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

that each thing both moves and converts to its own like. Therefore, in whatever things there is either a property or an excess of some quality, such as heat, cold: boldness, fear, hatred, love, and affections or perturbations, to these there is inherent a virtue or nature, whether by nature, by art, or by chance: as boldness in harlots: for these things move to such an excess of quality, or (I might almost say) passion or virtue, as nature bestows upon them. Thus fire moves to fire, by nature indeed: water to water: the bold to boldness: the sad to sadness. For it is plain that the brain (as the schools of Physicians assert) protects the brain: the lung, the lung's: the right eye, the right: the left, the left: the foot, the foot: the belly, the belly, and things of that kind. And since there is a certain genuine dissidence in all things: just as hatred to love: hilarity to sadness: vice to virtue: health to disease. Likewise to other animals, as has been shown by us, yet they agree through the bond we called mutual, that is, Sympathy. For the virtue of the body consists in vice: health, in sickness: the hot, in the cold, to such a degree that if one of them is taken away, it is necessary that the rest also perish, as pleases certain philosophers. This is the Chain of Homer original: "Cathena Homeri": These are the Rings of Plato: This is the combination of things: This is the consummation of each Entity. Furthermore, that we may proceed higher, returning to the established subject: it must be weighed that certain properties are inherent in things enjoying life: which being abstracted, the whole is abstracted, both the virtue and the abstruse property. For it is certain that certain animals, not lacking life, have the greatest force either in biting, or acting, or harming: which, if they are devoid of it, have no power. For what virtues remain after death, if much of the Idea (as the Platonists say) is added to them, more virtue will be in them: Thus certain dry things are more excellent than moist ones: moist things, than others. Furthermore, since the matter is such that inferior things are subject to superior ones, and as Proclus says, they are in some way inherent and joined by a mutual bond, indeed not by an external combination: thus we say that earthly things are in the heaven