Utriusque Cosmi Historia (1617)

The mobile world is governed, and the eighth sphere The sphere of the fixed stars in traditional Ptolemaic astronomy adorned with stars is handled and turned by her hands; and by her fingers, the influence of that same sphere is daily prepared and arranged for the generation of elementary things. The bodies of the Planets also serve as instruments for the works of Nature; they are, as it were, little hammers by which metals are produced in the terrestrial mines. The region of the heart and breast of this virgin is the true seat and matrix womb or source of the celestial Sun, and her belly is filled with the lunar body. From her breasts, she perpetually instills and suckles all the creatures of the elements with innate heat and radical moisture The essential fluids believed to sustain life in medieval medicine, from which their life and growth arise. By a certain golden splendor of her heart, the stars—both fixed and wandering planets—are illuminated, and they borrow their souls, lives, and beauties from it, as it were. Their imperceptible influences, infused into her matrix by the Mercurial Spirit (which the Philosophers call the Spirit of the Moon), are carried downward to the earth, penetrating even to its center; by these impressions, diverse generations, differing in both place and species, are continually made. By the actions of this Nature, the Planets come together, and by this joining, they produce various things differing in species in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Starting from the lower parts, from the loins, the four Elements are encompassed; for the right foot occupies the earth, and the left the water, signifying the conjunction of her sulfurous and mercurial nature: by which it is argued that nothing can be generated or grow without the union of both.

This Nature, I say—not a Goddess, but the closest minister of God—has beneath her a handmaid or follower who, by imitating her Mistress and impressing the likenesses of things produced by her into herself through consensus, follows and imitates her footsteps and outlines in a marvelous way. And it is for this reason that we have depicted her in the form and habit of an Ape The "Ape of Nature" is a common Renaissance metaphor for Art or Craft beneath the feet of Nature; which name we also call by the more dignified title of Art. This beast (I mean Art), arising from human ingenuity, learns many secrets, beautiful and notable, from the diligent observation of her Mistress, with which she is accustomed to enrich men in every kind of learning; so also, conversely, she brings no small utility and profit to that same teacher and Mistress. For unless Art, produced by human ingenuity, sometimes gives aid in certain matters, Nature herself would soon fail in the perfection of her operation. For Art sometimes corrects and supplies Nature, and indeed in the discourse of mineral things, she even seems to surpass her—if only we give some faith to those Chemical Philosophers Alchemists; especially since it is certain and proven by experience that in the animal circle, life can sprout more vigorously, silkworms can be multiplied, and by their growth be transformed into diverse shapes in the manner of Proteus A Greek sea-god capable of changing his shape, and bees can be procreated from the head of an ox; in the vegetable circle, crops grow and multiply by the artifice of the plow (by which fields are tilled and harrowed), trees by grafting, and herbs and other vegetables by planting; and in the mineral circle, metallic bodies and lesser minerals are prepared for medicine as well as for other uses, and cleansed of their dregs, and the Physician’s Stone The Philosopher's Stone, whose praises the Philosophers have so greatly preached, is forged. It is therefore our purpose in this volume to discuss these two effecting causes of the Macrocosm both clearly and copiously.