Nettles and other weeds spring up where no such seed has ever been sown.

This occurs only by putrefaction.

The reason is that the soil in such places is so disposed, and, as it were, impregnated, that it produces these fruits; which is a result of the properties of sidereal influences; consequently the seed is spiritually produced in the earth, and putrefies in the earth, and by the operation of the elements generates corporeal matter according to the species of nature.

Thus the stars and the elements may generate new spiritual, and ultimately, new vegetable seed, by means of putrefaction....

Know that, in like manner, no metallic seed can develop, or multiply, unless the said seed, by itself alone, and without the introduction of any foreign substance, be reduced to a perfect putrefaction." [Illustration: FIG.