Thoughts on Art and Life

Nature's Law

65

Nature never breaks her laws.

66

Nature is constrained by the cause of her laws which dwells inborn in her.

67

Without reason no effect is produced in nature; understand the reason and you will not need experience.

Cause discovered by Effect

68

Before I proceed further I will make some experiments, because it is my intention to cite the experiment first and then to demonstrate by reasoning how such an experiment must necessarily take effect in such a manner. And this is the true rule by which investigations of natural phenomena must proceed; and although nature herself begins from the reason and ends in the result, we must pursue the contrary course and begin, as I said above, from experience and by it seek out the reason.

Repetition of Experiment

69

Before deducing a general rule from this case repeat the experiment two or three times and see if the same results are produced.

Example of preceding Rule

70

It several bodies of equal weight and shape are dropped one after another at equal intervals of time, the distances between each successive body will be equally increased.

The experiment to prove the above-mentioned theorem respecting motion must be made thus: Take two balls of equal weight and shape and let them fall from a great height so that when they start falling they touch one another, and let the investigator stand on the ground and watch whether the contact is maintained during their fall. This experiment must be repeated several times, so that the trial may not be marred by any accident and the experiment vitiated and the spectator deceived.

Necessity of Analysis

71

We know definitely that sight is infinitely swift and in an instant of time perceives countless shapes, nevertheless it only sees one object at a time. Let us take an example. You, O reader, will see the whole of this written page at a glance, and you will instantly realize that it is full of various letters, but you will not realize at that moment what these letters are nor what they signify; wherefore you will have to proceed word by word and line by line to take cognizance of these letters. Again, if you wish to reach the summit of a building you must mount step by step, otherwise it will be impossible for you to reach the summit. And therefore I say to you whom nature has drawn to this art, if you wish to attain to a thorough knowledge of the forms of objects, you will begin by studying the details, and not proceed to the second until you have committed the first to memory and mastered it in practice, and if you do otherwise you will be wasting your time and protracting your studies. And remember first of all to acquire diligence, which signifies speed.

Vision

72

Of the nature of the eye. Here are the forms, here the colours, here the form of every part of the universe are concentrated in a point, and that point is so great a marvel! O marvellous and stupendous necessity! thou dost compel by thy law, and by the most direct path, every effect to proceed from its cause. These things are verily miracles! I wrote in my Anatomy how in so small a space the visual faculty can be reproduced and formed again in its whole expanse.

73

In many cases one and the same thing is attracted by two violent forces, – necessity and power. The water falls in rain and by necessity the earth absorbs the humidity; the sun causes it to evaporate, not of necessity, but by power.

Unconscious Reasoning

74

The pupil of the eye in the air expands and contracts according to every degree of motion made by the sun. And with every dilation or contraction the same object will appear of a different size, although frequently the relative scale of surrounding circumstances does not allow us to perceive these variations in any single object we look at.

The Eye

75

The pupil of the eye dilates and contracts in proportion to the variety of bright and dark objects which are reflected in it. In this case nature has afforded compensation to the visual faculty by contracting the pupil of the eye when it is offended by excess of light and by causing it to dilate when offended by excess of darkness, like the opening of the purse. And nature here behaves like the man who has too much light in his house and closes half the window, or more or less of it according to need; and when night comes he opens the window altogether so as to see better inside his house, and nature here adopts a continued process of compensation, by continually regulating and readjusting the expansion and contracting of the pupil, in proportion to the aforesaid obscurity and light which are continually reflected in it.

Water surrounding the Globe Spherical

76

When you collect facts relating to the science of the motion of water, remember to place under every proposition the uses to which it may be applied, in order that this knowledge may not be fruitless.

