for which I hold, is more admissible than that of Copernicus: but still, is it something admirable, to have adjusted his System so well to that of Thico, that it makes the opinions balance. And its partisans are so obstinate that as soon as a man proposes reasons to the contrary, without examining them or understanding them, they say that there is not a man of intelligence who does not hold this opinion: This has happened to me, and surprised me; which makes me assume that you will be criticized.
The Author. It is true that those who do not have the background and practice of this doctrine find themselves embarrassed by it; but those who possess it, and who take the trouble to examine it, soon find its fault. The men who give it noise, take pleasure in novelty, and do not consider whether it has good or bad foundations; what made the heresies and the schisms which are today among the men. There are others who applaud more, because she has supporters, than by knowledge. Criticism is the least of my pains, and one can only have pleasure in seeing a Philosopher struggling with a Freshwater Sailor, who by chance will make his criticism insipid.
The Friend. All men are not fit to take the trouble to examine such difficult points; those who applaud them do better, in my opinion, than those who oppose them; for in order to refute with reason an opinion clothed with some appearance, like that of Copernicus, it is necessary first to enter the study, examine it thoroughly, and consult it more than once. But why bother us with particular feelings? let whoever will follow this opinion, there is nothing freer; if she is not to our liking, nothing forces us to join her party, let us stick to ours. To tell the truth, I believe that we will do better, since we have useful use of it, more than four thousand years ago, and that the Scriptures which are of Religion and of Faith, establish it positively: thus each will be satisfied in his opinion.
Let us now say something about the opinions of those who have written of the ebb and flow of the sea:
I find some so erroneous that I cannot think of them without astonishment. I do not pretend to recite them to you, that would be useless; I will report only three, which one could, as the most reasonable, oppose to yours.
The first is that the ebb and flow is done by a swinging of the earth, from North to South, and from South to North. The second, that the influences of the Stars, which are in the northern and southern parts, successively attract the waters of the sea to them, and cause the ebb and flow. And the third, that it is by the natural sympathy of the Moon with the waters of the sea; which elevates them and draws them to itself as it turns.
The Author. It is true that these three opinions are commonly received; but there is no appearance of the ebb and flow taking place by any of his means.
Because if the ebb and flow were made by a movement of the earth, from North to South, and from South to North, as you say: 1. There will
never be an ebb or flow in the East and in the West, and the waters would always be equal there, which is not.
2. The movement of the sea being made from twelve to twelve hours, the buildings which would be under the Equinoxial Line, would have the Line at one full of sea on one side, and at another full on another.
3. The vessels which would go to the long courses, being carried beyond the Line by a full of sea, would be brought back to this side by another.
4. The waters being once leaning towards the side where it would fill up, by their gravity, would prevent the earth from rising; and not getting up again, there would be neither ebb nor ebb.
5. The buildings of high elevation, towards the Poles where the inclination would be, which would be sixty-eight feet, or thereabouts, according to the rules of Geometry, would lean so strongly, that at one full of sea at least would crumble, and at the second would overturn.
6. The People of the North, at low tide, would lose sight of certain Stars which they always see, because they would be hidden under the Pole; and for the same reason, they would see others in the southern part, which they have never seen; and when they would have open sea, they would see Stars under the Pole which they do not see; and those they see on the south side would be hidden from them.
7. The high seas would always be equal to them, and at the same hour, and would not have them successively at all hours of the day and night, as we have them. If the ebb and flow were made by the movement of the earth, from North to South, and from South to North, it would incessantly raise and lower the Poles, and we could not take correct measurements there, and it would be necessary for the earth to make a complete turn in fourteen days, twenty-four minutes: which would be contrary to the nature of the Elements, which cannot have two contrary movements at the same time, if they are not led by a foreign and supernatural cause.
There would be other accidents which I do not explain, because those which I have just mentioned do not fall within the meaning.
If the ebb and flow were from North to South, and from South to North, by the force of the Stars, which would successively attract to them, the waters from one pole to the other, like two men, a saw to a piece of wood. Besides the reasons which have just been said, it would be necessary that the Stars which are at one and the other Pole, were of equal or unequal force: if they were of equal force, they would hold the earth and the sea in equilibrium, and there would never be open sea, neither on one side nor on the other; and if they were of unequal force, the waters of the sea, which had once been drawn to the side where the Stars would be strongest, would remain there; because they could not be drawn to the other side, where the Stars would be weakest; and therefore there would never be an ebb or flow.
Those who say that the ebb and flow of the sea is made by the influences of the Moon, would have more reason; or because the sea is always full in the four parts of the world where the Moon is; or again, because the bones of animals are always full of marrow, and vegetables full of juice and sap, when it is full; or by the natural sympathy it has with the waters, because of its cold quality: For those who hold this opinion, take two courses of the ebb and flow of the sea, which take place in the four parts of the world, at all hours of the day and night, in twenty-eight days, twenty-two hours, twenty-four minutes, following the regular movements of our Earth Signs, for an ordinary course of the Moon, which takes place in twenty-nine days, twelve hours forty-four minutes; and make its Epicycle decline from the surplus; which would show, on the contrary, that the Moon would follow the movement of the sea, and would accommodate itself to it, rather than the sea would accommodate itself to the movement of the Moon.
If the ebb and flow were made by the force of the influence of the Moon: In the first place, the sea would always be full, on the side that the Moon would turn, and never on its opposite side, because it would be necessary that the influences of the Moon, which would attract the waters on the side that it would be, still have the ability to reject them on the side that would be opposite to it; to make high tide there at the same time, and to hold the earth fixed, and prevent it from tilting: which is absurd; especially since the influences of the stars, nor the sympathy of things that have the ability to attract, do not have that of rejecting at the same time. Secondly ; there would never be more than one full of sea in twenty-four hours, which would always follow the Moon, which would cause the earth to tilt to the side that the waters would tilt, and the rest of the time, the sea would be low in all the other parts of the earth: the waters of the sea would be subject to the side of the moon, and would not abandon it in its circulation; as we see iron filings join together and stand subject to the magnet, chaff to amber, and all things that sympathize. It is true that the Moon influences all compounds; let it give them vigor or weaken them, depending on whether it is strong or weak in its course, once a month. But it is also true that from the first day that it united with the Sun, and made itself new, it is always increasing, until six twenty-two minutes on its fifteenth day; at which time it becomes full, and begins to decrease, and diminish, until it has reached its last quarter. On the contrary, the sea rises for seven days, and then falls for another seven days; after which it begins to rise and fall as before: which is contrary to the movement of the Moon.
The Moon contributes only to the fourth movement of the Sea with the other Planets, as I will show later: But in the great ebb and flow that I have just explained; neither she nor the other Planets contribute in any way; it has its cause in its incorruptible center, as well as that of Heaven.
Perhaps you will say that there is no ebb and flow in the Mediterranean which is Eastern; that since there is no ebb and flow, there should be none in the West; and that consequently its movement can only be from North to South, and from South to North.
I answer, that the Mediterranean is not a sea, but a pond full of salt water, which has no communication with the ocean, except by the Strait of Gibraltar, which is so narrow, and its bar is so high, because of the proximity of land, that it is impossible for the waters of the ocean, which rise and make the tides, to be able to enter it in six hours twelve minutes: to raise the waters of the Mediterranean to the same degree as those which we see along the coasts, which face the ocean. ; to get out of it and to make oneself low in the same way in such weather; added that it is not true that the Mediterranean is without ebb and flow; for I have noticed some in the greatest calm, nearly a foot, on the least sandy coasts; and to those which are entirely sandy, two feet; and more than five or six feet, when there are Winds at sea: which marks, if we do not see there, the ebb and flow so high as in the ocean, that it is because of its close communication with the ocean: that its bottom, which is almost entirely of rocks, raised to proof of sounding, cannot be penetrated by the winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do in the ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. the ebb and flow so high that in the ocean, that it is because of its close communication with the ocean: that its bottom, which is almost entirely of rocks, raised by sounding proof, cannot be penetrated by the winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do in the ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. the ebb and flow so high that in the ocean, that it is because of its close communication with the ocean: that its bottom, which is almost entirely of rocks, raised by sounding proof, cannot be penetrated by the winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do in the ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. that it is because of its close communication with the ocean: That its bottom, which is almost entirely of rocks, raised to proof of sounding, cannot be penetrated by the winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do in the ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. that it is because of its close communication with the ocean: That its bottom, which is almost entirely of rocks, raised to proof of sounding, cannot be penetrated by the winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do in the ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. cannot be penetrated by the Winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do to the Ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. cannot be penetrated by the Winds which come from the center, to raise the waters as they do to the Ocean. But it is not the same in the western part, and by all the coasts of the accessible lands, which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time. which face the ocean; for one certainly notices there a regulated ebb and flow, and of the same force as that of the North and the South. We must not even imagine that the little ebb and flow that we have observed there comes from its communication with the ocean; because it would be impossible for the waters to extend over such a vast expanse as the Mediterranean, and issue from it through such a small strait in such a short time.
For if this little ebb and flow were made by the communication of the waters of the ocean, which we have recognized rise there and extend there about forty leagues from the Strait, as well as in the river of Bordeaux; this would be done about the time the sea was at its full; the waters would pass over the bar of the Strait, and would withdraw almost at the same time; the bar of the Strait would always be awash, and ships would never pass through it, particularly at low tide, without extreme danger. If the waters passed by some channel in the absence of the bar, the waters would squeeze tighter, and would have even more difficulty, to enter and to leave, than before; and cannot extend into the extremities of the Mediterranean, nor cause the waters to rise and fall in twelve hours twenty-four minutes, as they rise and fall in the ocean. And for a superabundant reason, if the Moon governed the waters of the sea, she would give to those of the Mediterranean (as being of the same nature and quality) a regulated rise and fall of sixteen or eighteen feet, similar to that of the ocean, which we daily see: for her sympathy and influences acting without hindrance, would infallibly raise and lower her waters, to the same degree, which she does not: and if we do not see therein that great ebb and flow, there there are no other causes, nor other reasons than those we have mentioned, of the Strait and its bar, which prevents the communication of its waters; and from its bottom, which is for the most part of rocks, which oppose the Winds which come out of the center, prevent them from agitating the waters, raising them, and give them the same movement, as those of the ocean: Also we never see tempests, nor furious storms, as on the ocean; neither in its calm, the waves so deep, nor its waves so high; for if that were so, the galleys and other vessels which the Orientals use in their commerce would not resist it.
This little ebb and flow therefore has no other cause than that which makes that of the ocean; and the extraordinary height of the waters that we see there, happens sometimes, in proportion as in the ocean, and by all the other seas, proceeds from the extraordinary Winds, which our centric Signs throw, when they are excited by the rays of the aspects of the higher Stars, which are carried to the center by means of the Moon; they blow, they excite the sea, swell it, and elevate it extraordinarily: if the influences are malignant, they bring out of the earth the mixed exhalations and vapours, which rise in the middle region; storms and lightning are formed, which put, if it seems, all nature in convulsion. If, on the contrary, the influences are benign, we feel a gentle wind blowing, which cleans and purifies the air, makes it quiet, serene and pleasant; and this is done at each quarter of the Moon; because it is in this time that the sea opens, and makes passage to the influence of the Stars, that the Moon reflects in the center; as the Sky opens at the end of each Sign, at the time that the Sun enters a new one; and these influences have in this time a hundred times more virtue than in any other.
Let it therefore no longer be said that the vulgar Moon is the cause of the ebb and flow, also of the vulgar sea, that is not; it is our fixed point, and its twelve Signs which govern it, and will govern it until the end of the world, that everything will return to its first nothingness.
When the Philosophers said that the Sun and the Moon ruled the sea, they did not hear the vulgar sea, of which they never knew the ebb and flow, nor its movements; but they have heard of their Philosophical Sea, which has its fixed point in its center, as well as the Ocean, of which I have distinctly spoken, if you have taken notice.
This is how the Moon influences; but it is not the singular cause of this influence; it is only the means, by which the influences of the Planets are brought to the centre; which then reflects them, and communicates them by its rays to the Signs which surround it, of a nature contrary to the influence, and of the Signs of the first mobile; in which the aspects and looks of the Planets which caused the influences, were made.
