Library of the Sages — Valentine, Khunrath, Hollandus, Bernard

until I treat something of the natural wonders of the world.
Those coarse, ignorant spirits who make themselves believe they are great masters and very learned in philosophy, as well as all persons who do not have their senses well-settled, will not have the understanding to discern this. But the wise and learned man will know well how to distinguish the natural from the supernatural.

Let one remark and see this comparison through the testimony of coarse examples: many animals are found that die entirely in the winter, and are so dead that one perceives no life in them. But as soon as the summer returns, the natural heat gives a new life to these animals so that their body is entirely awakened in such substance and moving life as it was before. The same happens with the herb, which dies in winter and makes itself seen again in spring. Therefore, the death of such a thing is found to be natural, but the restitution of new life is, in knowledge, supernatural. But because people are accustomed to all these things, the greater part of the world thinks of it the least, which is to be considered in this,

and lets the natural and the supernatural pass together.
The greater part also surpasses the custom that is born with the person, which is also supernatural, such as monsters and those who bear a mark upon them when coming into the world. This is nonetheless quite natural, but because of the cause of imagination, it shows itself as supernatural. This supernatural form and supernatural custom is caused by the imagination of the mother of the child, which happened to her unexpectedly as if by accident. Also, as one often sees and finds that some persons bring with them at their birth some natural inclination from which they cannot abstain nor break the habit, even though they delight in distracting themselves from it. Such a custom born in man is natural; its conception in the womb of the mother, which was caused by imagination, is supernatural, and is subject to the thing upon which Heaven imprints it.

Finally, I say also that no one can find a foundation nor a certain cause that the supernatural was true until he has learned the natural, which has taken its form and its