THE SUBJECT OF THIS FIRST SECTION.

The first section of this Second Treatise is divided into five parts: of which

THE FIRST expresses the logic of preternatural meteors In this context, "meteors" refers to any atmospheric or bodily phenomena, including weather and disease in terms of density and rarity, and does so by visual demonstration: It is divided into three Books.

THE SECOND describes the essence or definition of morbid diseased meteors. And this is contained in a single Book.

THE THIRD,


THIRD	Explains the differences of diseases according to a mystical and uncommon logic:	Supported both by the authority of Hippocrates and Galen The two primary authorities of ancient Greek medicine and by the testimony of the Sacred Text: Explained in three books: namely, 1, 2, and 4.
	Describes the Ethnic Pagan Physicians, and especially Galen:	Regarding their detraction from Divine Omnipotence; their impudence toward Christ and Moses; and their ignorance of the true foundations of Medicine: Described in the third book of this part.

THE FOURTH treats the causes of diseases, or morbid meteors, both accidental and essential: And this is distributed into four Books:

THE FIFTH contains a religious challenge by the Christian sect to the schools of Aristotle and the Peripatetics, as well as to Hippocrates and Galen, for a "Sophic contest" A scholarly or philosophical debate, which revolves around these seven propositions, of which the first is:

First, that GOD is the sole and only actor and operator in the world. Which being granted by Europeans, we must necessarily believe that all subordinate efficient causes are removed.

Second, that the holy emanation of God is the essential act and virtue of the Angelic spirit, by means of which it lives, moves, and is animated.

Third, that by the multiform act or breath original: afflatu of the Angels, the winds—both cardinal and collateral—are assiduously created anew, moved, and in manifold ways informed and animated.

Fourth, that there is but a single element in the sublunary world, informed and animated in a fourfold way by the acts or Angelic breaths of the four winds, and altered daily from species to species.

Fifth, that heat and cold are not accidental qualities, but are essentially the acts of the Angelic winds animated by God.

Sixth, that heat—whether of the Sun and stars or of fire—does not attract vapors and exhalations to itself in the least, but rather disperses them by rarefying them.

Seventh and Last, that if these Propositions are granted by Europeans, so that the principal foundations of both Aristotle’s meteorological philosophy and the medicine of Hippocrates and Galen are radically removed, it will be necessary that those truths from the region of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Christ, and the Apostles be confirmed. Finally, you will find the six aforementioned propositions expressed and confirmed both by reasons drawn from the quiver of true Philosophy and by authorities exhausted from the Sacred Fountain, and lastly (if those are not sufficient) by visual demonstration, familiar even to the unrefined and unpolished sense.