These signs produce and bring to light, in the elementary region, their effects in compounds; they make their impressions there, they attenuate them, or give them vigor, according to the nature and quality of the influence.
The Friend. You have made a speech which passes me by, and which I understand weakly; this will perhaps cause me to ask you irregular questions; if that happens, please make up for it.
Tell me, if the fixed Stars influence, and if their influences are brought to the center, and sublimated on the surface, like that of the Planets.
The Author. You are too enlightened to advance anything incongruous; it is I who ask you to make up for my insufficiency, if I do not satisfy the merit of your questions, according to your intentions: nevertheless, I will try to explain myself, and to remove your doubts, as best as I can.
Although the Stars are numerous, and each has a subject on earth that it affects, and on which it influences: for that, their influences do not mingle; and as they do not need a long digestion and putrefaction, a great sublimation, nor a strong and long heat, like the mineral and metallic influences; they are not brought to the center; but after they have become allied and conglutinated with an aerial humidity, they are carried into the matrix which is proper to them; they are there digested, corrupted, sublimated, and led to their perfection, by the central heat, and that of the Sun, each according to its nature, and the disposition of its matrix.
The Friend. Why do you oblige the Planets, to influence the Moon, to bring the influences to the center.
The Author. For two reasons ; the first, by the singular sympathy it has with the base elements and their compounds. The second, because the Moon being the first degree of perfection of the Planets, they cannot reach the Sun unless they pass through its degree. All the Planets tend naturally to the Sun, as to their King; and the Moon being a medium, through which they must pass before arriving there; they throw their influences there, they take on the seal and the character of the Moon; and being rejected in the center, it digests them, it corrupts them, and sublimates them in the bowels of the earth, where they are nourished, increased, and led to their perfection, by the central heat, and that of the Sun, according to the pure or impure matrices, which they encounter.
It is necessary that these influences be brought to the center, because they need a well-closed matrix, a long digestion and putrefaction; of great sublimation and nourishment; of a strong and long heat, to arrive at their degree of perfection, where they would never arrive, if they were carried in the common matrices of the other Stars, which make their productions in forty-five days, a little more or less; because the exterior heat failing them, by the absence of the Sun, the action of the central heat which is sustained by it, and which must work without intermission, would cease; the compounds would remain extinct, without movement, and would produce nothing conformable to the intention of nature, and of the seed, and would be like aborted fruits.
The Friend. You say that the sky and the sea open at certain times, and that the influences which the planets pour into this interval are stronger, and have more virtue than at any other; it is a new doctrine, of which I have not yet heard speak, and which I do not conceive, please explain it to me.
The Author. We must not call new doctrine, that which is as old as the world, nor blame what we do not hear; but we must accuse ourselves of our lack of intelligence, and do our best to enter into the minds of the Authors. A fool would deceive himself if he thought he could understand at the opening of a Book what a man of common sense and of a sublime mind can only learn with great difficulty and long work. If we could speak only of the things that have been said, men would only need their memory, since the mind, which is the natural light, with which they see and penetrate all things, could no longer innovate and discover anything: they would have to confine themselves entirely to what the ancients would have written: which is absurd, because the world contains so many marvels, that even if it existed for a hundred thousand years, and that new things were discovered every day, there would remain still more of them than would have been discovered: I share mine with you, as with my friend; but in order that you may be more enlightened, you will know that whenever the Sun leaves one Sign, and passes into another, there is formed at the same time a certain mixture of the influences, and of the virtues of the Sun, and of this Sign, which compose an influence of a different nature from that which flowed before; this influence falls on the Moon, which receives and guards it; and of all the influences of the Planets, there is only this one that the Moon guards and retains within itself, from which a particular production is formed, sending the others back to the center, to be digested there,
And when the sea opens to all the quarters of the Moon, that is to say, that to all its quarters, which are seven days a few hours, and a few minutes, the sea completing its course of the rising or falling, which is of the same time (as I will say incontinent) it makes a kind of station and rest, to take a new movement; and at the same time, the Moon being likewise in aspect with the Planets, reflects their influences to the centre, which distributes them to the Signs which surround it, as a mirror distributes and reflects the rays of the Sun, to the objects which are opposed to it. These influences always signify to us, at each quarter of the Moon, something new in the elemental region; and we see also, that the men who cling to the rustic life, apply to all changes of the quarter of the Moon; either to plow, or to sow, or to prune, or to gather; they always do some new work, which concerns agriculture.
The Friend. Why does the Moon keep the influences of the Sun rather than those of the other Planets?
The Author. Because perfect things have affinity, and sympathize better together, than a perfect thing with an unperfect one. Although the Moon is not so perfect as the Sun, it is nevertheless more perfect than Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, because its substance is fixed, or nearly so, and that of the Planets is not: wherefore, the Moon not improving with them, it rejects their influences in the center, there to be digested, rotted, sublimated and perfected, as I have said.
But as the Sun is perfect, and the Moon is far from perfect; it retains its influences, allies itself with them, and makes itself perfect with them; this is the reason why we always find the Moon in the wombs of the Sun, because it does not need so many digestions and sublimations, so strong a heat, nor so long, as the other Planets, to be led to perfection; but it only needs a pure, well-closed womb.
The Friend. Are the influences of the Planets, of which you have spoken, the same that produce the Winds of the centric Signs? do they never fall on the moon, except at the change of these quarters? and are they brought to the center only in this time?
The Author. Planets have various operations, like animals; they have gentle and benign looks, which make the animal born at the time when they look at the Moon, or their ascendant, with a good eye, breast, temperate, joyful, pleasant, easy, happy in all things, and long-lived. They have other looks which agitate them, trouble them, make them hasty, furious, unpleasant, worthless, and unhappy in the course of life. These sorts of influences are made at all hours of the day and night, and spread everywhere, when the Planets are in aspect with the Moon; thus they are not brought to the center.
But the influences which the Planets pour out, when they are in aspect with the Moon at each quarter charge, and from which the metallic compounds are formed: these influences, I say, are brought to the center, they excite there our centric Signs, which by the force of their breaths raise them into the bowels of the earth; they raise with them an aerial or mercurial humidity, and a very pure part of the fatty and sulphurous earth, with which this influence is allied; which attaching itself to the concavities of the earth, digests itself there, rots there, resolves itself there, sublimates itself there, nourishes itself there, and nourishes itself there by similar matters, up to an entire perfection.
If the wind of our Signs did not raise this matter, it would remain in the center, and there would be no metallic generation, winds, storms, nor any change of weather on the earth. As you are a good physicist, I am convinced that you easily understand what I have just said.
The Friend. I hear you, and am satisfied; please, let's talk now about the fourth movement of the sea.
The Author. Although the fourth movement has its cause in Heaven, its conception is not therefore more difficult; and I persuade myself that applying yourself to it, as you did to the previous one, you will understand it with the same facility; because all its movements are sensitive like those of animals.
The Friend. I will stick to it as much as possible: read.
CHAPTER IX.
From the fourth movement of the Sea.
Although it seems that this movement, which contains fourteen, has its cause difficult, and of great discussion, yet it is not. There is no man who does not conceive it immediately, provided he has a slight knowledge of the natural Sphere; for if the cause of the preceding movement, is hidden in the center of the earth; the cause of it, on the contrary, although it is in Heaven, is nevertheless visible. These two causes are opposed, and it may be said that the superior, which furnishes the form, which is invisible, is nevertheless visible; and that which receives it, which is animated by it, and which must be visible, is invisible and hidden.
This movement is divided into seven, rising higher than the other, and seven descending, also lower than the other.
All these movements proceed from the seven Planets, and are absolutely governed by them; they raise the sea from degree to degree, one after another, as they are elevated in their Heavens, and lower it in the same way.
The first regime and government of these movements is given to Saturn, the highest of the Planets; because the chaos, at the beginning of the world, was full: because to separate the Elements from it, and reduce them to the center, it was necessary to raise the most subtle parts of them, to make the rest ponderous and susceptible of generation; and as these parts rose, and separated from the chaos, the mass diminished, and also fell. This separation gave air to the chaos, which was full as an egg when it came out of the hen's belly; for God worked on the chaos, to separate these subtle parts from the gross, impure, and corruptible ones, without comparison, as Nature works on the egg, when she wants to produce a chicken from it.
First, the egg is externally heated by a degree of heat; which dilating and opening the pores of the shell, and exciting the central heat of the egg, exhale its superfluous moisture; so that if the next day you look at this egg, you will see a small crown at one end, which shows that its most subtle humidity has exhaled through its pores, and that air has entered it in its place.
On the second day, this crown is shown to be a little larger than on the first; the third, more than the second, and continues thus for ten days, as its humidity rises: what remains, this past time, are the corruptible Elements, of which the body is composed.
The second regime is given to Jupiter, immediately below Saturn. The third to Mars, below Jupiter. The fourth to the Sun, below Mars. The fifth at Venus, below the Sun. The sixth to Mercury, below Venus; and the seventh to the Moon, below Mercury.
The waters having thus withdrawn from degree to degree, from the Heaven of Saturn to that of the Moon, from day to day, for seven days; they begin to rise by the same degree for seven other days, as long as they have reached the Heaven of Saturn: and when they have arrived there, they begin to descend, then to ascend, as I have just said: employing at each current regime, twenty-four hours, forty-eight minutes; rising today higher than yesterday, tomorrow higher than today, and after tomorrow higher than tomorrow; and descend in the same way, today lower than yesterday, tomorrow lower than today, and after tomorrow lower than tomorrow, until the waters have made the course of the seven Planets, rising and falling. During this time, the Sea is full in all four parts of the World.
This broken number of forty-eight minutes, which the sea delays every natural day, is noteworthy. He makes the sea full in fourteen days, eleven hours, twelve minutes, at all hours of the day and night; and serves as a rule for Patrons who come from the high seas, to find the certain time of the tide, and to enter Ports, which can only be entered from the open sea.
This movement of the Sea responds precisely to the movements of our centric Signs, which in twenty-eight revolutions use precisely this same time. Which would not be, if the movement of the sea from one full to the other, as the vulgar believe, were precise and regulated by twelve hours. On the contrary, the movement of the Planets, which relates precisely to that of our centric Signs, and which causes the earth to be watered with its water, at all hours of the day and night, would always arrive at the same hour: and there would be certain points of the earth which would not be watered. Thus everything concurs with subordination, in support of the orders that God has established in the structure of the Universe.
This is how the Moon contributes to the ebb and flow of the Sea; that is to say, concurrently with the other Planets, and not singularly, as one imagines.
The secret of the movement of the sea, which I have just explained, is so great that it surpasses all secrets, and no man has ever written or revealed it, as far as I know.
It is this movement which is the principle of things which have their origin in the Sea; who makes them germinate in seven days, who makes them vegetate, and after another seven days gives them their first form, who gives them a new one after seven days, and finally gives them, after another seven days, that which suits their nature.
Then the Sun takes them; he works on them, he expands them; he organizes them, and gives them in fifteen days their last degree of perfection: as he dilates the Moon, fills it with virtues, and gives it its perfection, in proportion as he looks at it, and communicates to it directly its rays and its influence.
The movement which the Sea makes as it sinks day by day, entirely corrupts, at the end of seven days, the form which it had given them in its fullness, and gives them another; And the movement it makes, rising from day to day, also completely corrupts this one at the end of seven other days, and communicates to them an entirely new and more perfect one.
As the Moon, at each change of quarter, receives influences from the Stars, it receives more noble ones, when it joins with the Sun, and communicates them to the Elementary Compounds. In the same way, each time that the Sea descends towards the center where the central Sun resides, it receives from it new virtues, which it raises and communicates by agitation its waves and its successive floods, to the things which it has given birth to.
Between the things that the Sea procreates every month, as well as the Moon, there is along its edges, in a kind of greasy foam like bitumen, a je ne sais quoi resembling a bird, which takes the nature of the seven Planets successively, and small springs of living waters, clear and transparent as crystal, which take that of the ninth Heaven.
