is some months older than he bethinks him; for we
live, move, have a being, and are subject to the actions
of the elements, and the malice of diseases, in that other
world, the truest microcosm, the womb of our mother;
for besides that general and common existence we are
conceived to hold in our chaos, and whilst we sleep
within the bosom of our causes, we enjoy a being and
life in three distinct worlds, wherein we receive most
manifest gradations. In that obscure world, the womb
of our mother, our time is short, computed by the
moon; yet longer than the days of many creatures that
behold the sun; ourselves being not yet without life,
sense, and reason;<53> though, for the manifestation of
its actions, it awaits the opportunity of objects, and
seems to live there but in its root and soul of vegetation.
Entering afterwards upon the scene of the world, we
arise up and become another creature; performing the
reasonable actions of man, and obscurely manifesting
that part of divinity in us, but not in complement and
perfection, till we have once more cast our secundine,
that is, this slough of flesh, and are delivered into the
last world, that is, that ineffable place of Paul, that
proper ubi of spirits. The smattering I have of the
philosopher's stone (which is something more than the
perfect exaltation<54> of gold) hath taught me a great deal
of divinity, and instructed my belief, how that immortal
spirit and incorruptible substance of my soul may lie
obscure, and sleep a while within this house of flesh.
Those strange and mystical transmigrations that I have
observed in silkworms turned my philosophy into