ABSTRACT

Having intreated in the former booke of that which concernes the Elements, and the simples of the Indies, in this present booke we will discourse of mixtures and compounds, seeming fit for the subject we shall treate of. And although there be many other sundrie kindes, yet we will reduce this matter into three, which are Mettalls, Plants, and Beasts. Mettalls are (as plants) hidden and buried in the bowels of the earth, which have some conformitie in themselves, in the forme and maner of their production; for that wee see and discover even in them, branches, and as it were a bodie, from whence they grow and proceede, which are the greater veines and the lesse, so as they have a knitting in themselves : and it seemes properly that these minerales grow like vnto plants, not that they have any inward vegitative life, being onely proper to plants : but they are engendered in the bowels of the earth, by the vertue and force of the Sunne and other planets, and in long continuance of time they increase and multiply after the manner of plants. And even as mettalls be plants hidden in the earth, so we may say, that plants be living creatures fixed in one place, whose life is maintained by the nourishment which Nature furnisheth from their first beginning. But living creatures surpasse plants, in that 184they have a more perfect being ; and therefore have neede of a more perfect foode and nourishment; for the search whereof, Nature hath given them a moving and feeling to discover and discerne it. So as the rough and barren earth is as a substance and nutriment for mettalls; and that which is fertile and better seasoned a nourishment for plants. The same plants serve as a nourishment for living creatures, and the plants and living creatures together as a nourishment for men; the inferiour nature alwaies serving for the maintenance and sustentation of the superiour, and the lesse perfect yeelding vnto the more perfect: whereby we may see how much it wants, that gold and silver and other things which men so much esteeme by their covetousnesse, should be the happiness of man, wherevnto he should tend, seeing they be so many degrees in qualitie inferior to man, who hath been created and made onely to be a subject to serve the vniversall Creator of all things, as his proper end and perfect rest, and to which man, all other things in this world, were not propounded or left, but to gaine this last end. Who so would consider of things created, and discourse according to this Philosophie, might draw some fruite from the knowledge and consideration thereof, making vse of them to know and glorifie their Author. But he that would passe on farther to the knowledge of their properties and profits, and would curiously search them out, hee shall finde in these creatures, that which the Wiseman saies, that they are snares and pitfalles to the feete of fooles and ignorant, into the which they fall and loose themselves daily. To this intent therefore, and that the Creator may be glorified in his creatures, I pretend to speake of some things in this Booke, whereof there are many at the Indies worth the report, touching mettalls, plants, and beasts, which are proper and peculiar in those parts. But for that it were a great worke to treate thereof exactly, and requires greater learning and knowledge ; yea, much more 185leisure than I have, my intent is only to treate of some things succinctly, the which I have observed, as well by experience, as the report of men of credite, touching these three things which I have propounded, leaving to men more curious and diligent to treate more amply of these matters.