All these Movements have proper names, which suit their nature and virtue.
The first begins with Saturn, the highest of the Planets; that is to say, by descending: the waters having lowered one degree, this movement is called dead waters, because Saturn, from the movement from which they started, is the symbol of death; and that they would never have produced anything, if they had remained there.
When the waters have descended from degree to degree, down to the Moon, their lowest degree, they are called low waters: When the waters are at this degree, they germinate there, if it is necessary to speak thus, not on the first day that they arrived there, but on the second, which is the first that they begin to rise: and when they are on this second day, we call this movement, point of water; and on the second day they ascended to Mercury their second degree; this movement is called power movement. When they have ascended to Venus, on the third day, their third degree, they are called living waters, as if to come from power into action. Having ascended to the Sun, their fourth degree, on the fourth day, this movement is called minor. On the fifth day, having ascended to Mars, their fifth degree, this movement is called alteration movement. On the sixth day having ascended to Jupiter, their sixth degree; this movement is called the greed movement. Finally when they have arrived on the seventh day at Saturn, their seventh degree, this movement is called head of water, because they cannot rise any higher, and they have completed their Circle.
Indeed, this movement appears under the Equinoxial line at certain times of the year, like a head or a small mountain, and lasts for four days: two days in Saturn, namely, the day that they ascend there, and the day that they take the movement there to descend. The third is, when they descended to Jupiter, their second degree of abasement; and the fourth, when they descended to Mars, their third degree of abasement. Which makes four days after which the Chief gets lost and submerges.
No title is given to the waters, from Saturn descending, until they have reached the Moon, their last degree, except that of dead waters which they were given, being still in Saturn, when they began to descend. So they didn't come down to the Moon so soon, they started to go up, and they didn't go up to Saturn so soon, they started to go down.
These waters always continue these movements from degree to degree, day by day, and successively: In such a way that in twenty-eight days, twenty-two hours, twenty-four minutes, the Sea makes two courses in each part of the World, while the Moon makes one.
We therefore see by these various movements that the sea is full when the moon is low; that it lowers in times when the Moon increases; that it becomes full at the time that the Moon is full, it is true: But also it rises and increases when the Moon descends, and decreases in its last quarter; and it is full when the Moon is entirely low. If the Moon ruled the Sea, the Sea would absolutely follow its movements: and when the Sea had begun to grow, it would not stop on the seventh day, and take the movement of the descendant as it does; but it would rise without interruption until and after the fourteenth day, as the Moon grows, and would descend in the same way without interruption, until the end of its course; even its course would be equal to that of the Moon, which is twenty-nine days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes: Whereas that of the Sea is only fourteen days, eleven hours, twelve minutes: And if we double it to make it tally with that of the Moon, as I said in the previous Chapter, it will only be twenty-eight days, twenty-two hours, twenty-four minutes. The Moon must delay to equal the movement of the Sea, so that it is found every day in the four parts of the World, when the Sea there is full. Let it then advance to join the Sun, and make itself new in its time: as we see in the Ephemerides that it is two days in Signs, and three days in others. Which proceeds from the movement it makes in its Epicycle, and from the direct and oblique rising of some Signs of the Zodiac. who advance it and retard it in its course, whereas the movement of our center, whose revolution takes place in twelve hours and twenty-four minutes, is singular, firm and constant, like that of the first mobile: and the movement of the seven planets which I have just explained, agrees so well with this movement, that in a hundred years there will not be a minute difference. This marks the correspondence of high things with low things, as Hermes says, what is below is like what is above, and what is above is like what is below; which will last without corruption until the consummation of centuries. that in a hundred years there won't be a minute difference. This marks the correspondence of high things with low things, as Hermes says, what is below is like what is above, and what is above is like what is below; which will last without corruption until the consummation of centuries. that in a hundred years there won't be a minute difference. This marks the correspondence of high things with low things, as Hermes says, what is below is like what is above, and what is above is like what is below; which will last without corruption until the consummation of centuries.
SYMPOSIUM IX.
The Friend. It is true that with a little application, one can easily understand the movements which you have just explained, and their cause; but it seems to me that through this speech, I see something that I do not know; I would really like it if you would enlighten me, and tell me what you mean by this Bird, and these clear and limpid sources, which take, you say, successively the nature of all the Planets.
The Author. As the celestial Signs are the houses and the domiciles of the Planets, that they show, when they are each in those which they affect, much more virtue than in the others; that every month the Sun leaves a Sign and enters a new one; that the production of which I spoke takes place in this Sign; I say, that this Sign forms the universal complexion of this production; and as this Sign is subject to the Planet which dominates it, the things which are produced from it, have the nature of this Planet; as well as the ascendants and the planets which dominate, form the complexion of all the compounds, and give them their nature.
I can tell you that I have met men in the world who have assured me that they have seen this Bird, but they all portray it differently.
The first says, that it has its plumage shining, of changing color, like the throat of a pigeon, and calls it Alcion; that it produces its young in Winter, in the fatty foam which is pushed to the shores of the sea, by the impulse of the waves and the waves: that for nine days, which is the time it takes to hatch them, the sea is calm, and there is never a storm, and that the Crocodiles of the Nile sleep during this time.
The second remains in agreement with what the first says; but he adds, that its plumage is greyish; that it is a Phoenix, and that it renews itself in the Spring; that these little springs of clear and limpid water which surround it dry up shortly afterwards; and in their place succeeds a fragrant and pungent rush; from which, when it is dry and strong, this Bird erects a pyre of only twelve strands, and lights it by its movement under the favor of the rays of the Sun, is consumed, and is reborn from its ashes, much stronger than it was.
The third, that its plumage is very shiny, but of a brown red, that it produces its young in summer; that it is a Pelican, because, says he, that its young are born from these springs of water, and that after they are hatched, with its beak it opens its chest, and nourishes them with its blood; they die and come back stronger than the first time.
And the fourth, that it has its plumage shiny and black like the Eagle, that it is almost made like a Dragon; that it bears its young in Autumn, and that it is a winged Serpent of the sea, that it dwells with the Dragons and conceives; and when the little ones that he has in his belly are full term, they pierce his sides, kill him, and feed on his blood and flesh, die and rise again together.
Although I believe that all these opinions mean something particular, nevertheless I do not adapt any of them to my subject; and if anyone could approach it, it would be the second. But if it were true that it was a Phoenix, it would have to be born and consumed every month; which would no longer be what is said of the Phoenix, that it is singular, and only renews itself every five hundred years; which makes me believe that they are other Birds, of which I am not aware.
The Friend. What you say may be, but of yours, what do you say.
The Author. What I know of particular of this Bird, here it is.
In a trip I made to Madagascar a few years ago, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, we ranged the coast, until we recognized that we were recrossing the Line. Then, having approached land to discover some harbour, we perceived a small bay, covered with a few mountains; having judged that our ship could be safe there, we entered it and dropped anchor. Having had the boat put out, I got into it with our Pilot; for it was in some way from him that I got the knowledge of this Bird.
Landing, he and I set out along the coast; and after walking an hour or so, surveying as we passed all the foam we met along the seashore, we heard a loud chirping of Birds; having fired from this side, and being close, our voyage will be happy, said my Pilot, for I see a flake of foam extraordinarily high, and an infinity of Seabirds which surround it; which is an unmistakable mark, that he whom we seek is not far off: And as we approached, these Birds seeing us, retired into holes which were near rocks, and gazed so fixedly at us, that they gave us fear. Nevertheless they did not move, and left us to examine at leisure this foam, which we found of a greasy quality like bitumen,
After having examined many of them, we finally arrived at a higher flake than the others; as we advanced, we saw an opening in it like a Bird's nest, and a small egg in it, with several small springs of water, clearer than crystal, clinging to the foam, all around the nest. I confess that I never had more joy, and in my transport, I immediately decided that I had to take it; but my Pilot opposing it, said to me, although the egg has great virtues, they are not considerable like those of the Bird, it is necessary to be patient. We being consulted, we resolved to stay near, and to watch until it was hatched: That meanwhile our Pilot would go in diligence to our ship, to bring us refreshments, a mattress, and a sail, to make a cabin. Which was immediately executed; our hut being erected, each prepared to watch in his turn: night had not soon come, and we in the hut, when the birds which were in the holes came out, returned around the nest, and resumed their chirping as before.
Those who wrote that the chirping of the Birds was a bad omen were very right, for we had proof of it shortly afterwards.
The day was not soon over when these Birds, thanks to the light we had in our hut, came to besiege us; and having found the defects of the joints, entered them with violence, attacked us with fury; and after a fight of more than an hour, we were obliged to give way to them, and save ourselves in the darkness. After walking some time among very rough, difficult rocks, we finally came to one, where there was a small cave; we entered it, and spent the rest of the night there.
As soon as the day had come, having gone out, we found ourselves surrounded by precipices, which made us shiver. Unable to conceive how we had avoided them in our disorder, and such a dark night. We had to disentangle ourselves little by little, and after having recognized the road by which we had come the day before, we sought a convenient place to watch our nest and our Birds from afar. Having climbed a small rise, from which we could easily see them, and having looked in that direction, we saw only our hut; on being approached, we found no more nests, nor birds, except those which we had massacred in the evening, which resembled eagles in their heads and plumage.
Having lamented for a little time uselessly our disgrace, we returned to our vessel, where having arrived, we sent for the mattress and the sail; and being found covered with wounds, and swollen like dropsicals, from the pecks which these animals had given us, each had his blood drawn, and went to bed, until he was cured. And as I reproached my Pilot, that if he had wanted we would have taken the egg, without chance of life, as we had done; it is true, he said to me, if we had taken this egg, we would have done great things with it; but if we could have taken the Bird, we would have made bigger ones; and urging him to tell me what both were fit for: taking the egg, he said to me, and feeding it to hens, and then feed the flesh of these hens, so little as nothing, to the sick, it cures all fevers, it rejuvenates, causes gray hair to fall, and restores teeth to those who have lost them. But the Bird, by cooking it with water from the springs which were around its nest, besides doing the same, corrects the vices of Nature, regulates the temperament, cures pulse (synonymous with phthisis, one of the forms of tuberculosis - LAT), paralysis, dropsy, leprosy, mania, migraine, gout, and all incurable diseases of whatever nature. After giving me these eulogies, I was more sensibly touched than before; but our loss being without remedy, we had to console ourselves for it; we continued our route, in which my poor Pilot died of displeasure. That is all I can tell you of this Bird, and that its egg resembled those commonly laid by fat hens; having only a pellicle, so white and so delicate, that the yellow showed through; that the Bird dwells in the caverns of the high mountains which are along the sea, and that very often, as the sea gives birth to it, it covers it and makes it disappear.
The Friend. What you have just said of this Bird is rare, and shows that the Pilot who gave you the knowledge of it, was not common, and that he knew more than the navy.
The Author. He knew all the seas perfectly; he knew the land well; he knew scientifically how to distinguish the Winds above from those below; in a word, he knew more than tack, starboard, and low tack; and I never made such a great loss, nor more sensible.
The Friend. It is very difficult to lose our friends without pain, especially those who obliged us. But in the end, is what you have just said about this bird a truth, and do you believe that the sea produces any which have the virtues you have said?
The Author. It is not a fable as to the egg; but a story that happened to me. With regard to the Bird, I did not see it; and for its virtues and those of the egg, the story was told to me by my Pilot, during the illness from which he died, and I believe that it may be, since I have since met men who assured me of having seen it, as I told you.
The Friend. How can we know these men, among so many that there are in the world?
The Author. To their arms and their virtue.
The Friend. What are their weapons?
The Author. Those of nature.
The Friend. What are nature weapons?
The Author. Those that each one takes there, according to his lights and his knowledge, but the most honorable and profitable, are those of the Sign of the Cross.
The Friend. Please explain yourself.
The Author. I cannot explain myself more clearly, nor speak to you more sincerely; I beg you, let's say no more about it, because the memory of my loss is renewed, and is beginning to make me unbearably sad.
