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

Spirit, as that greatest philosopher Hermes original: "Mercurius" seems to have rightly said:

Generation, he says, of men is for the knowledge of divine works and as a testimony of nature: For commanding all things that are covered by the heaven: for undertaking the discourse of celestial things: for the power of God and the progress of nature: without doubt, if you weigh the dignity of man more exactly, you will assert that he is in some way heaven itself.

Look, in a smaller part of man there exists almost that which is in heaven, this is the eye of man, which is of a spherical figure, like the heaven: which is bright and (I might almost say) translucent, distinguished by seven tunics, marked by the number of the seven planets, distinct in circles, endowed with four humors, and many things of this kind: for these being compared, man is truly and elegantly called Microcosmus Microcosm/Little World. But why these things? Certainly so that we may signify that Magia Magic, which I shall call a distinguished part of natural philosophy, treats all these things, that is, the mutual connection of natural things. And so that we may sing of slightly greater things, so that these may become much more understood and explored by us, let us add the Plinian context.

For Plinius Pliny confesses that the art of Magic gathers into itself three most imperial arts, which he kept silent, and he by no means brought forth what these might be, but only their number: wherefore, as an interpreter of the Plinian reading, I shall rightly add them. For the most imperial arts which Plinius names, Magia embraces. Magia is indeed possessed of much power and teeming with more recondite mysteries: for it embraces and teaches the contemplation of the most profound and hidden things, their nature, power, quality, latent virtue, and the knowledge of the whole of nature, and how things seem to dissent among themselves, and how they assist each other, thus acting out its effects by uniting the virtues of things through their applications to one another. Likewise, it couples, marks, adorns, and illuminates inferior things with the gifts or virtues of superior ones. For this doctrine, that is, Magic, has claimed for itself three helpers...