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Natural Magick 5 i.

Magick is nLmral; vybicfi ill excellent wife men do admit and embrace, and worshipwith great a'ppiaufe;neithtf is there any thing more highly esteemed,or better thoughtof, by men ot learning. The most noble Philosophers that ever were , ‘Pythagoras*Empedocles , Democrites,+n d Plato, forsook their own countries, and lived abroad asexiles and banished men,rather then as strangers; and all to search out and to attainthis knowledge ; and when they came home again, this was the Science which theyprofesied, and this they esteemed a profound mystetie. They that have been mostskilfusin datk and bidden points of learning, do call this knowledge the very high-est poiht, and the perfection of natural Sciences ; insomuch that if they could findout or devise amongst ail natural Sciences, anyone thing more excellent or morewonderful then another, that they would still call by the name of Magick, Othershave named it the practical part of natural Philosophy, which producers! her effectsby the mutual and fit application of one natural thing unto another .The Platonicks,as Phtinus imitating Mercuric, writes in his book of Sacrifice and Magick,makes itto be a Science Whereby inferiour things are made subject to superiours, earthlyare subdued to heavenly; and by certain pretty allurements, it feccheth forth thaproperties of the whole frame of the world. Hence the tÆgyptians termed Natureher self a Magician, because the hath an alluring power to draw like things by theirlikes; and this power,lay they, consists in love s and the things that were so drawnand brought together by the affinity of Nature, those (they said) were drawn byMagick. But I think that Magick is nothing else but the survey of the whole courseof Nature. Tor, whilst we consider the Heavens, the Stars, the Elements, how theyare moved,and how they are changed,by this means we find out the hidden secre-cies of living creatures, of plants, of metals, and of their generation and cortupti-cm; so that this whole Science seems meerly to depend upon the view of Nature,as afterward we shall fee more at large. This dotfi Plato (zz m to signifie in his Mci-biades, where he faith, That the Magickjf Zoroastres, was nothing ei/e , in his opinion,but the knowledge and study of Divine things , wherewith the Kings Sons sf Persia, amongstother princely qualities, were endued ; that by the example of the (fommon-wealth of the■whole world, they also might learn to govern their own Common-wealth. And Tally, inhis book of Divinations, faith, That amongst the Persians no man might be a King, un~less he had first learned thevArtof Magick ■' for as Nature governs the world by themutual agreebtent and disagreement of the creatures ; after the fame fort they also mightliarn to gt&ftrn the Common-wealth committed unto them. This Arc, I fay, is full ofmuch venue, of many secret mysteries; it openeth unto us the properties and quali-ties of hidden things, and the knowledge of the whole course of Nature; and.itteacheth us by the agreement and the disagreement of things, either so to sunderthem, or else to lay them so togerher by the mutual and fit applying of one thitKto another, as thereby we do strange works, such as the vulgar fort call miracles, anaIbch as men can neither wctl conceive, nor sufficiently admire. For this cause, Ma-gick was wont to flourish in tÆthtopia and India , where was great store of herbs andstones, and such other things as were fit sot these purposes. Wherefore,as many ofyou as come to behold Magick, must be perswaded that the works of Magick are no-thing else bat the works of Nature, whose dutiful hand-maid Magick is. For if shefind any want in the affinity os Nature, that it is not strong enough, she doth (applysuch defects at convenient seasons, by the help of vapours, and by observing duemeasures and proportions; as in Husbandry, it is Nature that brings forth corn andherbs, buc it is Art that prepares and makes way for them. Hence was it that Anti-phothz Poet said, That we overcome those-things by Art, wherein Nature doth overcomeus", and/7<?f/#«xcallsa Magician such a one as works by the help of Nature on ely,and nOoby the help of Art. Superstitious, profane, and wicked men have Uockhqgto dcfwith'tbis Science; her gate is shut against them : neither do we jftdgetbemWorthy tbHe'dmen away from this profession onely, but even out of Clfifes, afid

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