The Friend. I would be sorry to displease you, let's say no more about it; but tell me what you think of the ebb and flow of Euripus, which has it seven times a day; from the Caspian Sea, which has no communication with other seas, which receives waters endowed with many Streams and Streams, which nevertheless is salty like the Ocean, and neither rises nor falls. Why are certain seas called black, white, yellow, red, etc.?
The Author. You ask me so many things that if we had to answer them according to their merit, we would not finish reading this manuscript this evening; in three words here is my thought.
As the Planets affect the days of the week, and the waters of the Ocean, and govern them in part, as I have shown, they also affect the waters of Euripus, and the hours of the natural day; they divide the hours of the natural day into seven equal parts; and according to this division, they reign in turn; they raise the waters and lower them, not in the same way as those of the ocean, but in quite a different way.
In the Ocean, they first lower the waters degree by degree, and day by day, as they are elevated in their Heavens: but in this flux here, a Planet does not succeed the other, that that which precedes it has not consummated its revolution, that is to say, that it makes its entire turn in ascending and descending.
Although I say that Euripus has its ebb and flow seven times a day, it must not be imagined that it is regulated like that of the ocean, which never breaks; he has it only in this way during part of the course of the Moon, and the rest motley. This variation proceeds from the Moon, when it is late, that is to say, when its epicycle (after it has been direct for a time) brings it back by retrograding in the same Sign from which it came; as when the Moon is direct, it contributes to this ebb and flow; when it is late, or retrograde, by a contrary influence, like all the Planets, when they are retrograde, it breaks their harmony, disturbs and disrupts its ebb and flow. I will certainly tell you beautiful things on this subject; but as the hour urges us,
The Caspian Sea is a Lake which communicates by subterranean channels with the Black Sea, which is not far from it, which makes it salty: it loses its waters by other channels, of the same force as are the Rivers and Streams which flow into it: this is why the waters there are always equally salty, and never rise or fall.
For the seas, Black, White, Yellow, Red, etc. the colors which appear to them proceed from the nature of their soul, which is united to their center; I know that others will say, that they proceed from their background, from which they raise the color to the surface; both are true, but the first is more physical. Let's move on, please, to the fifth movement.
CHAPTER X.
Of the fifth movement of the Sea.
This movement is double, and consists of two Tides, which are extraordinarily high, in the months of March and September.
To hear this chapter, as well as all that we have said in this whole discourse, it must be remembered that it is directed under the Right Sphere, the North and South Poles being in the horizon.
The Equinoxial Line, which takes in the East, where the Sign of Aries is described, and which responds in the West, where the Sign of Libra is also described, divides the Sphere into two equal parts. This line marks the middle and depth of the sea, where there is the least land, and therefore the weakest parts of the fixed point or central fire, the most courageous waters, rise and gather in this part, attack it, press it, and would like to bring it out of the center, because it is the natural place of their rest.
Although I say that the most courageous waters attack the fixed point, it must not be imagined, that it is out of hatred, since the central fire is their life, as well as of all the elementary bodies; but it is rather to hide him from men, against whom they are extremely jealous, because he sometimes shows himself at night to those he loves, like a little light, which we commonly call ardent, and shows them the hidden treasures, of which he is absolutely master.
When the Sun, in the months of March and September, passes under this Line to go towards the Poles, the movement of the first mobile being in this place extremely rapid, also carries the Sun with more rapidity, than towards the Poles where the movement is slower; this movement heats up more than before, the heat falls perpendicularly on the waters, the central fire moves on its side, acts more than before, these two fires attack the water which is in between; which feeling pressed, unable to resist so much heat, heats up; a part rises in vapor to the middle region, as if it wanted to fight against the Sun; but it is reduced there to dew, or to rain, and precipitated to the place from which it came. A greater part descends, and retreats with haste toward the North and South Poles, which are low in the horizon, as in its natural slope, until the Sun has passed the Line; and when it has passed, they return to the assault, attack the fixed point as before. This lasts fourteen or fifteen days, namely, seven days before the Sun has reached the Line, and seven days after having passed it: This is what gives, in the months of March and September, the high and strong tides in the two hemispheres of the North and the South, which swells the waters of the Rivers, swells them, and causes them to overflow.
SYMPOSIUM X.
The Friend. From the language you have used in this manuscript, it seems that you are of the opinion of those who hold, that the Sun is hot only because of its movement, which produces heat: that would not be my opinion; for if the Sun were only hot because of its motion, it would follow that its motion would be the principle of heat, and not heat the principle of motion. If the heat came from the movement of the Sun, the Moon, which has such a rapid movement in proportion, and which is much closer to the earth, would warm us as well as the Sun: On the contrary, we know that the purer and closer the Moon is to us, the colder it communicates to us; therefore heat cannot come from motion. But if the Sun is hot, it is because of the spirit of fire which is in it, which warms it and animates it,
The Author. If the heat which we feel in this lower region, proceeded from the center of the Sun, according to common opinion, it would dominate the other qualities which are in it, would corrupt them, and the compound would destroy itself as well as the natural compounds, in which one of the elementary qualities predominates, and would not be eternal. The Sun is a compound of equal qualities like gold, in which no one quality predominates; and the warmth it communicates to us proceeds from its influence; he gives his influence only by means of his movement, as every male casts his, by his natural or violent movement; natural, when internally, by certain images which pass while sleeping through the memory, awaken the spirits, warm them, and animate them by the natural affinity that there is between these faculties. These spirits heat the spermatic vessels: they dilate, they open, and the seed which is the true influence escapes. The violent one, when the male joins the female; by this movement he throws his seed into the womb, which retains and conceives it. In the same way the Sun, by means of its movement heats up, pours its influence on the earth; which contains the matrices of things, which retain and conceive it: And if we feel its stronger heat at one time than at another, this is because its rays, which are properly the source of its influence, of its seed, and of its light, look at us obliquely or perpendicularly. If they look at us perpendicularly, the atoms or corpuscles of its influence are reflected, and warm us: If obliquely, finding nothing to stop them, and who reflects them, goes beyond, and does not excite us. So I believe that those who hold that heat proceeds from motion have better reason, and I agree with them. This is the sixth Movement.
CHAPTER XI.
Of the Sixth Movement of the Sea.
The sixth Movement is double like the previous one: It consists of a high tide, which takes place around the months of December and January, and in a great descending which takes place in the months of June and July.
Neither of these two Movements has their cause at the center, nor their certainty. Their cause is casual, and depends on the diversity of aspects and influences of the Stars: which cause winds, rains, snows, and storms, drought or calm, and only happen by accident: For the extraordinary height of the Sea, which occurs in the months of December and January, which is the time when rains and snows abound the most, is not general. It is only in the rivers of the northern part; it proceeds either from the influences of the Stars, which excite extraordinarily the breaths of our centric Signs, which make the Sea rise by their excessive winds in the rivers higher than usual, repel the waters which descend from them, swell them so that very often they come out of their beds, and ravage the countryside; or of the great abundance of snows which are on the earth in this season, which melt precipitously; so that the streams flow in abundance into the rivers, swell them, elevate them, and cause them to overflow; or by continual rains which swell the streams and rivers. But this one is of very short duration, because the waters of the rains flow incessantly, as they fall: But all these flows are casual, and have no certain cause.
The second Movement proceeds from the aspects and influences of the Stars, which cause hot and dry winds to issue from our centric Signs; joins the heat of the Sun, which is vehement in this season, which also conspire to exhale the waters of the streams, dry them up, no longer flow, and the rivers are no longer so big. This causes that the Sea having withdrawn at the end of the descending, the waters are extraordinarily low. The like is done of these two Movements in the southern part, viz., the flow or rising when we have Summer, and the waters are low; and low tide when we have Winter, and the waters are high. There are several natural reasons, which I subtract so as not to bore the Reader.
SYMPOSIUM XI.
The Author. This, Sir, concerns the cause of the ebb and flow of the Sea, of its Movements, and of the Fixed Point. There remains only the account of a History of an abridged voyage to the Indies, and of the very curious squaring of the Circle, which was made to me a few years ago by a Gentleman whom I met in Italy; by which it is shown that this journey can be made in nine months, instead of the three years which are usually employed. Although I consider it fabulous, by its circumstances, I nevertheless joined it to this little treatise, at the persuasion of one of my friends, a good physicist, to whom I communicated it; which assured me that it was rather an important mystery than a real journey. Don't blame me if you find things in it that are repugnant to common sense and reason; I am neither the Author nor the Interpreter: I only make a sincere report of it, as I have been told. If it is true that it contains some secret useful to man; I wish with all my heart that honest People will benefit from it, for the glory of God, and the salvation of their souls.
The Friend. I remember having once heard that people had made similar journeys; but I have never seen any, and I have examined several Authors who have written for a long time, without having found anything approaching it: on the contrary, I have recognized in all of them great care, great fatigue, and an infinity of almost inevitable perils; if by means of this History we can have the key to it, and of the squaring of the Circle, which no one has yet found, the public, and myself in particular, will be very much obliged to you.
The Author. Here it is, listen.
SECOND PART.
Abridged Voyage of the East Indies, and the Squaring of the Circle.
The Author.
A few years ago, finding myself in Venice, and wishing to return to France, I embarked to come to Padua. Having entered the boat, I was happy enough to take my place beside one of the most honest and generous Gentleman that one could imagine; as you will see in the sequel: which obliged me, after a general and indifferent speech, to strike up a private conversation with him; in which having stumbled upon the cause of the ebb and flow of the Sea, and of the Fixed Point; and having told him the particular remarks which I had made of it, and my feeling. This thought is not to be rejected (he told me) the way in which you establish it, and the reasons which you use to support it, joined to the experience which you have of it, deserve to be brought to light. If you have this intention, and if you wish to enlarge your work with a new trip to the Indies, which will be very suitable for the subject, to be shorter and more useful than that which is usually done, I will describe it to you for having done it with one of my friends. You give me too much grace (Sir, I reply) I accept it, on the condition that he will make the most beautiful and main part of it. It is a pleasure to oblige you, he replied; for you are extremely grateful, and return with usury the things which are lent to you. I don't make so much of what I want to teach you that I don't put it below you: But it is enough for you to show me that you want it, to communicate it to you with pleasure. Here is the story. to be shorter and more useful than the usual one, I will describe it to you because I did it with a friend of mine. You give me too much grace (Sir, I reply) I accept it, on the condition that he will make the most beautiful and main part of it. It is a pleasure to oblige you, he replied; for you are extremely grateful, and return with usury the things which are lent to you. I don't make so much of what I want to teach you that I don't put it below you: But it is enough for you to show me that you want it, to communicate it to you with pleasure. Here is the story. to be shorter and more useful than the usual one, I will describe it to you because I did it with a friend of mine. You give me too much grace (Sir, I reply) I accept it, on the condition that he will make the most beautiful and main part of it. It is a pleasure to oblige you, he replied; for you are extremely grateful, and return with usury the things which are lent to you. I don't make so much of what I want to teach you that I don't put it below you: But it is enough for you to show me that you want it, to communicate it to you with pleasure. Here is the story. It is a pleasure to oblige you, he replied; for you are extremely grateful, and return with usury the things which are lent to you. I don't make so much of what I want to teach you that I don't put it below you: But it is enough for you to show me that you want it, to communicate it to you with pleasure. Here is the story. It is a pleasure to oblige you, he replied; for you are extremely grateful, and return with usury the things which are lent to you. I don't make so much of what I want to teach you that I don't put it below you: But it is enough for you to show me that you want it, to communicate it to you with pleasure. Here is the story.
