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HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
wherein nothing is required save the brief co-operation of
her minister, by whom things natural to things also natural,
and species to their congruents, are duly and accurately
applied." Mathematics, optics, and astronomy he treats
after the same fashion, comparing their tame and common-
place frivolities with the sublime knowledge of the
ancients.
The third part is entitled " De Naturae Arcanis," and
treats of the mysteries of Light, &c., developing in a small
space a curious and profound philosophy. It describes God
as the ens entium, eternal form, inviolable, purely igneous,
without any intermixture of material, unmanifested before
the creation of the universe, according
to the maxim of
Mercurius Trismegistus, " Monas generat molem, et in seipsum
refledit ardorem suam" Earth is defined to be a gross water,
water a gross air, air a gross fire, fire a gross ether, while
the ether itself is the grosser part of the empyrean, which
is distinguished from the ethereal realm, and is described as
a water of extreme tenuity, constituted of three parts of
luminous substance to one aqueous part ; it is the purest
essence of all substances, and is identical with the luminifer-
ous ether of the latest scientific hypothesis.
Its place is the
medium mundi, wherein is the sphcera cequalitatis, in which
the sun performs its revolution. The sun itself is composed
of equal parts of light and water. Light is the cause of all
energies nihil in hoc mundo peradum fuerit, sine lucis media-
tione aut actu divino. "It is impossible for man to desire
more complete felicity than the admirable knowledge of
light and its virtues," by which the ancient magi constructed
their ever-burning lamps, forced fire out of stones and wood,
kindled tapers from the rays of stars, and naturally, by
means of its reflections, produced many wonders in the air,