Hypotheses Non Fingo. I Frame No Hypotheses.

Do Not Bodies And Light Act Mutually Upon One Another; That Is To Say, Bodies Upon Light In Emitting, Reflecting, Refracting And Inflecting It, And Light Upon Bodies For Heating Them, And Putting Their Parts Into A Vibrating Motion Wherein Heat Consists?

That One Body May Act Upon Another At A Distance Through A Vacuum, Without The Mediation Of Any Thing Else, By And Through Which Their Action And Force May Be Conveyed From One To Another, Is To Me So Great An Absurdity, That I Believe No Man, Who Has In Philosophical Matters A Compentent Faculty Of Thinking, Can Ever Fall Into It.

'tis The Temper Of The Hot And Superstitious Part Of Mankind In Matters Of Religion Ever To Be Fond Of Mysteries, And For That Reason To Like Best What They Understand Least.

The Folly Of Interpreters Has Been, To Foretell Times And Things By This Prophecy, As If God Designed To Make Them Prophets. By This Rashness They Have Not Only Exposed Themselves, But Brought The Prophecy Also Into Contempt. The Design Of God Was Much Otherwise. He Gave This And The Prophecies Of The Old Testament, Not To Gratify Mens Curiosities By Enabling Them To Foreknow Things, But That After They Were Fulfilled They Might Be Interpreted By The Event, And His Own Providence, Not The Interpreters, Be Then Manifested Thereby To The World.

Thus You May Multiply Each Stone 4 Times & No More For They Will Then Become Oyles Shining In Ye Dark And Fit For Magicall Uses. You May Ferment Them With Gold And Silver, By Keeping The Stone And Metal In Fusion Together For A Day, & Then Project Upon Metalls. This Is The Multiplication Of Ye Stone In Vertue. To Multiply It In Weight Ad To It Of Ye First Gold Whether Philosophic Or Vulgar.