Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/608

 twofold point of view, viz. either as they are specially re- garded, and are comprehended within the limits of their own proper nature, or are viewed as the instruments of some more noble agent and superior power. For as regards their peculiar powers, there is, perhaps, no doubt but that all things subject to generation by birth, and to death and decay, derive their origin from the elements, and perform their offices agreeably to their proper standard ; but in so far as they are the instruments of a more excellent agent, and are governed by that, not acting of their own proper nature, but by the regimen of another ; therefore is it, therein is it, that they seem to participate with another and more divine body, and to surpass the powers of the ordinary elements.

In the same way, too, is the blood the animal heat, in so far, namely, as it is governed in its actions by the soul; for it is celestial as subservient to heaven; and divine, because it is the instrument of God the great and good. But this we have already spoken of above, where we have shown that male and female were the instruments of the sun, heaven, and Supreme Preserver, when they served for the generation of the more perfect animals.

The inferior world, according to Aristotle, is so continuous and connected with the superior orbits, that all its motions and changes appear to take their rise and to receive direction from thence. In that world, indeed, which the Greeks called Ko<r^uoe from its order and beauty, inferior and corruptible things wait upon superior and incorruptible things ; but all are still sub- servient to the will of the supreme, omnipotent, and eternal Creator.

They, therefore, who think that nothing composed of the elements can show powers of action superior to the forces exer- cised by these, unless they at the same time partake of some other and more divine body, and on this ground conceive the spirits they evoke as constituted partly of the elements, partly of a certain ethereal and celestial substance these persons, I say, appear to me to reason indifferently. In the first place you will scarcely find any elementary body which in acting does not exceed its proper powers : air and water, the winds and the ocean, when they waft navies to either India and round this globe, and often by opposite courses, when they grind,