Two Physical Treatises: On the Imposture of Healing Wounds by the Weapon Salve and On the Bleeding of Corpses

122. The practitioner himself uses the characters of things in addition to the medicine.

123. Whether they are thought, spoken, or feigned; such are the fantastic images, words, statues, and signs.

124. From which he gathers false conclusions from a false foundation.

125. For it is vain to say that words stand in relation to words as thing to thing, and that words harmonize with things in such a way that when the word is moved, the thing itself is immediately moved: and that a vehement notion of the mind forms the nature of spirits, so that having gone out, they attract the similar as if through a chain, and direct it to wherever the practitioner desires.

126. The reason is not to be sought far away, since all things fall by their own lightness.

127. And we oppose this with experience, which shows that the effect is not attained, except by chance at times.

128. And since melancholics have the most fixed and attentive spirits, all things would be in their power.

129. God, too, would be bound to secondary causes.

130. Which theologians declare to be an impious thing to say.

131. But reason also does not agree.

132. For attraction moves either the essence of God (and of demons) or their virtue.