Cause Principle Unity

On magic
happens to sea water, which yields fresh water when it is distilled or filtered
through wax containers. This would not happen if the mixture had been
perfect. Furthermore, oil will never mix with water because the parts of oil
cohere and are glued together like lovers, and they neither penetrate nor
are penetrated by the parts of water. Therefore, anyone who studies the
mixing of bodies with each other should give a great deal of attention to the
condition of the parts, for not everything can be mixed with everything
else.
Thus, one must study the arrangement, composition and differences of
the parts, for a whole can be penetrated by a whole in one direction but not
in another. This happens in all things, like stones, wood and even flesh,
which are penetrable, or more penetrable from one side or direction than
another. This is clear when fluids are expelled by pushing along the length
of fibres. And wood is more easily split lengthwise, for wood is more easily
penetrated along its length than its width because the pores located
between the fibres create tubes or passages in that direction.
Furthermore, one must not only examine the character and arrangement
of the parts, but also the condition of the whole structure, for certain
passions are naturally adapted to be received by one subject rather than by
another. For example, a torpedo fish causes a shock to the hand of the fisherman,
but not to the net. And, as the old joke says, the fires of love burn
the heart and the breast, but leave the chest cold and uncooked.
The same thing happens with thunderbolts, which have at times liquified
a steel sword without damaging its scabbard. An astonishing event also
happened in Naples to a very beautiful and noble young girl whose pubic
hair was burned, but nothing else. They also say that when the wood of a
barrel was burned away, the wine remained firm and solid without it. Many
such things have happened because of this ultimate occult power which
resides in the atoms of this kind of fire and which acts in one place but
not in another. The laurel and the eagle are used as insignia by generals
and poets because they are never touched by lightning, and so like them,
generals and poets are friends of Apollo and Jupiter.
What happened to that young girl does not happen to just any human
being. The reason for this is that not all people have the same physical constitution
and temperament and the same quality of spirit, and, as a result,
not all have a soul that can stop the rains and command the winds and the
storms. The astonishing things that happen in bodies must be related to a
special constitution which, because of the innumerable differences in them,
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