A man calling himself my relative, and my friend, took me one day in particular, and held this language to me. You were still in the cradle, that I conceived a tender friendship for you; which having been increased by the virtue which I have seen you practice, and the movements of the blood, as having descended from one of my brothers, who died three hundred years ago. (At these words I smiled, and thought he was extravagant, or that he wanted to laugh.) I know that is as it were unbelievable (he continued) but the thing is none the less true; and you can have the proof of it by the Titles of the House which are in your hands. You will find that in the year... my brothers and I divided up the property that our parents had left us. After it was made, each took the course which best suited his inclination. My brothers established themselves in trade, and mine having led me to travel, I sold to my eldest the house where you live, which had become my share. I gave him the contract, and you will find it among your Titles. (This truth surprised me, and compelled me to listen to it more seriously, and with more attention than I had done.) And having counted out the money (he continued) I made my crew, and left a few days later. I remained for nearly two hundred years walking around in all directions: I had several adventures; but one above all, by means of which I have always maintained myself in perfect health, as you see. Finally ; my curiosity having grown weary, and having no longer any object, having returned to my country, I found only new faces. Everyone I knew, and who could know me, is no longer there. Since then I have lived there as a private person, without making myself known. I have taken special care to educate myself about the Family, particularly that of my eldest brother, from whom you are directly descended, with the intention of serving it on occasion, if it were possible for me. And having recognized you as the wisest and most accomplished of your parents, I believed that you deserved that I share with you my good fortune. It is not subject to the vicissitude and revolution of the times, nor to the whim of Fortune, which very often overthrows the best established Families: it depends solely on freedom. It is a navigation by means of which you can go to the East Indies and return in a few months, instead of the three years which are usually employed there. bring back immense and precious treasures; because the place that I will teach you is unknown to mere navigators.
This journey is made without difficulty, without danger, and the expense which it is necessary to incur is rather moderate: There are only times to take, and a few circumstances to observe. As you might miss it, I have resolved to make the trip, to show it to you, if you are in this feeling, arrange your things, and be ready to embark when I tell you. I will do it with joy, I say, and will always be ready when you do. Think about it, I replied. And having left me, he went to the Port, chose and freighted two ships, had them equipped, and provided with all necessary things. A few days later having come to tell me that everything was ready, we embarked on one, and ordered the one who had the conduct of the other, destined to bring the victuals, to follow us.
We set sail on the fifteenth of March, and took the route of the Fortunate Islands, in other words the Canaries. We arrived there on the first day of April, without any remarkable adventure. After anchoring, we went ashore, and took us to the best hotel.
At the end of three days, that the fatigue of the sea had dissipated a little, my relative proposed to me to go for a walk on the Island, wanting to show me, he said, pleasant things, and contrary to the feeling of many people, who think they know the secrets of Nature, and are ignorant of them.
Having testified to him that I had no will but his, we left at once, and took the straight path to a mountain which was in front of us. As we walked, chatting about indifferent things: stopping my arm; Do you see this mountain (he said to me) pointing it to me; few people know what it contains, not even those of the country, and who are neighbors. And at the same time, wanting to ignore it, I stop him in my turn, and tell him; It's not telling me anything if you don't finish. You'll know it soon enough, he replied: Let's just continue our way.
When we had arrived at the foot of this mountain, he showed me an infinity of small animals, which looked like flying ants; which entered and left confusedly a cave, which was at the foot of the mountain. Some were black and hideous: some were so polished that the brilliance of the sun made them shine like Irises. Some looked sweet and benign, and others angry and awful. How attentively I considered them, and sought in my imagination the cause of these objects, that of their shapes, and their various movements. Approaching me, I see very well, he said to me, that you are hard pressed to find the origin of these animals: do not dream of it any longer; they are the spirits of the winds, dressed in elementary bodies. which are played, and which await the command to go into the field. You surprise me, I reply, to say that they are spirits: don't we know that spirits are invisible? that if they take on bodies, it is by divine permission, or to signify to us on his part things that our understanding cannot, or does not wish to conceive; that this transformation always takes place in the presence of men, to whom does God want these things to be revealed? Where is the need for these spirits to take bodies in a deserted and inaccessible place like this, since they cannot produce the cause of their transformation there? You and I are the cause, he replied, and God allows them to manifest themselves to us, for reasons unknown to us. it is by divine permission, or to signify to us on his part things that our understanding cannot, or will not conceive; that this transformation always takes place in the presence of men, to whom does God want these things to be revealed? Where is the need for these spirits to take bodies in a deserted and inaccessible place like this, since they cannot produce the cause of their transformation there? You and I are the cause, he replied, and God allows them to manifest themselves to us, for reasons unknown to us. it is by divine permission, or to signify to us on his part things that our understanding cannot, or will not conceive; that this transformation always takes place in the presence of men, to whom does God want these things to be revealed? Where is the need for these spirits to take bodies in a deserted and inaccessible place like this, since they cannot produce the cause of their transformation there? You and I are the cause, he replied, and God allows them to manifest themselves to us, for reasons unknown to us. to whom does God want these things to be revealed? Where is the need for these spirits to take bodies in a deserted and inaccessible place like this, since they cannot produce the cause of their transformation there? You and I are the cause, he replied, and God allows them to manifest themselves to us, for reasons unknown to us. to whom does God want these things to be revealed? Where is the need for these spirits to take bodies in a deserted and inaccessible place like this, since they cannot produce the cause of their transformation there? You and I are the cause, he replied, and God allows them to manifest themselves to us, for reasons unknown to us.
It is these spirits which lead into this elementary region, the vapors and the exhalations of which are formed the clouds, the winds, the rains, the lightnings and the storms, which the influences of the Stars, which fall at the center of the Universe (and which are rejected from it) cause to rise from the earth. We must wait in this place for the winds which are necessary for us (in part): Because all those who aspire to this journey are obliged, before setting out to sea, to recognize this land; otherwise they would float on the ocean like a ship without a rudder, and without a Pilot, and would never arrive safely.
He showed me several other curiosities, which I have imprinted on my memory, to make a secret conversation about during my hours of retreat. The day beginning to withdraw, and the night to approach, we resumed the road to our Inn. When we got there, he begged me to leave him alone for a little while; (because he often made short retreats, in which he was glad not to be interrupted). I was delighted, because I wanted to meditate on the things I had seen, and write them down, lest I lose the memory of them. He withdrew on one side, and I on the other. Some time later, having come to say that supper was ready, we went there. As there was Company, we spoke only of general and indifferent matters. Supper over, each retired to his room. I confess that it was impossible for me to sleep, because all night I had in my head what I had seen by day. Hardly had Dawn begun to break when I got up and went to her room to say good morning to her; and having asked him if he had slept well, better than you, he said to me; for I am convinced that all night you dreamed of what you saw yesterday, which will have prevented you. You are telling the truth, I retort; anything I could have done to ward off the memory of it, it was impossible for me, and I awaited the day with extreme impatience. I nevertheless took a singular pleasure in it, and we must, please, return to it later; for I shall be glad to see him again. I don't mind, he went on, but we mustn't stop so hard at one thing that it makes us neglect others.
After having breakfasted, we took the road to our mountain: but whether he missed it on purpose, or without thinking about it, instead of taking the path which led us there, we took one which led to the meadow which was below. This meadow was lined with an infinite number of canes from which sugar is made, and surrounded by thick hills of pomegranate and lemon trees, from which flowed several streams, which made a soft and pleasant murmur. As he saw that I was carefully considering this aspect: Let's stop a little here, he said to me, and admire the pleasure that Nature has taken in doing it.
Scarcely were we seated when an old man, in a grave and majestic manner, came up to us, and having greeted us, said to us with good grace: I know, gentlemen, in your way that you are foreigners, and that curiosity to see the country has brought you here. This reason compels me to ask you to come into my room to refresh yourself for a moment. We thanked him, and did what we could to dispense with it: but his entreaties were so pressing that we finally had to grant him. Well, Sir, I said to him, since it pleases us to enter your house, take the trouble to show us the way, and we will follow you. At the same time he took the lead, entered his house, and we followed him. Welcome, he said to us: If you are not treated as you deserve, my misfortune will be the cause.
While the preparations were being made, we entered a room, the view of which extended over Gardens capable of entertaining the most melancholy; both by the diversity of their compartments, and by that of the trees and flowers with which they were filled. From there we passed through a gallery as far as the eye could see; the windows of which answered on one side on other gardens where were several grottos, waterfalls, and palisades of water; and on the other side, on the meadow that we had already seen. This gallery was entirely paneled with aromatic wood, which gave it a suave and sweet smell. Its paneling on all sides, represented in high and low relief painting, all the holy and profane stories that have ever been written.
As the excellence of these Works attracted our admiration, curiosity to know their Authors compelled me to beg him to tell me their name. These Works that you see (he said to me); this Palace and its enclosure were made by Nature, and it is not possible for men to make similar ones.
How I wanted to get into the subject, and reason about the possibility and impossibility of Nature; we were told that the collation was on the table. Immediately, having taken us by the hand; Come on, gentlemen, let's freshen up (he said to us) I'm sorry for my people's lack of diligence: we'll have to make up for the time they made us lose, by staying at the table for half an hour longer than we would have done. He walked first, and we followed him. Having passed from room to room, from apartment to apartment, we finally arrived at the room where snacks were waiting for us. The diversity of the objects I had seen, and their rarity constantly representing itself to my imagination, suggested to me that it was an enchantment similar to the Palaces of the Fairies of antiquity, from which I would never leave, gave me extreme uneasiness.
Having washed his hands, he seated my relative and me on one side, and sat on the other. And though he had a number of Officers, who always stood before him in deep respect, and awaited his commands, he nevertheless wished himself to serve us meats which were on the table, urging us incessantly to eat, by a hundred obliging words: Which was useless
; for the meats were so delicate, and so well prepared, that they invited us of themselves.
After leaving the table, having thanked him for his good cheer, we wished to take leave of him and return. Where do you want to go (he said) it is almost night; the paths of this place are most difficult, and very few people know them: You cannot reach your lodgings by day without the risk of getting lost: You must sleep here. It would be too inconvenient for you, sir (I replied). Not at all (replied you he) and I do not see any cause which could dispense you from doing me this pleasure, than the bad cheer which you had. What are you saying, sir (I replied): the whole world could not make a better treat than the one we have just made: And there is all the more reason to admire it and be astonished at it, as it is in a rural and inaccessible place, far from any convenience of food and commerce, and it would be very wrong of you to say otherwise, and repay a blessing with ingratitude. If this is so (he said) you must not hesitate to grant me the prayer that I make to you. If you take our importunities for offices (I retort) and you wish that we continue them, to oblige you we consent to it as much as you please. You can't oblige me more sensibly (he replied), and perhaps you won't be sorry: Let's go for a walk while supper is getting ready. to oblige you we consent to it as much as you please. You can't oblige me more sensibly (he replied), and perhaps you won't be sorry: Let's go for a walk while supper is getting ready. to oblige you we consent to it as much as you please. You can't oblige me more sensibly (he replied), and perhaps you won't be sorry: Let's go for a walk while supper is getting ready.
We remained in this Palace four days incessantly considering new things. At the last, after having seen its Parterres, its Gardens, its Fountains, its Grottoes and its Cascades, and an infinite number of intertwined figures, which only lacked speech: We having found ourselves at the end of an alley in the Park, and a little tired from the walk; pushing his good humor more than he had done: You don't know me (he tells us) and don't know who I am: I want to tell you, but first let's sit down. Having entered a cabinet which was at the end of the aisle, and each having sat down at his convenience, he began in this manner.
I am convinced that you have often heard of the Pygmies without knowing them; I am the King. At this word, having risen to apologize to him if we had not given him the respect we owed him, for want of having the honor of knowing him, and wanting to stand up. No way, please (he said to us) I am a man like you; Take your places again, if you want to oblige me. (We will do it, I reply, since your Majesty commands us to do so): Who had sovereign power over all the earth (he continued) and now reduced to this wretched cavern. I had chosen for my stay this Island, as the principal key of my Indian States, and as a temperate climate, abundant in honey, in sugar, in fruits and in all the sweetnesses of life.
