Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/196

 and joynts, knowing alo Mechanicall Arts reulting from thee, may without any wonder, if he excell other men in Art, and wit, do many wonderfull things, which the most prudent, and wie men may much admire. Are there not ome reliques extant of the Ancients works, ''viz. Hercules, and Alexanders pillars, the gate of Capia'' made of bras, and hut with Iron beams, that it could by no Wit or Art, be broken? And the Pyramis of Julius Cæar erected at Rome neer the hill Vaticanus, and Mountains built by Art in the middle of the Sea, and Towers, and heaps of Stones, uch as I aw in England put together by an incredible Art. And we read in faithfull Hitorians, that in former times Rocks have been cut off, and Vallies made, and Mountains made into a Plain, Rocks have been digged through, Promontories have been opened in the Sea, the bowels of the Earth made hollow, Rivers divided, Seas joyned to Seas, the Seas retrained, the bottome of the Sea been earched, Pools exhauted, Fens dryed up, new Ilands made, and again retored to the continent, all which, although they may eem to be againt nature, yet we read have been done, and we ee ome reliques of them remaining till this day, which the vulgar ay were the works of the divell, eeing the Arts, and Artificers thereof have been dead out of all memory, neither are there any that care to undertand, or earch into them. Therefore they eeing any wonderfull ight, do impute it to the divell, as his work, or think it is a miracle, which indeed is a work of naturall, or Mathematicall Philoophy. As if anyone hould be ignorant of the vertue of the Loadtone, and hould ee heavy Iron drawn upwards, or hanged in the Aire (as we read the Iron Image of Mercury did long ince as Treveris hang up in the middle of the Temple by Loadtones, this vere atteting the ame.

"The Iron white rod-bearer flies i' th' Aire."

The like to which we read was done concerning the image of the Sun at Rome, in the Temple of Serapis) would not uch an ignorant man, I ay, preently ay it is the work of the divell? But if he hall know the vertue of the Loadtone to the