77

This is a difficult question to answer, but I will nevertheless state my opinion. Water, which is clothed with air, desires naturally to cleave to its sphere because in this position it is without gravity. This gravity is twofold, – the gravity of the whole which tends to the centre of the elements, and the gravity which tends to the centre of the waters of the spherical orb; if this were not so the water would form a half sphere only, which is the sphere described from the centre upwards. But I see no means in the human mind of acquiring knowledge with regard to this. We must say, as we say of the magnet which attracts iron, that such a virtue is an occult property of which there is an infinite quantity in nature.

78

In the motion of earth against earth the repercussion of the portion struck is slight.

Water struck by water, eddies in circles around the spot where the shock has taken place.

The reverberation of the voice continues for a great distance through the air; for a greater distance through fire. The mind travels for a still greater distance through the universe; but since it is finite it does not penetrate into infinity.

79

If the water which rises on the summits of the mountains comes from the sea, whence it is propelled by its weight to a greater height than that of the mountains, why has this portion of the element of water the power to elevate itself to such an altitude and to penetrate the earth by so great an expenditure of labour and time, when the residue of the element of water, whose only obstacle is the air which does not impede it, is not able to raise itself to a similar altitude? And thou who didst devise this theory, go and study nature, so that thou mayst cease to acquire such opinions of which thou hast made so great a collection, together with the capital and interest which thou dost possess.

On the Law of Gravity

80

The sphere of the earth has gravity which increases in proportion to the lightness of the element which contains it.

Fire is light in its sphere and its lightness increases in proportion to the weight of the element which contains it.

No primary element has gravity or lightness in its own sphere.

81

The motion made by bodies which possess gravity to the common centre is not produced by the tendency of the body to find this centre, nor is it caused by attraction made by the centre, as by a magnet, drawing the weight towards it.

82

Why does not the weight remain in its place?

It does not remain because it has no resistance.

And whither will it tend?

It will tend to the centre of the earth.

And why not along other lines?

Because the weight which meets with no resistance will descend by the shortest way to the lowest depth, and the lowest depth is the centre of the earth.

And how does a weight find the centre of the earth with such directness?

Because it does not proceed at random, wandering by diverse courses.

Phenomena governed by Mechanical Laws

83

Instrumental science, that is to say, mechanics, is the most noble and most useful of sciences, inasmuch as by means of it all living bodies which have movement act; and this movement has its origin in the centre of gravity which is placed in the middle, dividing unequal weights, and it has dearth and wealth of muscles and lever also and counter-lever.

84

Since these things are far more ancient than letters, it is no wonder if in our day no records exist to tell how these seas filled so many countries. But if some record had existed, conflagrations, floods, wars, changes of tongues and laws have consumed all that is ancient; sufficient for us is the testimony of objects born in the salt waters and found again in the high mountains far off from the seas of those times.

Heat the Vital Principle

85

Heat causes moisture to move, and cold arrests it; as is seen in a cold country which arrests the motion of the clouds in the air. Where there is life there is heat, where there is vital heat there is movement of moisture.

Against those desiring to correct Nature

86

The act of cutting out the nostrils of a horse is a piece of ludicrous folly. And the foolish indulge in this practice as though they considered nature had failed to supply necessary wants, and man had therefore to supplement her work. Nature made two apertures in the nose, which each in itself is half as large as the lung pipe whence breath proceeds, and if these apertures did not exist the mouth would abundantly suffice for breathing purposes. And if you said to me, Why has nature thus provided animals with nostrils if respiration through the mouth is sufficient? – I would answer that nostrils are made to be used when the mouth is employed in masticating its food.

Of Trees

87

If a tree has been stripped of its bark in some spot, nature makes provision for this and gives a greater supply of nourishing sap to the stripped portion than to any other, so that in place of what has been taken away the bark grows thicker than in any other spot. And so impetuous is the motion of the sap that when it reaches the spot which is to be healed, it rises higher like a bounding ball, in bubbles, not unlike boiling water.

