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

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Book II.
169

and joynts, knowing alſo Mechanicall Arts reſulting from theſe, may without any wonder, if he excell other men in Art, and wit, do many wonderfull things, which the moſst prudent, and wiſe men may much admire. Are there not ſome reliques extant of the Ancients works, viz. Hercules, and Alexanders pillars, the gate of Caſpia made of braſs, and ſhut with Iron beams, that it could by no Wit or Art, be broken? And the Pyramis of Julius Cæſar erected at Rome neer the hill Vaticanus, and Mountains built by Art in the middle of the Sea, and Towers, and heaps of Stones, ſuch as I ſaw in England put together by an incredible Art. And we read in faithfull Hiſtorians, 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 reſtrained, the bottome of the Sea been ſearched, Pools exhauſted, Fens dryed up, new Iſlands made, and again reſtored to the continent, all which, although they may ſeem to be againſt nature, yet we read have been done, and we ſee ſome reliques of them remaining till this day, which the vulgar ſay were the works of the divell, ſeeing the Arts, and Artificers thereof have been dead out of all memory, neither are there any that care to underſtand, or ſearch into them. Therefore they ſeeing any wonderfull ſight, do impute it to the divell, as his work, or think it is a miracle, which indeed is a work of naturall, or Mathematicall Philoſophy. As if anyone ſhould be ignorant of the vertue of the Loadſtone, and ſhould ſee heavy Iron drawn upwards, or hanged in the Aire (as we read the Iron Image of Mercury did long ſince as Treveris hang up in the middle of the Temple by Loadſtones, this verſe atteſting the ſame.

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 ſuch an ignorant man, I ſay, preſently ſay it is the work of the divell? But if he ſhall know the vertue of the Loadſtone to the

Iron,