Light Emerging of Itself from Darkness

LETTRE.

cartes than according to Hermes original: "Hermés"; refers to Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Greek-Egyptian figure to whom the Hermetic corpus and alchemical tradition are attributed.. The former is in fashion and possesses all the charms of novelty, whereas the latter is so old and so worn out that his name is scarcely known to the world; one proposes only things that are easy to demonstrate, by remaining solely at the surface of bodies, while the other, more abstract, concerns itself only with the internal essence of things; finally, the one, confining itself to mechanics mechanics: the "mechanical philosophy" of the 17th century, which viewed the universe as a giant clockwork mechanism governed by physical laws, grants things only the power of a machine, and claims that movement—indifferent in itself—produces diverse things only by reason of the various configurations of the bodies it moves, whereas the other, entirely intellectual, admits a universal soul of the World universal soul: also known as the "Anima Mundi," this is the belief that a single, vital, and intelligent spirit permeates all of nature, active, intelligent, and infor- The text breaks here at "infor-", likely continuing as "informante" (informing/giving form to) on the following page. A catchword "ma" is visible, suggesting the next page may begin with "matière" (matter).