Commentary on the First and Second Chapters of the Thirtieth Book of the Natural History of Gaius Plinius Secundus

works by the mutual and opportune application of natural things, exceeding every admiration, intellect, or human grasp. For there is a compassion in natural things, if I may so say, which we call Sympathy, toward the occult forces of manifest things. For those skilled in things, through the mutual recognition of these things, or, if I may say so, compassion, would lead all things into one; but through Repugnance or contrariety, they would expel them: just as if they had purified something with sulfur or asphalt, they would expel it with sea water, which has the power of purging—sulfur on account of the sharpness of its odor, sea water on account of the fiery portion it possesses. It must be weighed further that the natural is attracted by art, and the Divine by nature. Noting this, the Egyptians called Magic nature, that is, magic itself in enticing and attracting to itself like by like, and convenient by convenient; for such attraction by the mutual convenience of things among themselves, with the lower to the higher, the most skilled of the Greeks called Sympathy, as we have said, just as earth agrees with water by coldness, with air by moisture, and air with fire by the heat of fire. Thus, concerning the principles of things, that is, the elements: matter is not mixed with heaven, fire with water, unless through air; nor air with earth, unless through water. So neither is the soul mixed with the body, unless through the spirit; nor the intellect with the spirit, unless through the soul. This is the combination of natural things with the higher. Thus we see that when nature has decided to form the human body, by this very preparation it immediately draws down the spirit from the universe. This spirit is a tinder, according to certain philosophers, for coupling the soul to the body; the soul is a tinder in the spirit. Thus we see that with certain natural and artificial preparations, it is possible for lower things to receive certain celestial gifts. Again, now in spiritual things, it agrees: the Plant with the Brute by vegetation; the Brute with Man by sense; Man with the Demon by intellect; this with Intention; Intention with Imagination; that with the sensed;