says that "it was brought from the silver mines of Spain, in the form of cinnabar, and, when freed from its ore, used in metallurgy;" further, "that it is always fluid, and an universal poison."
Note 4, p. 31. It is in this same manner, &c.] If the Vital Principle be to the body what Plato, in the Timæus, made the great animating principle to be to the Universe, a source of intelligence and ordered motion, there must be an accordance between terrene and celestial bodies and movements; but as earthly bodies are moved by objects of sense and perception, and as their movements are not, like those of the heavenly, in a circle, their natures must be different. It would be idle to attempt to make a digest of the opinions entertained in the Timæus, the most abstruse and laboured of all Plato's works, or to trace the analogy between the constitution and motions of the supernal orbs, and the constitutions and conditions of earthly bodies. But four points seem to be evident —that the universe moves by motions communicated by the anima; that the anima is from the elements; that it has so been divided, as to have an innate sense of harmonic numbers; and that it has been made to move in the same circles as the sky. This summary is adduced by Aristotle to shew how scarcely possible it could be to adjust this speculation to his own subject of inquiry, and he may have been led to criticise it the rather, as the great principle of the universe is synonymous with his own treatise; each is, in fact, ψυχή. But to quote the
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