the second principle, and a necessary consequence of the first by reaction.

Circulation is the third principle, proceeding from the conflict of the former two. All motion is derived from this threefold source in its reciprocal relations, which are diversified according to its qualifications with the matter. The attraction, repulsion and circulation in the sun and stars move the planets in their orbits; the same principle in each globe performs the rotation on its axis, and the satellites partake the same motion from their primaries. Every quantity of matter, solid, fluid, or gaseous, when separated from the rest by its quality or discontinuity, is possessed individually by the same principles, however infinite the variety of substances, natural or artificial, great or small; vegetable and animal forms and motions are no less evidences of these three principles than the heavenly and earthly bodies. Hence chemical affinity, called Elective Attraction, is ruled by the same laws; and it is found that when two matters unite, one is attractive and the other repulsive; when either attraction or repulsion predominates in a matter, the circulation is in ellipse; but when they are in equilibrium, a circle is produced. Repulsion, being produced in its origin by attraction, equals it, as reaction equals action: but in nature one principle is everywhere more latent or inert, or weaker than another; and there are degrees accordingly, in which either predominates in external manifestation; hence the different degrees of natural affinity for union. There are also degrees of strength, from harshness to mildness, and in the operation of the Three Principles, from the compactness of a hard rock to the loose adherence of the particles of a globule of mercury or dew, from explosion to expansion, and from a violent whirling motion to a gentle evolution. But the medium is always in the circulation produced from the action and reaction of centrifugal and centripetal forces, and the equality of these forms a circle, as was before observed, and which labors to harmonize the conflict of these two, and will succeed if the matter be duly qualified for it. But, according to the Alchemists, there is but One Matter truly qualifiable or capable of qualifying matter to be harmonized in this way, since nature has fallen off from her original balance, and the wheel of human life turns forth, deviating from its axis, into a line which terminated finally in dissolution; which nothing but their Antimonial Spirit rectified by Art, being in bright lines of equal attraction and repulsion, as it were a perfect magnet in a star-like circle of irradiated circulation, can contrariate or withstand (16). And the agent in the preparation of this spirit, continues Bohme, is the Invisible Mercury, and no process can finally fail where the invisible Universal Mercury, or spiritual air of Antimony, is present, condensed in its proper vehicle in any of the degrees of permanency; and the Principle of its operation consists in the power of harmonizing the three discordant principles of Attraction, Repulsion, and Circulation (17); and this is the vital spirit of the arterial blood, where the universal principles are in their natural generation unequally composed: the repulsive force so far predominating over the interior attraction, that the total circulatory life is expulsive, and drawn without to a debilitated consciousness away from its First Cause. Which inverse order of relationship and vital ignorance it is the object of the Hermetic art to remedy, and, by occultation of the opposive principle, to restore the true rector to his original rule. Sanquinem urinamque pariter dat nobis natura, et ab horum natura salem dat Pyrotechnia, quem circulat ares in salem Paracelsi. Hoc addam: sanquinis salem per urinaceum fermentum sic transmutari debere, ut ultiman vitam amittat, mediamque servet, salsedinemque retineat (18). Si fixum solvas faciasque volare solutum Et volucrem figas, faciunt tutum Sove, Coagula, Fige. This know, therefore, says Hermes, that except thou understandeth how to mortify and induce generation, to vivify the spirit, to cleanse and introduce light, until they fight and contend with each other, and grow white and freed form their defilements, rising, as it were, from blackness and darkness, thou knowest nothing, nor canst perform anything; but if thou knowest this, thou shalt be of a great dignity (19). All which our modern exponent, further illustrating the Hermetic process,