Naturalis historia 37.59

37.59

Nunc quod totis voluminibus his docere conati sumus de discordia rerum concordiaque, quam antipathian Graeci vocavere ac sympathian, non aliter clarius intellegi potest, siquidem illa invicta vis, duarum violentissimarum naturae rerum ferri igniumque contemptrix, hircino rumpitur sanguine , neque aliter quam recenti calidoque macerata et sic quoque multis ictibus, tune etiam praeterquam eximias incudes malleosque ferreos frangens.

Now with reference to those affinities and repugnances which exist between certain objects, known to the Greeks as "sympathia" and "antipathia," phænomena to which we have endeavoured to draw attention thoughout these books, they nowhere manifest themselves with greater distinctness than here. This indomitable power, in fact, which sets at nought the two most violent agents in Nature, fire, namely, and iron, is made to yield before the blood of a he-goat. The blood, however must be no otherwise than fresh and warm; the stone, too, must be well steeped in it, and then subjected to repeated blows: and even then, it is apt to break both anvils and hammers of iron, if they are not of the very finest temper. To what spirit of research, or to what accident, are we indebted for this discovery? or what conjecture can it have been, that first led man to experiment upon a thing of such extraordinary value as this, and that, too, with the most unclean of all animals? Surely a discovery, such as this, must have been due solely to the munificence of the gods, and we must look for the reason of it in none of the elementary operations of Nature, but wholly in her will.