The Leaves of Plants

88

Nature has so placed the leaves of the latest shoots of many trees that the sixth leaf is always above the first, and thus in continued succession unless the rule is obstructed. And this she has done for two useful purposes in the plant: firstly, since the branches and the fruit of the following year spring from the bud or eye which is above and in contact with the juncture of the leaves, the water which feeds the shoot may be able to run down and nourish the bud, through the drop being caught in the hollow whence the leaf springs. And the second advantage is that as these buds shoot in the following year, one will not be covered by the other, since the five shoots spring on five different sides.

From Known to Unknown

89

In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.

On the Flight of Birds

90

The reason of this is that small birds being without down cannot support the intense cold of the high altitudes in which the vultures and eagles or and other great birds, well supplied with down and clothed with many kinds of feathers, [fly]. Again, the small birds, having delicate and thin wings, support themselves in the low air, which is denser, and they could not bear up in the rarer air, which affords slighter resistance.

On the Structure of Wings

91

The shafts formed in the shoulders of the wings of birds have been so devised by ingenious nature as to occasion a convenient pliancy in the direct impetus which often occurs in the swift flight of birds, since she found it more practical to bend a small part of the wing in the direct flight than the whole of it.

On a Fossil Fish

92

O time! swift devourer of all created things! How many kings, how many nations, thou hast overthrown, how great changes of kingdoms and diverse vicissitudes have succeeded one another, since the marvellous body of this fish, which perished in the caverns and intricate recesses [of the mountain]. Now undone by time, thou liest patient in this confined spot; with thy fleshless and bare bones thou hast built the framework and the support of the mountain that is above thee.

We live by Others' Death

93

Unconscious life remains in what is dead, which when reunited to the stomach of living men, reacquires sentient and conscious life.

Against Doctors

94

Men are chosen to be physicians in order to minister to diseases of which they are ignorant.

95

Every man wishes to amass money in order to give it to the physicians who are the destroyers of life; they ought therefore to be rich.

96

Take pains to preserve thy health; and thou wilt all the more easily do this if thou avoidest physicians, because their drugs are a kind of alchemy, and there are as many books on this subject as there are on medicine.

97

Oh! meditators on perpetual motion, how many vain projects of similar character you have devised! Go and join the seekers of gold.

Against the Seekers of Perpetual Motion

98

The water which flows in a river moves either because it is summoned or driven, or because it moves of its own accord. If it is summoned, – and I mean sought after, – who is the seeker? If it is driven, who is the driver? If it moves of its own accord, it gives evidence of reasoning; and reasoning in bodies which continually change their shape is impossible, because in such bodies there is no consciousness.

Against Occult Sciences

99

I wish to work miracles. I may have less than other and less energetic men; and those who wish to grow rich in a day live a long time in great poverty, as happens, and will always happen, to alchemists, who seek to make gold and silver, and to the engineers who wish from still water to obtain life and perpetual motion, and to the supreme fool, – the necromancer and the magician.

Of Astrology

100

There is no part of astronomy which does not depend on the visual lines and on perspective, the daughter of painting; because the painter is he who by the necessity of his art has begotten perspective, and it is impossible to do without lines which include all the various figures of the bodies begotten by nature and without which the art of geometry is blind. And while the geometrist reduces every surface surrounded by lines to a square, and each body to the figure of the cube, and mathematics do the same with their cube roots and square roots, these two sciences deal only with the continuous and discontinuous quantity, but they do not deal with the quality which constitutes the beauty of the works of nature and the ornament of the world.

101

Here the adversary will say that he does not want so much knowledge, and the mere skill of depicting nature will suffice him. To which I make reply that there is no greater error than to trust to our judgement without other reasoning, as experience, the enemy of alchemists, necromancers and other foolish intellects, has in all times proved.

Against Alchemists

102

The lying interpreters of nature affirm that quicksilver is the common seed of all metals. They do not bear in mind that nature raises substances according to the diversity of things which she wishes to produce in the world.

