... But between the
macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the form,
image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man
the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and
air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only
the substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from
the world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet
man comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body
is from the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that
world from which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and
from the elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now,
man is not only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect
which does not, like the complexion, come from the elements, but from
the stars. And the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom,
intelligence, industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man
are contained in them. From the stars man has these same things, and
that is called the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has
found by the light of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man,
that, out of the great universe he needs both elements and stars,
seeing that he himself is constituted in that way.
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