The whole of Nature and creatures, therefore, consists of two basic origins: the doer or mover, who is a spiritual being, and the moved or sufferer (passive recipient), who is a tangible or corporeal being, in regard to his moving spirit.
Explanation: Air is the passive recipient (suffering) and is corporeal relative to fire, which is the subtlest and most effective element. Water is tangible and corporeal, moved and made effective by the Air, which, relative to Water, is an Active Spiritual being. Earth is moved, impregnated, moistened, and fertilized by Water, which, relative to Earth, is a moving and Active Spirit. But everything, as already mentioned, is originally made effective by the universal World Spirit.
Since the effects of Nature occur only according to the created properties of natural things, while Art must faithfully follow Nature and cannot achieve anything useful without her, all practical investigation of Nature undertaken without a preliminary correct knowledge of the universal World Spirit and the created properties of those natural things in which work is done, must turn out as foolish and fruitless.
But whoever perfectly understands this active Spirit and the above-mentioned law of motion in all types of creatures in relation to the differences proper to them will also recognize the Lawgiver in His infinite wisdom, His eternal omnipotence, His eternal justice, and His eternal mercy. He will possess natural science perfectly and is on the highest level of Hermetic philosophy.
And even if it seems impossible to some to climb to this highest level, the natural scientist, eager to learn and be truly reborn in Christ, the light of grace, should not lose courage and confidently start investigating. He should not, however, take anything in hand without knowing it or making something of it without knowing what, as the sophists do. Instead, to begin with, he must choose one thing only, not several at a time, as the object of his studies and investigations. Above all, he must get to know it inside out and then only make of it what is possible according to its inherent law of motion. Neither must he stop working 'til he has completely investigated it, knows it perfectly, and has thereby obtained the final natural goal he had set for himself.
For it is not in the multiplicity that the Art consists (says one of our greatest teachers and with him the entire host of master sages). But afterward, he can proceed with the investigation of something else, in which he will already succeed more easily because every creature is considered a book of Nature, as the very fine saying of our philosophers is to be understood, namely, that one book opens and explains another. In this way, he can imperceptibly reach the highest level of Hermetic wisdom sooner than one can imagine. For the whole of Nature resembles a circular chain, the links of which hand exactly together. When then an enlightened spiritual man, by his studies and investigations, has finally come to perfectly know the first link, it will be easy for him to expand his knowledge from this to the second, from that to the third, and so on from one link to the next through the whole circle. And Nature, this faithful servant of the Lord, will herself guide an eager investigator truly reborn in the light of Grace.