from enjoying the _Vision_, without Interruption.

§ 69. Then he began to consider with himself, what should be the reason
why he alone, above all the rest of living Creatures, should be endu'd
with such an Essence, as made him like the Heavenly Bodies. Now he
understood before the Nature of the Elements, and how one of them us'd
to be chang'd into another, and that there was nothing upon the Face of
the Earth, which always remain'd in the same Form, but that Generation
and Corruption follow'd one another perpetually in a mutual Succession;
and that the greatest part of these Bodies were mix'd and compounded of
contrary Things, and were for that reason the more dispos'd to
Dissolution: And that there could not be found among them all, any thing
pure and free from Mixture, but that such Bodies as came nearest to it,
and had least mixture, as Gold and Jacinth are of longest Duration, and
less subject to Dissolution; and that the Heavenly Bodies were most
simple and pure, and for that reason more free from Dissolution, and not
subject to a Succession of Forms. And here it appear'd to him, that the
real Essence of those Bodies, which are in this sublunary World,
consisted in some, of one simple Notion added to Corporeity, as the four
Elements; in others of more, as Animals and Plants. And that those,
whose Essence consisted of the fewest Forms, had fewest Actions, and
were farther distant from Life. And that if there were any body to be
found, that was destitute of all Form, it was impossible that it should
live, but was next to nothing at all; also that those things which were
endu'd with most Forms, had the most Operations, and had more ready and
easie entrance to the State of Life. And if this Form were so dispos'd,
that there were no way of separating it from the Matter to which it
properly belong'd, then the life of it, would be manifest, permanent and
vigorous to the utmost degree. But on the contrary, whatsoever Body was
altogether destitute of a Form, was [Greek: Hylè], Matter without Life, and near