It is interesting to note that the latter writer, having been forced to give up the seven planets, consoles himself with the statement that "the earth is the seventh planet, counting from Neptune and calling the asteroids one" (see p.

426).

For the electrum magicum, the seven metals composing it, and its wonderful qualities, see extracts from Paracelsus's writings in Hartmann's Life of Paracelsus, London, 1887, pp.

168 et seq.

As to the more rapid transition of light than sound, the following expresses the scholastic method well: "What is the cause why we see sooner the lightning than we heare the thunder clappe?
That is because our sight is both nobler and sooner perceptive of its object than our eare; as being the more active part, and priore to our hearing: besides, the visible species are more subtile and less corporeal than the audible species."-- Person's Varieties, Meteors, p.82.For Basil Valentine's view, see Hoefer, vol.i, pp.