Against Necromancy

103

The belief in necromancy is reputed to be the most foolish of all human opinions. It is the sister of alchemy which gives birth to simple and natural things; but it is all the more reprehensible than alchemy, inasmuch as it brings forth nothing but what is like itself, that is, lies. This is not the case with alchemy, which is confined to the simple products of nature, and whose function cannot be performed by nature herself, because in it there are no organic instruments with which it can work, such as the hands are to man and which have enabled him to make glass, &c. But necromancy, the flag and flying banner, blown hither and thither by the winds, is the guide of the silly multitude, which constantly bears witness with gaping wonder to the countless effects of this art; and whole books are written which declare that incantations and spirits are efficacious and speak without tongues and without vocal organs, without which it is impossible to speak, and carry the heaviest weights, raising tempests and rain and transforming men into cats, wolves and other beasts, although they who affirm such things are the first to be transformed into beasts. And certainly if such necromancy existed, as is believed by lower intellects, there is nothing on the earth which would be so effectual both as regards the service and detriment of man; because if it is true that this art has the power to disturb the calm serenity of the atmosphere, changing it into night and producing sparks and winds, with fearful thunder and lightnings that fly through the darkness, and overthrowing high buildings with violent winds and uprooting forests and striking armies and shattering and overwhelming them, and producing, in addition to this, devastating storms which rob the peasants of the fruits of their toil, what kind of warfare is there so deadly to the enemy? Who in naval warfare can be compared with him who commands the winds and generates storms which ruin and sink any fleet whatsoever? Certainly he who could dispose of such violent forces would be the lord of nations, and no human skill could resist his deadly power. The hidden treasures and gems concealed in the body of the earth would be manifest unto him. He would let himself be borne through the air from the east to the west, and through all the opposed regions of the universe. But why should I proceed further? What thing is there which could not be effected by such an art? Nothing, save the discovery of immortality. And if it is true, why has it not remained among men who so greatly desired it, and led them to disregard any deity? And I know that there are many who to satisfy a whim would destroy God and the universe. And if necromancy has not remained with man in spite of its being so necessary to him it can never have existed, nor will it ever exist according to the definition of the spirit which is invisible in the body, for in the elements there are no incorporate things, for where there is no body there is a vacuum, and a vacuum cannot exist in the elements because it would be immediately filled by them.

Deceptiveness of the Senses

104

The eye in its given distances and by its given means deceives itself in the performance of its functions less than any other sense, because it sees in straight lines which form a cone, the base of which is the object it perceives, and transmits it to the eye, as I intend to prove. But the ear greatly deceives itself as to the position and distance of the objects it apprehends, because the sonorous waves do not reach it in straight lines, like those of the eye, but by tortuous and reflex lines, and often the most remote seem to be nearest, owing to the peregrinations of such waves, although the voice of the echo is transmitted to the sense by straight lines only. The smell is less certain of the spot whence the odour arises, but taste and touch alone come into direct contact with the object which they apprehend.

On the Conception of Nothingness

105

The smallest natural point is larger than all mathematical points, and the proof of this is that the natural point has continuity, and everything which has continuity is infinitely divisible; but the mathematical point is indivisible because it is not a quantity. Every continuous quantity is mentally infinitely divisible. Among the magnitude of things which are among us, the chief of all is nothingness; and its function extends to matter that does not exist, and its essence is in time in the past or in the future, and it has nothing of the present. This nothingness has its part equal to the whole and the whole to the part, and the divisible to the indivisible, and produces the same result by addition or subtraction, or if it be divided or multiplied, – as is proved by arithmeticians by their tenth character, which represents nothing. And its power does not extend to the things of nature.

That which is called nothingness is found only in time and in words: in time it is found in the past and future, and not in the present; and thus in words among things which are said to be nonexistent or impossible. In time nothingness dwells in the past and the future, and not at all in the present, and in nature it resides among the things which are impossible. Whence from that which has been said, it has no being, because where there is nothingness there would be a vacuum.

