Page 19 - Compound of Compounds

CHAPTER II
Of Putrefaction

Fire brings forth death and life. A light fire desiccates the body. For this reason:
when fire comes into contact with a body, it puts in motion the element connatural to
itself that exists within that body.

And this element is natural heat: in the first place, it excites the fire extracted from
the body; there is a conjunction and the radical humidity of the body rises to the
surface while the fire is active on the outside. As soon as the radical moisture that held
together the diverse portions of the body is gone, the body dies, dissolves, resolves
itself; all of its constituent parts separate the one from the other. Here fire acts like a
sharp blade. Although it dries and shrinks by its own action, it may not do so as long as
there exists in the body a certain predisposition, viz. if the body is dense like an
element. The foregoing lacks an agglutinating mixture, that would separate from the
body after its corruption. But all this can be operated by the Sun, given its warm and
humid nature by comparison to the other bodies.

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