I lived in this happiness, from the beginning of the world, until the time that the greed of men armed them against themselves, that they sought to enlarge and make progress on each other; that they have found the invention of vessels, and the diabolical art of gunpowder and cannon; that they carried their arms into my Indies, seized the gold and silver mines, and subjugated my kingdoms; driven by an insatiable greed, they came to this Isle, where I held my court; have declared war on me, defeated my Armies, and reduced me to fleeing by night into this cave, which is unknown to them, where I hold myself secretly with the few people I have left; they made us pass for Barbarians, and to make war on the cranes. It is true, since the Amazons were also subjugated, who were previously a People against whom we were always at war, to maintain ourselves in the exercise of arms, to flee from idleness, and to await a better fortune; we made war on these animals; we have feasted on their flesh and blood, as on a delicious dish, and have made our softest and most delicate beds of their remains. We still make war on them, but with so much circumspection that they do not notice it, for if they knew it, they would lay ambushes for us, surprise us, take away the treasures that remain to us, and make us their slaves. I want people to know that we have nothing barbarous except the name; that we have among us courtesy, cordiality, sincerity, and justice, like the other Nations: That we possess in all their purity, Astrology, Music, Medicine, all Languages, and the principles of the liberal Arts. They never spoke of us to Nations who could have taken our interests, and avenged us for their injustice, except by parables, riddles, fables, or figures: They never told them clearly who we were. Your Majesty therefore knows Astrology (I said interrupting him): perfectly, he replied; if I were not afraid of displeasing him, I would ask him for the grace to tell me what will be successful for me in the journey I have undertaken; having replied that all that was needed was Geomancy for that, he marked at the same time on the dust, with a wand he had in his hand, several small circles arranged oddly; and after having meditated on them, here are some very extraordinary things, he said, I beg you,
Having told him, he traced on the dust on another side with the same stick, some quadrangular lines, and characters that I did not know; and muttering I don't know what between his teeth, cried suddenly, what do I see? is it a dream, or a truth? I see, Sir, that Heaven is preparing one of the highest fortunes for you: You must one day be King of seven Kingdoms, and possess their treasures. But what surprises me the most is that you are led there by the most learned man in the world, who despises them: I must no longer regard you as a vassal, but as a brother. This discourse having given me modesty, interrupting it: Up to this day, I say, I had added some credence to Astrology, for certain prognoses, which one of my friends who knows about it had made,
I have said nothing that is not true, and that I do not support by good principles, he replied: but concerning my person, you will know that the Amazons had a river of such great virtue, that it rejuvenated me whenever I could bathe in it. They opposed it, and that was the subject of our war: But since they lost their States, and I mine, I have been renewed by the remains of young cranes, who have the same virtue as this River. And as I was going to ask him one more question, my relative having made a sign to me that that was enough, and that it was time to go away; raising the siege, we are indebted to fortune, he said, for having procured us the honor of seeing your Majesty, whom we knew, in truth, only as a fable; but we should be doubly obliged to him, if it gave us opportunities to revenge you by our services, for the courtesies we have received from them. I have done nothing, he replied, that I shall not do as long as you do me the honor of remaining. We thanked him for his courtesies: But how we wanted to go out; Princes, he says, are not accustomed to receiving visits from strangers, and letting them go without giving them presents. I ask you for a moment. At the same time, having entered his cabinet, which was near the place where we were, he took two medals, each accompanied by a long gold chain, and presenting them to us, said very obligingly, if it were necessary to proportion my presents to your merit, I know you in such high esteem, that I would find myself powerless to do so to you: And although those that I present to you are of little value, I believe you are so honest that you will receive them as if they were of higher price. What I beg of you is to remember the unfortunate King of the Pygmies, when you see his arms, which are engraved on these Medals. We received them respectfully, protesting that we would preserve an eternal memory of them. After thanking him again, we took leave of him; and as we went out, pulling me gently by the arm, he whispered in my ear: Farewell my liberator, but rather my assassin, and withdrew immediately. As a moment of joy recreates minds, and sends them to all the most remote parts, rejoices and animates them; likewise a sensible displeasure by a contrary effect, freezes them and extinguishes them in a moment; at that moment I felt the effect of these two opposites.
The first, dilating my heart, caused a torrent of joy to flow from it, which, spreading through all my nerves and all my veins, marked the pleasure I had in doing him service: But the second, like a deadly poison, squeezing my heart, suffocated the source of vital spirits; and freezing in a moment the blood of the veins and arteries, stiffened my nerves, and rendered me as if paralytic.
My relative, who was still walking, having noticed that I was not following him, turned round, and seeing me motionless against the door of the Palace, came to me, and finding myself paler than a dead man, asked me where this sudden change came from; with a word, I replied in a languid voice, that this Prince has just said to me, and having said to him, he began to laugh, saying, the pain which you have just felt is the prelude of a future joy, and you will execute one day with pleasure what he has just said to you. Ah, sir, I replied, please don't insult me at my pain, if you don't want to see me die on the spot. You are too tender for a man, he replied; let's see what the weapons are.
Having taken out the Medals he had given us, and having looked at them, we saw that there were on one side, in pieces of report, artistically applied, three fleur-de-lis Sable in chief, and a pearl shaped like a teardrop in heart, a Royal crown for gong, and two Angels for supports. And on the other side of the Medal, a naked woman holding a golden apple in one hand, and a lighted torch in the other, with the same gong, and the same supports.
And as we were walking talking about our adventure, I suddenly remembered our mountain, which forced me to tell him that we had to find the way. He answered me abruptly against his usual, it is not needed any more, since you saw the prototype of it; let's just go back to our Lodge as soon as we can, and get our people out of their anxiety at having lost us four days ago. Come, said I, fearing to displease him; indeed having arrived, we found them in unspeakable consternation, not knowing what had become of us; we regaled part of it with us, and ordered the Host to make good cheer of the rest: Thus each strove to rejoice, and to drown his sorrows in joy and amusement. The next day the wind having become clean, we embarked, weighed anchor, and set sail for the Hesperides, where we arrived on the sixth of May, with our same fortune, we anchored at the island of Cape Verde; and having ordered the Sailors to caulk the Ships, and careen them, we went ashore. As soon as we had descended, here, he told me, is the place where we must make the second station, and take the waters suitable for our journey. This place is as delectable as the Canary Islands; look at this verdant Meadow, enamelled with a thousand flowers, and this dark Forest which is at the end; the Trees loaded with flowers, leaves and fruits, enclosed by seven mountains, from which flow several small streams, which make the confused murmur that we hear: See these Sirens and these Tritons, mingled together, who bathe in these Fountains; these Nymphs along the Woods and the Meadows, blossoming the flowers, savoring the sweetness of the fruits, and playing a thousand games; all is quiet and in profound peace; approach, look at these waters of various colors, and of different tastes. Going forward, I saw that all these waters, although they were different in color and taste, nevertheless proceeded from the same source: that some were hot, sweet and bitter, others cold, sour and salty, and others held the middle; which gave me occasion to ask him what they were for. Going forward, I saw that all these waters, although they were different in color and taste, nevertheless proceeded from the same source: that some were hot, sweet and bitter, others cold, sour and salty, and others held the middle; which gave me occasion to ask him what they were for. Going forward, I saw that all these waters, although they were different in color and taste, nevertheless proceeded from the same source: that some were hot, sweet and bitter, others cold, sour and salty, and others held the middle; which gave me occasion to ask him what they were for.
These waters are poisonous in their source, he tells me, but when cooked to a certain degree, and administered according to the art, they cure all chronic and hopeless diseases, and have other properties and virtues which I pass over in silence: we need only that which is called Pelidor, which is of an incipient green, as the only necessary for this journey. At the same time having asked for a vessel, and having brought it, he drew it with a cup which he had and put it in: Then ascending to the source by the steps of nature, he took fruit from a tree, which had roots in the fountain, and put it in the vessel, with this water; and having closed it well, exposed it to the rays of the Sun against a nearby rock; let her purify, he said, while we go to the Isle of Salt, which is called in corruption, Iron Island, because there are many mines of this metal near here. And having ordered some Sailors to take food, and to enter one of our boats, we embarked, and took the road to this Island. When we got there, he ordered the Sailors to wait for us; we having advanced towards the middle of the island, and being close, turning towards me, he said to me, it is here where Pluto reigns: At this word the shiver seized me, and taking two steps back, and what, Sir, I said to him, a little stammering, for fear of seeing some demon, is hell in this place. Is it necessary to make imprecations and pacts, to make the navigation that we have undertaken? if so, I declare to you that I renounce it, and that I am not: No, no, he said to me, we will do nothing unworthy of a Christian, it is a mystery, it is true, but a religious mystery, which God grants only to his friends, and to those who can suffer martyrdom for his name. In that case, I continued, there is nothing that I do, and I will be delighted to die for glory. I am very glad to see you in these feelings, he replied; but this is not yet the place nor the hour of your vocation; let us however continue our enterprise, advance and fear nothing; look at this abyss, it is the deepest in the world; the cavernous and inaccessible rocks which surround it contain several precious stones, similar to those brought to us from the East, but which have more virtue. there's nothing I won't do, and I'll be happy to die for the glory. I am very glad to see you in these feelings, he replied; but this is not yet the place nor the hour of your vocation; let us however continue our enterprise, advance and fear nothing; look at this abyss, it is the deepest in the world; the cavernous and inaccessible rocks which surround it contain several precious stones, similar to those brought to us from the East, but which have more virtue. there's nothing I won't do, and I'll be happy to die for the glory. I am very glad to see you in these feelings, he replied; but this is not yet the place nor the hour of your vocation; let us however continue our enterprise, advance and fear nothing; look at this abyss, it is the deepest in the world; the cavernous and inaccessible rocks which surround it contain several precious stones, similar to those brought to us from the East, but which have more virtue. it is the deepest in the world; the cavernous and inaccessible rocks which surround it contain several precious stones, similar to those brought to us from the East, but which have more virtue. it is the deepest in the world; the cavernous and inaccessible rocks which surround it contain several precious stones, similar to those brought to us from the East, but which have more virtue.
Several men have had knowledge of it, and have come here to take it and make their fortune, some have succeeded, and others have been prevented by angry Eagles and Griffins, who guard it: If we wanted to we would, for I know the way; but as two opposite winds prevent navigation on either side, they would be contrary to ours; we only need to take an old salt, high, clear, shiny and mossy, which is around; for it is this salt which holds the key of the Winds which I showed you in the Fortunate Isles; who commands them, abridges and makes the journey happy: and turning to the right side, showed him to me in a cave: Having advanced to take him, incredible thing, these Eagles and these Griffins, who before prowled all around, with unspeakable pride, softened suddenly, came to him in a submissive way, gently pecked his hands, as if they wanted to express that they submitted to his power. He caressed them alike with a hundred pleasant and courteous words, as if these animals had been reasonable, during which he took the salt he desired; and having concealed it discreetly, regaled them with a cup full of ambrosia which he had brought; and having retired with all haste to our boat; we took the road to Cape Verde; where having arrived, we found that our people had completed the hull of the Ships, and awaited us with impatience. He caressed them alike with a hundred pleasant and courteous words, as if these animals had been reasonable, during which he took the salt he desired; and having concealed it discreetly, regaled them with a cup full of ambrosia which he had brought; and having retired with all haste to our boat; we took the road to Cape Verde; where having arrived, we found that our people had completed the hull of the Ships, and awaited us with impatience. He caressed them alike with a hundred pleasant and courteous words, as if these animals had been reasonable, during which he took the salt he desired; and having concealed it discreetly, regaled them with a cup full of ambrosia which he had brought; and having retired with all haste to our boat; we took the road to Cape Verde; where having arrived, we found that our people had completed the hull of the Ships, and awaited us with impatience.
He took the vessel where was the water of Pelidor, of which I have spoken, having opened it, drew the clearest; and having cleaned the vessel well, put some of it back in, and then put in the salt that we had brought, closed the vessel well, put it in our Ship, and having put the water that had remained in another, put it in the Ship intended for victuals, ordered the sailors to return what was necessary in this Island. Everything being ready, we weighed anchor, and the foresail only, because of the storms and tempests, which he foretold we were to have. He caused the lamp to be lighted near the compass, the deck and all the doors closed; commanded the helm to be held, and steered south. A short time later, having looked through the windows of the room, we perceived that certain vapors, which rose from the sea, formed clouds that covered the air; which gave us abundant rains, winds and furious storms, as he had said, which lasted some months.
