Magia Naturalis, oder Hauß-, Kunst- und Wunder-Buch

planets are all contrary. Indeed, there is yet another enmity found there, in the oppositions of the houses and the exaltations. For the signs are also said to manifest certain antipathies and certain testimonies of friendship toward one another, as Manilius composes when he says:

Quin etiam propriis inter se legibus
astra
Conveniunt, & certa gerunt commer-
cia rerum;
Inque-vicem præstant visus, atque
auribus hærent:
Aut odium, fœdusque gerunt, con-
versaqué quædam
In semet proprio ducuntur plena fu-
rore.

By laws also, even the flames of heaven
Now step away from one another,
now again close together:
This one hears and sees that one, and
maintains the great covenant;
Another hates and raves, and
storms unto the very ground.

Note.

However, so that one does not remain stuck solely to the opinions of the ancients, a lover of natural science may make use of the following fundamental rules for the necessary explanation of many occurring natural events.

1. Everything that has been placed into nature by God, and is currently

found within it, is either a spirit or a body.

2. A spirit is a being that has a motion in and of itself and is capable of moving other things.

3. A body is a being that has no motion in and of itself, but must receive its motion from another thing.

4. This matter is either invisible and imperceptible, or visible and perceptible.

5. The invisible parts are those which, due to their small and subtle nature, are to be inferred only from their effects; and they are called by some Atomi, or indivisibilities; by some Particulæ, or particles; by some Corpuscula, or corpuscles; by some Effluvia, or outflows, according as the matter may require.

6. The visible ones are composed of many invisible ones.

7. The invisible parts are called Elementen [elements] when something else is composed of them; and of these there are primarily three kinds: namely, the subtle, the intermediate, and the coarse.

8. The subtle or first Element is the smallest kind of body or matter, which is set into the most violent motion and is therefore the most fluid: whose particles do not have one certain shape, but all manner of shapes, and they press themselves between all closely standing bodies, and the empty