“The stars on the sky do not form a man. Man grows out of two beginnings; the _Ens seminis_ (the male sperm) and the _Ens virtutis_ (the reincarnating spiritual monad). He has therefore two natures, a corporeal and a spiritual nature, and either of these two requires its _digest_ (_matrix_ and nutriment). As the womb of the mother is the world surrounding the child, from which the fœtus receives its nutriment, so is terrestrial nature from which the terrestrial body of man receives the influences acting in his organism. The _Ens astrale_ is a thing which we do not see, but which contains us and everything that lives and has sensation. It is that which contains the air, and from which and in which live all the elements, and which we symbolize as M (_Mysterium_), (“Paramirum,” _Lib._ I.) This _Ens Astrorum_ is therefore evidently the _Akâsa_, which forms the basis of all material things in physical nature, and if the close relation between man’s physical nature and the physical nature surrounding him were better known, it would become more comprehensible how the states of the all-penetrating ether, changes in temperature, heat and cold, electric and magnetic conditions in nature, come to affect the physical nature of man, acting internally by inducing corresponding changes in his microcosm, even if he is protected against the direct action of rain, storm, moisture, cold, heat, etc., etc. A sudden change of conditions in the outside air can affect a patient imprisoned in a room where no such change is perceptible, and a cloudy day produce a melancholy effect even upon a blind person. There are no end of diseases which for want of a better explanation are attributed to “catching cold,” etc., while in fact it is the existence of certain conditions in the all-pervading ether, which induces similar conditions in the body of the patient. Thus, for instance, changes of the moon, or the position of the moon, or the magnetic currents of the earth, produce certain effects in certain persons, even if these persons know nothing about these laws, for it is a fact well known to the ancients, but which has almost been lost sight of by modern medicine, that man, apart from the order in which his organs are arranged, is essentially a counterpart of nature, an image of the world on a smaller scale, a _microcosm_ within the macrocosm. An atmospheric pressure in outside nature produces an atmospheric pressure in him; if nature rejoices in the sunlight of spring, his heart rejoices with it; if storms rage on the outside, similar storms may be aroused in him, etc., etc. He is, in fact, only a laboratory in which the universal forces of nature are performing their work. To this chapter also belong all miasmas and contagious influences, with all the bacteriæ, microbes, amœbæ, bacilli, etc., etc., which are the pride of modern discoverers, but whose characteristics, if not the forms of their bodies, were well known to