Silence After the Clamors

and in no way differ from them. For example, those celestial lights, the Sun and the Moon, are governed and moved by nature in ordinary movements, such that if their centers sometimes come into a direct line with the center of the earth, an eclipse of either the Sun or the Moon occurs according to the ratio of the conjunction or opposition of the luminaries. Art investigates their movements, and if it finds them true, it will also be able to know the true time of their obscuration. From which, since all eclipses are predicted, it is clear that the celestial movements have been investigated by art in agreement with nature. Similarly, if art has investigated the true matter and form of gold and silver, together with the efficient cause, and knows how to combine these causes, as the philosophers testify, it will also produce a true natural work. Since this product appears through many artificers, it is most certain that the speculation of art walks with equal steps with the work of nature and corresponds to it. In the same way, I wish it were so with medicine and the other arts (for regarding pure sciences no doubt remains), then the principles would always correspond to their end and effects to their causes and bear witness to it, which is now observed to happen very rarely.