Introduction to True Physics

[igno]rance, while friendship or the love of novelty serves as an excuse for others; it is therefore not at all surprising that there are so many different Doctrines and Sects, that there is so much variation regarding the principles of Physics In the 17th and 18th centuries, "Physics" referred to "Natural Philosophy"—the broad study of nature, matter, and the universe, rather than the narrow modern definition., and that no certainty can be found within it.

One acknowledges five Elements, such as Heaven, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth; another admits only the last four, rejecting the first; a third admits only three: Air, Water, and Earth. Several of the moderns content themselves with Water and Fire. Others have adopted a Being that is both Agent and Patient These are Scholastic terms: the "Agent" is the active force that causes change, while the "Patient" is the passive matter that receives the action. at once—the male and the female In alchemy, "male" and "female" often refer to active and passive substances, like Sulfur and Mercury, whose "marriage" creates a new compound.. Others, as they say, believe they can see and feel original: "toucher au doigt & à l'œil." Literally "to touch with the finger and the eye," an idiom meaning to see something with absolute clarity. the innate heat joined to the radical moisture Traditional medical concepts: "innate heat" was the vital fire of life, while "radical moisture" was the essential fluid that acted as its fuel; aging was seen as the slow drying out of this moisture.. Some desire only Sulfur and Mercury, and those who admit three principles add Salt to them.

Finally, in these recent times, several of the moderns have imagined that acid and alkali were the primary principles, and have so thoroughly imbued their students with this idea that all their natural faculties have been infected by the acrimony of the vapors of their fermenta-