Panvotrus saith:—I signify to posterity that air is a tenuous matter of water, and that it is not separated from it. It remains above the dry earth, to wit, the air hidden in the water, which is under the earth. If this air did not exist, the earth would not remain above the humid water. They answer:—Thou hast said well; complete, therefore, thy speech. Sut he continueth: The air which is hidden in the water under the earth is that which sustains the earth, lest it should be plunged into the said water; and it, moreover, prevents the earth from being overflowed by that water. The province of the air is, therefore, to fill up and to make separation between diverse things, that is to say, water and earth, and it is constituted a peacemaker between hostile things, namely, water and fire, dividing these, lest they destroy one another. The Turba saith:—If you gave an illustration hereof, it would be clearer to those who do not understand. He answereth:—An egg is an illustration, for therein four things are conjoined; the visible cortex or shell represents the earth, and the albumen, or white part, is the water.* But a very thin inner cortex is joined to the outer cortex, representing, as I have signified to you, the separating medium between earth and water, namely, that air which divides the earth from the water. The yolk also of the egg represents fire; the cortex which contains the yolk corresponds to that other air which separates the water from the fire. But they are both one and the same air, namely, that which separates things frigid, the earth from the water, and that which separates the water from the fire. But the lower air is thicker than the upper air, and the upper air is more rare and subtle, being nearer to the fire than the lower air. In the egg, therefore, are four things—earth, water, air, and fire. But the point of the Sun, these four excepted, is in the centre of the yolk, and this is the chicken. Consequently, all philosophers in this most excellent art have described the egg as an example, which same thing they have set over their work.

For the outermost birth of the water cannot comprehend the innermost birth of the water which is called heaven, and which is made out of the midst or ...

Behold the water in the deep above the earth, which qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the elementary air and fire, that is the water of the astral...

I put on the beast and laid before her a great request that heaven and earth might come into being, so that the whole light might rise up. For in no o...

All things descend from Heaven to Earth, to Water and to Air. ’Tis Fire alone, in that it is borne upwards, giveth life; that which [is carried]...

Then come the other three Elements out of their Regions, and fill themselves also by Force Or Dominion. therein, each of them would taste of the Virgi...

Timaeus: had had to come into existence as a plane surface, having no depth, one middle term would have sufficed to bind together both itself and its...

Then the Formative Mind ([at-oned] with Reason), he who surrounds the spheres and spins them with his whorl, set turning his formations, and let them...

Air is, therefore, twofold in nature-tangible atmosphere and an intangible, volatile substratum which may be termed spiritual air. Fire is visible...

Whereas we in this World, viz. in the external Birth of his Body, do acknowledge four Things, namely, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, wherein our earthly...

The windpipe and arteries wherein the air qualifieth or operateth, signify the deep between the stars and the earth, wherein fire, air and water...

Thus now in the Essence of all Essences, there are three several distinct Properties, which yet are not parted asunder, with one Source [or Property]...

In the northern ocean there is a fish, called the Leviathan, many thousand li in size. This leviathan changes into a bird, called the Rukh, whose...

For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial ...

As Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, lie in one Case, [or Chest,] and they four are but one Thing, and yet of four distinct Differences, and none of them...

Timaeus: it shuts them in, but air and fire, being of smaller particles than its own structure, it cannot shut in. These elements, therefore, God...

As water is an offshoot, seek after its root, viz. fire. As fire is an offshoot, seek after its root, viz. the True. Yes, all these creatures, O son, ...

In nearly all the sacred books of the world can be traced an anatomical analogy. This is most evident in their creation myths. Anyone familiar with...

Now these two qualities wrestle continually the one with the other, the heat consumeth the water, and the cold condenseth or crowdeth the air. Now...

They became clouds that varied in their appearance. They were called hymen, afterbirth, power, and water. And the hymen and the afterbirth and the pow...

And there I saw closed chambers out of which the winds are divided, the chamber of the hail and winds, the chamber of the mist, and of the clouds, and...