At the end of forty days that we had raised the anchor, having gone out on the deck, with his astrolabe, he took his heights at the foot of the Antarctic crossing, which is a constellation of four Stars which appear on the side of the South, to which the Pilots take their heights when they are near the Line: And having found that it was raised thirty degrees and on the horizon; he told me that we were under the Equinoxial Line that the storm would last another forty days: Pulling out a telescope he had in his pocket, he showed me the Black Sea on the northern side, and the Cape of Good Hope towards the south. As I could not understand as it could be, being so far away; he told me that it was done, because the sea was spherical like the earth; that when we were under this Line, we were at the highest point of the Globe; that from this place one could easily see the Poles in the horizon, and that having a telescope of the finest workmanship that can be imagined, and cut in a way, which extended and bent the visual rays, made him see the lowest and most distant things, and represented them with their natural colors and dimensions.
He ordered the Pilot to always bear to the South, to take the wind above the Cape, in order to double it, and skirt the lands below Madagascar.
Forty days later, as he had said, having left the room and ascended the deck, he took to his heights again, on the same constellation; and having recognized that it was at the same degree, he told me that we were crossing the Line for the second time, and that the rains and the storms would soon cease: In fact, a little time later, we perceived that the fogs were beginning to subside, that the air was clearing, and that a south-westerly wind, milder than the preceding one, was pushing our vessel. Taking his telescope, and making me see the White Sea, which was gradually uncovering, he said aloud, we are out of all danger, hoist the mainsail, and let us carry towards the East. To tell the truth, we had no more pain, and our grief ceased; the sky cleared, the sea calmed, and the air and the sea, which had long been tossed about by winds and storms, took on a quiet temperament, and we began to taste the pleasure of navigation. Having sailed towards the Arabian Sea, we soon entered an azure sea, and then with an easterly wind, into the Red Sea. We went straight to a Canal which he showed us, which leads to the lands of the Kingdom of Adam which is called Aden by corruption, between the City which bears its name, and that of Zibith, also capital of the kingdom of Zibith, which borders the Red Sea. Then with a southerly wind, all sails high, we entered this Channel, and then in a small Gulf, surrounded by high Mountains, full of water of a brown red, or dark violet: it is what we called purple sea, he said to me, so desired by learned men; nevertheless as much unknown to the Scholastics, than the source of the Nile, which is brought down from the Mountains of the Moon. This is the land from which Adam, the first man, was created, and the place where are conducted, by divine Providence, the most precious things which are born in the East Indies, and those which come from the Terrestrial Paradise, by the four Rivers which descend from it. It was necessary to show you the way to it, and to lead you there, for its entrance is so difficult, and its redoubt so small, that you would never have reached it without being shipwrecked. by the four rivers which descend from it. It was necessary to show you the way to it, and to lead you there, for its entrance is so difficult, and its redoubt so small, that you would never have reached it without being shipwrecked. by the four rivers which descend from it. It was necessary to show you the way to it, and to lead you there, for its entrance is so difficult, and its redoubt so small, that you would never have reached it without being shipwrecked.
Having brought and dropped the anchor, and ordered the Sailors, that a part should work to caulking the Ships, and careen them, and the other to collect along the sea and the coasts, what to load them, he took me by the hand, and said to me with a paternal tenderness, and you, my son, come with me to do another work. You already know that to come to this place, it was necessary by means of Art, to force nature to provide us with the winds that we needed; you have to do the same to return; it is a mystery that must not be ignored, otherwise we would never leave this haven, and all our troubles would be useless. Let us therefore complete our work, rectify the matter which is in our ship, as long as we see there in advance, the winds which are proper to us, and the adventures which must happen to us on our return.
He took the vessel that was in our Ship, carried it ashore, and opened it, and having drawn out the salt that was in it, which he found changed from its first form, put it into another, poured water from Pelidor upon it, closed it, and put it in the great heat of the Sun; and commanding me to stand by, and watch what should happen, he departed. Scarcely had he left me than I saw certain vapors rising from the bottom; which formed little clouds which dissolved into rain as they rose; which falling down, made a darkness. After this darkness, a clear and serene day appeared, which made me see a light land, covered with an incipient green, laden with fruits of a pale yellow, the Sky of a celestial blue, with a brilliant Dawn, followed by a fiery Sun: I was so attentive to consider these marvels, that I would have been taken for an ecstasy; and I would doubtless have spent the night there, if he had not come to tell me that it was time for supper. I withdrew from it with difficulty, but I had to obey. Having asked me what had happened during his absence, I related it to him, and pointed out to him all the circumstances which I had exactly observed. I am very glad, he said, the colors you have seen are those of the seas on which you will command one day. That's enough, let's talk no more about it, let's have supper and rest, tomorrow we'll do new things. and pointed out to him all the circumstances which I had exactly observed. I am very glad, he said, the colors you have seen are those of the seas on which you will command one day. That's enough, let's talk no more about it, let's have supper and rest, tomorrow we'll do new things. and pointed out to him all the circumstances which I had exactly observed. I am very glad, he said, the colors you have seen are those of the seas on which you will command one day. That's enough, let's talk no more about it, let's have supper and rest, tomorrow we'll do new things.
The next day, having gone to our Vessel, he opened it, and putting on the matter which was inside the same water, he said to me: Each time that we do this, we will shorten our return by half the time that we used to come: we must repeat it so often, that our return be made to Danzig with such speed, that it passes rather for a dream, or a daydream, than for a truth: which will happen the seventh time. But so that our people do not perceive our Art, and that we can reduce it to practice without their knowing it, when we leave here, after we have weighed anchor and set sail, you will make them each take a goblet of a drink that I will give you, which will make them doze off in such a way that they will not wake up until the harbor. You will watch alone with me,
Our work being done, we carried our ship into the Ship, and went along the coast to aid our people in collecting the load of our Ships.
The Sailors had no sooner completed the hull of the Ships than the load was ready, we had them weighed down with mines of gold and silver, which our people had found at the foot of two small mountains, and finished filling them with Brazilwood, Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg, Incense, Aloes, Myrrh, Amber, Manna, Cotton, Linen, a few Pearls, Fine Stones, N ard, and a precious balm.
The boarding being done, he said to me; before leaving, we must go and give thanks to God at a temple on this mountain (which is one of those along the coast where we were) and consult a holy man who guards it. Let's go when you please, I told him. Having set off on the hour, we did not stop until we got there. Being there I believed to find a Temple in the manner of ours, and a sociable man, with whom I could reason, and inform me of some particularities of the country which I had in mind. I found that this Temple was made in a Dome, like the Rotunda of Rome. There was only one door to enter, which was of brass, and placed on the side of the rising sun. Having entered, I saw that the Altar was placed in the middle of the Temple, supported by four pillars of different qualities,
These pillars were in the air as well as the Altar, supported by an invisible link. Around the Altar, from the top, bottom and sides were seven burning lamps, which illumined the Altar, also supported by an invisible link. The walls of the Temple were azure, and dotted with brilliant stars like those of the Firmament. The Guardian of this Temple was seated on the Altar, as on a Throne, dressed in a Tunic pulling on a red-brown. He shone everywhere like a Sun, and had an open book in front of him. Around the Temple were twelve windows, and at each window a figure so artistically wrought, that I am still in doubt whether they are living bodies, or figures: for they opened their mouths, rolled their eyes, clasped their hands, and moved like living creatures. Directly below were twelve niches, in each of which there was also a figure whiter than alabaster, who had eyes aflame like doves, and squirted milk from their udders. Below the niches (all around the Temple from the inside), there was a grassy lawn, raised in the manner of a Perron: On the Perron there were small flocks of Lambs which grazed opposite the figures.
Another man than the one who was on the Altar, took the Lambs, and slaughtered them one after the other, put their blood in vessels; and having divided in two the fleeces of the Lambs which he had slaughtered, kissed one part of them in the face of the window, and the other in the face of the niche, opposite which the Lambs had been taken; and attached them to a column which was at the foot of the Perron: and after having left them there for some time, put each part in a vase, sprinkled with blood that which he had caused to be kissed in the face of the window, and with milk that which he had caused to be kissed in that of the niche, and put the vases on a small pedestal which was opposite the figures. Below the pedestal there was a small light that burned incessantly, consuming the Sacrifice. When this man had completed his expedition in one place, he was going to do the same in another: But what surprised me more was to see that in these lawns there were successively born other Lambs in the same place where those who had been slain had been taken: that this man had not soon gone around the Temple, that he did not finish for another year, so my relative tells me, that the Lambs of the first place were found to be as strong as those that were he had slaughtered the previous year. He started again and always continued without intermission this exercise. My curiosity having led me to ask this man for what end he was sacrificing these Lambs, having not answered, and wanting to repeat, believing that he had not heard, my relative, tapping me on the shoulder, said in my ear, This man is dumb and deaf:
The figures in the niches had their eyes raised towards those above, and seemed to offer these victims as a sacrifice to them, or to beg them to have mercy on them. Those of the windows had their faces and eyes turned towards the Holy Man; and the movement of their eyes, their lips, and their hands, seemed only to praise him, or to ask something of him.
All these figures had their titles on their pedestals in Hebrew letters: And all around the Temple were also written in the same characters of gold, of an excessive size these words, per ignem et aquam totum fecit: My relative, who was not ignorant of these mysteries, after having made his prayer, addressed himself to the Holy Man who was at the Altar, and spoke to him in this manner.
Holy Man, who are in veneration among the Angels and Men, and in this place the Interpreter of the Oracles of Almighty God: I beg you very humbly, to present to him the vows that I have just made, and to obtain for me from his mercy, through your intercessions, the remission of my past faults; the grace of perfect penance, and that of a better life in the future; so that one day all together, we can in his Kingdom give him the honor and the glory that we owe him: And since we are far from our Fatherland, and on the point of leaving to return there, if I have failed in the mystery that I have undertaken, I beg you to let me know my fault, and inspire me with the means of remedying it before our departure: reveal to me whether my relative here present, whom I have instructed with all care and accuracy,
This Holy Man, who until then had appeared intrepid, rose straight up, and gave the answer that you are about to hear.
ANSWER.
Mortal, in answer to your prayer, the Almighty, who is in this invisible place, inspires me to say to you; that for the exemplary life you lead, he has filled you with great Sapience: For this reason you have not failed. May you always keep his commandments and his works, and you will reach the ultimate perfection. If your parent follows your precepts, which will depend on him, no doubt he will have the same reward. And as a sure pledge of these words, leaving this Temple, there will be presented to you by an unknown hand, a box which you will receive, and will keep it without opening it, until you have arrived in your country, which you will deliver to your relative.
When he had finished these words, he sat down as before, and closed his book, on which I saw that the title was in large gold letters:Liber Vivi and Sapientiae . After this answer, we each made him a deep bow, and resumed our journey. As we walked, being still near the Temple, we perceived an outstretched arm, which held in its hand a box, and presented it to us. My relative knowing that it was intended for him, advanced and took it with respect. Having hugged her, we continued on our way. Having arrived at our Vessels, without testifying anything to what had happened, he was ready: he was told that we were only waiting for his orders to leave. He ordered the anchor to be weighed, and all the sails to be hoisted: which was done immediately. The wind having cleared up, we left the Port.
It was then that having brought on the deck of the Ship, in which he had brought all our sailors, and tied the one who had been used to carry the victuals; a cacque full of liquor he had in his room. Holding a cup in hand, gave it to me, and told me to make all who were in the Ship drink it: in recognition of the pains and care they had taken in diligently collecting the goods, and loading the Ships. Having done this, everyone was so drowsy that most of them, not being able to reach their bed, remained surprised in a deep sleep, in the very place where they had been drinking. So that I remained alone with him: And having drawn water from the seas over which we were passing, as he had recommended me, we found ourselves the next day at the roadstead of Danzig.
Before waking our Sailors, he said, let us enter the room, let me tell you what you will do with the waters you have collected. Having entered he said to me: If the purple one, which is the first, were to fail you, you would make some with the azure and red one, exposing them to the Sun.
In the purple one you will sow good wheat; at the same time a land will be formed, which will produce wheat that no man has ever seen its equal.
In the red you will drown a black and white speckled trout, and it will produce fish of the same species that will never run out.
In the green, an api apple; it will produce an immortal tree, laden with leaves and fruit in abundance.