On Spirits

106

With regard to this matter, we have said on the previous page that the definition of a spirit is a power united with a body, because it cannot move of its own accord nor acquire any kind of motion. And if you say that it moves itself, this cannot be within the elements, because if the spirit is an incorporate quantity this quantity is a vacuum and the vacuum does not exist in nature, and if it did exist it would be immediately filled by the rushing in of the element in which the vacuum was formed. So according to the definition of weight which runs: "Gravity is an accidental power created by one element attracted to or suspended in another," it follows that no element, weighing nothing in its own element, can have weight in the element which is above it and lighter than it; for instance, no one part of water has no more gravity or lightness than any other part, but if you were to draw it up into the air, it would acquire weight, and this weight cannot sustain itself by itself; and it must therefore inevitably fall, and thus wherever there is a vacuum in water it will fall in. The same thing would happen with a spirit among the elements where it would continuously generate a vacuum in whatever element it might find itself, for which reason it is inevitable that it would move in a constant flight to the sky until it had quitted these elements.

Has the Spirit a Body?

107

We have proved that a spirit cannot exist in the elements without a body, nor move of itself by voluntary motion unless it be to rise upwards. But now we will say that if such a spirit took a body made of air it would inevitably melt into air, because if it remained united it would be separated and fall and form a vacuum, as we have described above. Therefore if it desired to remain in the air it is necessary that it should blend with a quantity of air, and if it were united with the air, two difficulties arise: that is, that it will rarefy that portion of air with which it is mingled, and this rarefied air will fly upwards and will not remain in the air which is heavier than itself; and besides this the ethereal spiritual essence is disunited, and its nature is changed, for which reason that nature loses some of its first virtue. There is in addition to these a third difficulty, and this is that a body of this kind, made of air and assumed by the spirits, is exposed to the penetrating winds which continually sunder and scatter the united portions of the air, eddying and whirling amidst the rest of the atmosphere; therefore the spirit who would pervade this air would be dismembered or rent and broken up with the rending of the air of which it formed part.

108

It is impossible that the spirit, incorporated with a certain quantity of air, should move this air; and this is proved by the passage where it is said that "the spirit rarefies that portion of the air with which it is mingled." This air therefore will rise high above the other air, and the air will be set in motion by its own lightness and not by the volition of the spirit, and if this air encounters a wind, the air will be moved by the wind and not by the spirit which is incorporated in it.

Can the Spirit speak?

109

In order to show whether the spirit can speak or not it is first necessary to define the voice and the manner of its origin. The following will be our definition: The voice is the movement of air in friction against a dense body, or a dense body in friction against the air (which is the same idea), and by this friction of the dense and the rare what is rare is condensed, and resistance is caused; and again, when the rare in swift motion and the rare in slow motion come into contact, they condense one another and produce sound, and a great noise is made. The sound or murmur made by the rare moving through the rare with slow motion is like the great flame whence sounds issue in the air; the exceedingly great noise made by the rare, when the air which is rare and swift mingles with that which is rare and in [slow] motion, is like the flame of fire issuing from a great gun and striking against the air; likewise the flame when it issues from a cloud strikes the air as it begets the thunderbolt. Therefore we will say that the spirit cannot produce a voice unless the air be set in motion, but since there is no air within, it cannot discharge what it does not possess; and if it wishes to move that air in which it is incorporated, it is necessary that the spirit should multiply itself; but that which has no quantity cannot be multiplied. In the fourth place it is said, that no rare body can move if it has not a stable spot whence it may take its motion, and more especially is this the case when an element must move in its own element, which does not move of itself, excepting by uniform evaporation at the centre of the thing evaporated; as occurs in the case of the sponge squeezed in the hand under water, whence the water escapes in every direction with equal motion through the spaces between the fingers of the hand which squeezes it. As to whether the spirit has an articulate voice and can be heard, and as to what are hearing and sight – the wave of the voice travels through the air as the images of objects travel to the eye.