Then shall appear the fertility of Adam, and the magick
of that sperm that hath dilated into so many millions.
I have often beheld, as a miracle, that artificial resur-
rection and revivification of mercury, how being morti-
fied into a thousand shapes, it assumes again its own,
and returns into its numerical self. Let us speak
naturally, and like philosophers. The forms of alter-
able bodies in these sensible corruptions perish not;
nor, as we imagine, wholly quit their mansions; but
retire and contract themselves into their secret and
unaccessible parts; where they may best protect them-
selves from the action of their antagonist. A plant or
vegetable consumed to ashes to a contemplative and
school-philosopher seems utterly destroyed, and the
form to have taken his leave for ever; but to a sensible
artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into
their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the
action of that devouring element. This is made good
by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant
revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into its
stalk and leaves again.
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