In the yolk, seeds of a good Complan; it'll bring forth a vine, and everlasting grapes, if you know how to cultivate it.
In the white, a golden acorn: it will produce a forest of Oaks of continual greenery, which will recreate you in your solitude; will provide you with shade from the heat of the Sun, and wood to make you avoid the rigors of Winter. And in the black, you will put three terrestrial stars there, saying three times with firm faith, Domine, Domine Deus meus, et Pater meus, descende super terram, et exultabit anima mea. From which will be formed a Heaven and a new earth, which will produce like a new earthly Paradise, incorruptible fruits, which will serve to congratulate you in this world, and to make you happy in the next. But in order to deserve these graces, you must mortify your body by frequent fasts, elevate your spirit to God by continual prayers, visit the poor, give them alms, and bandage the sick. What you can do easily if you know how to use the balm well, and the treasure which is in our Vessel.
I assure you, sir, I said to him, that I will make good use of it. However, please tell me if there is no other way to go to India than the one we have just taken. The Sun, the Moon, and the other Planets trace one every day (he told me) you can choose from several that are here; However, if you start your trip with Unleavened, or the four Cardinal points, it will be easier and shorter than all the others, but less lucrative. However that which we have just made, which is accomplished in as much time as the child remains in the womb of its mother; ie in nine months you must suffice if you are reasonable.
Let's now wake up our people: Saying these words, he left the room, and went on the deck. I followed him: And as I had my mouth open to ask him something that had come into my mind, a cloud fell on our Ship which covered it, and a little wind arose which carried it away, and made it disappear: which made me utter a cry so loud, that all our Sailors woke up, and I was fainting with pain. When they woke up, having found me dead, they helped me as best they could. After I regained my senses, I told them how we had sailed from India, and how after arriving at the Port he had disappeared. Which put them in even greater astonishment: but in the end they had to be patient.
And as I gave the orders to go ashore, I remembered the box that the Holy Man had ordered him to deliver to me when we arrived. Uncertain if he had taken it, I quickly went back into the room to see if it was there: I found it on the table, I took it, and opened it on the spot, so impatient was I to know what was there.
I found there a most bizarre figure, which I have always kept, and which is here.
The Friend. This gentleman, having taken this figure from his pocket, showed it to me: having examined it, I returned it to him; he shook it, and continuing, with a note containing what I am about to tell you.
The Author. Especially since this note carries the explanation of the figure, I thought it was necessary to draw it up in this place before reciting the note, for a more perfect understanding. There she is.
TICKET.
Friend, be attentive to what I am going to say, and weigh my words. This figure that you see is similar to that of the Temple that you saw, and explains it.
The Temple, as well as this figure, represents the Globe of the Universe. The twelve moving figures which are at the windows of the Temple, those which are at the niches; the Lambs and the lawns which are at their feet, are called peoples and alliances, and signify the fruits which the celestial Signs, which you see engraved around this figure, produce successively each month in the terrestrial Paradise, of which the Seven Planets which are also engraved around the Lamb who is in the center, are the Heads. This man who flies in this figure, who holds a sword in one hand, and a Globe in the other, represents Time, which destroys and sacrifices everything to the Temple of Memory, as you have seen: the lines which start from the South and the North, which correspond to the Eastern and Western parts, signify the four pillars which support the Altar of the Temple, and that the whole circle of this figure is reduced to these four parts, which are called Elements. The three lines which respond directly to the Signs of Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra, which form an equilateral triangle in the Square; that the four Elements are reduced with the sulfur of the dominating Planet in Mercurial water, from which these three Signs have their nature. The angle which proceeds from the square, and from the triangle which corresponds to the Sign of Aries, which has the nature of fire, and forms the figure of a crucified reversed man: that from this Mercurial water, and the Sign of fire which is in this angle, is produced the Lamb which is in the center of the figure; and this Lamb that of the Holy Man who is seated on the Altar. These four lines which start from the East, the West, the South and the North, and which end towards the center of the figure: that the Lamb has in him the nature of the four Elemental qualities equally distributed. The seven Stars, or Planets, which are around the seven lamps which give light to the Altar of the Temple; and the rays that surround the Lamb, the book of Life of the holy Man: For you must know that this Man was a Lamb in his time, by his virtue and his sufferings, and that his life is all pure and heavenly. The triangular figure which is in the Square, that this Lamb having become Man, was raised in Cross: because these two angles from below represent the two arms; the angle above the feet, and the angle which is outside the triangle below, formed by an angle of the Square, represents the head, and all these parts together, a crucified fallen Man. This way of the inverted Cross is inspired, in its imitation, to seek the Cross:
And as in the composition of this perfect Body, the Elements passed into each other, united, and became friends, without ever being able to be separated; this Elementary circulation and union is rightly called Quadrature of the Circle, by means of which all things are consummated: and whoever seeks the Quadrature elsewhere, wastes his time and his oil: Take advantage of these words if you are wise.
After reading this Note, I folded it up, and put it back in the box as it was, and squeezed it. This reading made me think again about the loss I had just suffered, and renewed in my heart a very sensitive pain: it was nevertheless necessary to console myself, and to give the necessary orders for our disembarkation: What having been executed, and made donations to all those who were in our Vessel, proportionate to my fortune, and to their employment, I had the rest brought home.
The Author. As this Gentleman finished this story, our boat arrived at the Port of Spolete. Wanting to urge him to clarify something I thought I hadn't heard correctly, he motioned for me to be quiet. I kept silent; and having hastened to get out of the boat first to give him my hand on the descent, when I turned to hold it out to him, I no longer saw him. I looked for him without saying a word, right and left; but not seeing him, I asked the Sailors and the Company what had become of him: they told me that he had gone out immediately after me, and that they did not know the route he had taken: which gave me such grief that I thought I would die: As soon as I was at my Inn; so as not to lose the memory, I took up my pen and traced on paper the figure you saw, and the story you have just heard. I know very well that it is not regular, that it was necessary to suppose adventures from Danzig to the Fortunate Islands; from this place to the Hesperides, and from the Hesperides to India; especially since the journeys and the times are long, and could allow the story of some pleasant adventure to entertain the Reader. I would have done it if I had wanted, having for it more madeira than was necessary: But not having been made of it, it would have been rather a rhapsody of muddled speeches, without form and figure, than a sincere Relation. If you find any faults in it, do not blame me; because I have advanced nothing that is not essential,
The Friend. I believe that the Gentleman who gave you the speech you have just recited, claimed to share with you a Scientific History, under a fabulous allegory; and I recognize such great things in the figure of the Quadrature of the Circle, of which you have had the image engraved, that I am surprised that you give it the title of bizarre. I am convinced that the one who invented the Quadrature of the Circle, has heard of the Quadrature of the Elements: And since they are always at war, he wanted to say that the Philosopher who will find a way to unite them and bring them into agreement, so that they can all four exist in a subject, without the hot overcoming the cold, and the cold the hot: the dry the humid, and the humid the dry, as they are in this figure, will certainly be able to say to have found the true Quadrature of the Circle: Because the points which compose this Quadrature, precisely fill the space of the Elementary Circle, which reduces it still to the three natural Principles shown by the triangular figure, drawn on the square; and the latter to the production of an object which contains them all in itself. It is the true Philosophy of the Ancients, known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want. Because the points which compose this Quadrature, precisely fill the space of the Elementary Circle, which reduces it still to the three natural Principles shown by the triangular figure, drawn on the square; and the latter to the production of an object which contains them all in itself. It is the true Philosophy of the Ancients, known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want. Because the points which compose this Quadrature, precisely fill the space of the Elementary Circle, which reduces it still to the three natural Principles shown by the triangular figure, drawn on the square; and the latter to the production of an object which contains them all in itself. It is the true Philosophy of the Ancients, known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want. which further reduces it to the three natural Principles shown by the triangular figure drawn on the square; and the latter to the production of an object which contains them all in itself. It is the true Philosophy of the Ancients, known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want. which further reduces it to the three natural Principles shown by the triangular figure drawn on the square; and the latter to the production of an object which contains them all in itself. It is the true Philosophy of the Ancients, known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want. known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want. known to few people, but the most reasonable, since it teaches us to know God perfectly by the degrees and operations of Nature, to humble ourselves for his glory, and to work out our salvation. This Gentleman was assuredly one of the twelve Rose-Croix brothers of Danzig, who know from day to day what is happening to everyone, and who make themselves invisible when it suits them, and whenever they want.
The Author. It is true that if the Author of the Quadrature of the Circle had intended only to trace simply on a circle a square which contained in itself the same quantities and spaces of the full surface of the Circle (according to the common feeling), it seems to me that one does not have to be a great Philosopher to find this Quadrature: For if one measures the circumference of a Circle; that we divide this measurement into four equal parts, and that we form a square of these four lines; there is nothing more certain that this square will be regular, that one can divide it into as many equal or unequal parts as one wishes, and that it will contain precisely the same quantities of spaces which will be enclosed by the Circle, of which the four lines of the square make the circumference. This makes sense, and the experience is easy. There she is.
Let us take a round vessel which represents the Circle, and a square which have the dimensions that I have said: let them be equally united and placed of the same height or depth: fill one of them with water, or very fine sand: empty it into the other, you will certainly find that it will fill it with the same accuracy: , did not intend to make a proposal of this nature, which would only be a trifle, and that would be giving the public something rather fruitless. It is more likely that he wanted to speak of the one whose image is here represented, which nevertheless, although the square is enclosed by the Circle, and that the four sides are not of the same quantity as the circumference of the Circle, must give to know, that in the way that this Quadrature is established, it contains in itself all that is contained by the same Circle; which is no small mystery. I have been good enough to share it with the public, with the account of its History, such as I have it from the Gentleman whom I met in my travels, and to whom I intended to dedicate this Book under the title of the Unknown Mercury: so that if by chance it fell into the hands of some scholar, who understood its doctrine and its usefulness, he would be willing to explain it, and give it to the public, with the same sincerity as I exposed them one and the other. it contains in itself all that is contained by the same Circle; which is no small mystery. I have been good enough to share it with the public, with the account of its History, such as I have it from the Gentleman whom I met in my travels, and to whom I intended to dedicate this Book under the title of the Unknown Mercury: so that if by chance it fell into the hands of some scholar, who understood its doctrine and its usefulness, he would be willing to explain it, and give it to the public, with the same sincerity as I exposed them one and the other. it contains in itself all that is contained by the same Circle; which is no small mystery. I have been good enough to share it with the public, with the account of its History, such as I have it from the Gentleman whom I met in my travels, and to whom I intended to dedicate this Book under the title of the Unknown Mercury: so that if by chance it fell into the hands of some scholar, who understood its doctrine and its usefulness, he would be willing to explain it, and give it to the public, with the same sincerity as I exposed them one and the other.
The Friend. You were going to be very glad, Gentlemen Chemists, to dedicate your Book to their Mercury.
The Author. You are a scoffer, Sir, I do not believe that there is in all this Speech a word of which these Gentlemen can take advantage. I want them to know that I recognize no other Mercury than Man, who is a leprous Mercury, because of his sin, which caused the Sun of Justice to die, that is to say, JESUS CHRIST Son of God; and that there is nothing that can cleanse him of his leprosy, and unite him to the glorious humanity of JESUS CHRIST than the waters of Baptism and Penance, nor any other Triangular Stone than that of the most holy and most adorable Trinity, of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, united in one Essence, and one Divinity; what every Christian must know and know for his salvation.
The Friend. Please don't go any further; because you are quite heated from the reading you have just done.
The Author. It's a small thing. I thought I had to speak to you thus, to dissuade you from this thought, if you had it, and all those Gentlemen, whom I advise not to buy my Book in this spirit, since there are more important and better things to consider. But it's getting late, night is approaching, you have to retire to avoid the serene. I give you thanks, Sir, and assure you that you will eagerly seek opportunities to revenge me for the honor you have done me, to give me a favorable audience in a time that is so precious to you, Friend
. I couldn't put it to better use, and beg you to believe that I take great pleasure in it.
The Author. I bid you good evening, and remain your obligation.
MESDMB
END