Dialogue on Divine and Human Love

...from knowledge and love, or artificial appetite; so too that of these irrational bodies comes from knowledge and natural love.

SOPHIA. The manner of love and knowledge found in these inanimate bodies original: "corpi morti" (literally "dead bodies"); in Renaissance physics, this refers to non-living matter like stones or elements which lack a sensitive soul. resonates with me, but I would like to know if there is perhaps any other love or appetite in them besides that which they have for their proper places—such as the light tending upward and the heavy downward.

PHILO. The love that the elements and other inanimate bodies have for their proper places, and the hate they have for their opposites, is like the love and hate that animals have for things that are unsuitable for them. Thus they flee one and follow the other; furthermore, this love is of the same kind as that which terrestrial animals have for the earth, or sea-creatures for the water, or winged creatures for the air, and the Salamander According to Renaissance natural history, the salamander was a creature born from and sustained by fire. for the fire, which is said to be born in it and dwell there. Such is the love of the elements for their proper places. Beyond these types of love, I tell you that in the elements are found all the other five causes of reciprocal love that we said were found in animals.

SOPHIA. All of those?

PHILO. All of them.

SOPHIA. Tell me about them in detail.

PHILO. I shall begin with the last one, which is the love of the same species original: "spetie"; here meaning kind, category, or essential nature., because it is the most manifest. You will see that parts of the earth found outside of the whole move with effective love to unite with the entire earth. And so stones that form in the air run quickly to the earth; and rivers and other waters generated in the hollows of the earth—from vapors that exhale there and convert into water—as soon as they are found in sufficient quantity, run to find the sea and the whole element of water, because of the love they have for their species. And the airy vapors or winds generated in the hollows of the earth strive to break out through earthquakes original: "tremuoti"; early modern science often taught that earthquakes were caused by wind or air trapped underground struggling to escape to its natural place in the sky., desiring to find their element of air because of the love they have for their species. And likewise, the fire generated down here moves to rise to the place of its element in the upper part, for the love of its species.

SOPHIA. I understand the love elements have for their own species; tell me of the other causes.

PHILO. I will speak of the penultimate of the five causes of love, which is the fourth: association original: "società"; referring to the "social" compatibility or companionship between different elements., because this too is manifest by being proportioned to their natural places.

SOPHIA. And what other association is found in the elements and other bodies?

PHILO. Each of the elements (that is: earth, air, water, and fire) enjoys rest near one of the others but not near all of them. The earth flees the approach of the heavens and of fire, and seeks the cen...