(89) But the body, which was first contracted or drawn together out of the sweet water, remaineth dead or mortal, and the sweat [or juice] of the body, which qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the astringent and bitter qualities, has the house therein, where it spreadeth itself forth, grows gross, full [fat] and lusty or wanton.

(86) But when the sweet water can defend itself no longer, then anguish riseth up in it; just as in man, when he is dying, when the spirit is departing from the body, and so the body yieldeth itself captive as a prisoner to death; just so the water also yieldeth itself captive as a prisoner.

(56) For the sweet quality is the heart of the water, for it is thin and light or bright, and is like heaven: and the bitter quality makes it separable or distinct, so that the powers form themselves into members, and cause mobility in the body.

(35) The blood signifieth the water, and is from the water.

(25) There is also therein a raging, raving, stinging and burning, and that water is continually as a dying man, when body and soul are parting asunder, a most horrible anxiety, a woeful, painful birth or geniture.

(101) Then thou seest that the body upon the root is dead also; for when the virtue is gone out of the root, then the body is but a dead carcass and can operate or effect nothing at all. And that is because the astringent spirit and the bitter have killed or destroyed the body of the water and attracted the fatness or unctuosity thereof to themselves; and thus they have drawn or sucked up the spirit thereof into the dead body.

(98) The meaning is not that the water dieth quite; no, that cannot be, but the astringent spirit taketh captive in its cold fire the sweetness or the unctuosity and fatness of the water, and qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth therewith, and makes use thereof for its spirit: Its own spirit being wholly benumbed, and in death, therefore it makes use of the water for its life, and draweth out the water's unctuosity or fatness to itself, and bereaveth the water of its power.

(82) For before the times of the world the water was very thin or rarified, like air, and then the life was generated therein also, which water is now so mortal, corrupted, perished and spoiled, and so rolleth and runneth to and fro.

(90) II. Then secondly, the astringent death of the water is to be separated, from which proceeds a poisonous venomous water of separation, or aqua fortis, which stands in the rising up of the fire- flash in death, and which is the evil, malignant, even the very worst, source of all in death, even the astringent and bitter death itself; for this is the place where the life, which existeth the in the sweet water, died in death: And that separateth itself now in the second melting.

(71) Bracus* saith: How elegantly Mundus hath described this sulphureous water! For unless solid bodies are destroyed by a nature wanting a body, until the bodies become not-bodies, and even as a most tenuous spirit, ye cannot [attain] that most tenuous and tingeing soul, which is hidden in the natural belly. And know that unless the body be withered up and so destroyed that it dies, and unless ye extract from it its soul, which is a tingeing spirit, ye are unable to tinge a body therewith.

(113) Now in the elementary water on earth the sweetness is not the chief or upper regent, but the astringent, bitter and sour quality; else the water were not mortal, but were as that water is out of which heaven is created.

(83) And the sweet spring water became very thick and stinking, and the bitter quality became very raging, tearing and raving, whence poison was generated, and the fire or heat was violently and zealously or fervently burning and consuming, and so there was a very great distemper and confused mixture.

(85) So when that is done, then the bitterness is also together captivated or imprisoned in the body of the sweet water, and becometh also together dried up, and then the astringent, the sweet and the bitter are one in another, and struggle so strongly in the dried mass or lump till the mass be quite dry: For the astringent quality always contracteth it together, and drieth it more and more.

(154) The meaning is not here, as if the spirit of the water were swallowed up or devoured, which dwelleth in all the seven qualities, but its quality or upper place or predominancy was changed into a dusky hot and sour quality.

(97) So in this exsiccation or drying up, the unctuosness or fatness in the sweet water is killed or destroyed, in which the fire kindleth itself, and so out of that unctuosity or fatness an astringent and bitter spirit comes to be. For when the unctuosness or fat in the sweet water dieth, then it is turned into an anguishing sweat, in which the astringent and the bitter qualify, mix or unite.

(64) Now in the body these qualities are mixed, as if they all were but one quality; yet each quality moveth or boileth in its own power, and so goeth forth.

(2) This, however, raises a problem deserving investigation in itself: what has happened when a definite magnitude of water becomes air, and how do we explain the increase of volume? But for the present we must be content with the matter thus far discussed out of all the varied controversy accumulated on either side.

It remains for us to make out on our own account the true explanation of the phenomenon of mixing, without regard to the agreement or disagreement of that theory with any of the current opinions mentioned.

When water runs through wool or when papyrus-pulp gives up its moisture why is not the moist content expressed to the very last drop or even, without question of outflow, how can we possibly think that in a mixture the relation of matter with matter, mass with mass, is contact and that only the qualities are fused? The pulp is not merely in touch with water outside it or even in its pores; it is wet through and through so that every particle of its matter is drenched in that quality. Now if the matter is soaked all through with the quality, then the water is everywhere in the pulp.

"Not the water; the quality of the water."

But then, where is the water? and why is there a change of volume? The pulp has been expanded by the addition: that is to say it has received magnitude from the incoming substance but if it has received the magnitude, magnitude has been added; and a magnitude added has not been absorbed; therefore the combined matter must occupy two several places. And as the two mixing substances communicate quality and receive matter in mutual give and take so they may give and take magnitude. Indeed when a quality meets another quality it suffers some change; it is mixed, and by that admixture it is no longer pure and therefore no longer itself but a blunter thing, whereas magnitude joining magnitude retains its full strength.

But let it be understood how we came to say that body passing through and through another body must produce disintegration, while we make qualities pervade their substances without producing disintegration: the bodilessness of qualities is the reason. Matter, too, is bodiless: it may, then, be supposed that as Matter pervades everything so the bodiless qualities associated with it- as long as they are few- have the power of penetration without disintegration. Anything solid would be stopped either in virtue of the fact that a solid has the precise quality which forbids it to penetrate or in that the mere coexistence of too many qualities in Matter produces the same inhibition.

If, then, what we call a dense body is so by reason of the presence of many qualities, that plenitude of qualities will be the cause .

If on the other hand density is itself a quality like what they call corporeity, then the cause will be that particular quality.

This would mean that the qualities of two substances do not bring about the mixing by merely being qualities but by being apt to mixture; nor does Matter refuse to enter into a mixing as Matter but as being associated with a quality repugnant to mixture; and this all the more since it has no magnitude of its own but only does not reject magnitude.

(116) So now, if thou minglest with this water or powder some good treacle or the like, which holdeth captive the rising up and the power of the wrath in the astral birth, and givest it to the sick party or patient in a little warm drink, be it beer or wine, then operateth the innermost and hidden birth of the thing which, through its outermost dead birth, has caused the disease in man.

(29) But death stands in the outermost birth, and therefore is the palpable water separated from the impalpable. Now thou wilt ask, How is that? Answer.

(123) On the other side, many creatures have much fatness, and yet are very melancholy or sad, which is because their fatness is inclined to the condition of the elementary water, wherein the astringent or harsh, and bitter qualities are somewhat strong. Of the Language of Nature.