r, I pray you, how the noble Patelin, having a
mind to deify and extol even to the third heavens the father of William
Josseaulme, said no more but this, And he did lend his goods to those who
were desirous of them.

O the fine saying! Now let our microcosm be fancied conform to this model
in all its members; lending, borrowing, and owing, that is to say,
according to its own nature. For nature hath not to any other end created
man, but to owe, borrow, and lend; no greater is the harmony amongst the
heavenly spheres than that which shall be found in its well-ordered policy.
The intention of the founder of this microcosm is, to have a soul therein
to be entertained, which is lodged there, as a guest with its host, (that)
it may live there for a while. Life consisteth in blood, blood is the seat
of the soul; therefore the chiefest work of the microcosm is, to be making
blood continually.

At this forge are exercised all the members of the body; none is exempted
from labour, each operates apart, and doth its proper office. And such is
their heirarchy, that perpetually the one borrows from the other, the one
lends the other, and the one is the other's debtor. The stuff and matter
convenient, which nature giveth to be turned into blood, is bread and wine.
All kind of nourishing victuals is understood to be comprehended in these
two, and from hence in the Gothish tongue is called companage. To find out
this meat and drink, to prepare and boil it, the hands are put to work, the
feet do walk and bear up the whole bulk of the corporal mass; the eyes
guide and conduct all; the appetite in the orifice of the stomach, by means
of (a) little sourish black humour, called melancholy, which is transmitted
thereto from the milt, giveth warning to shut in the food. The tongue doth
make the first essay, and tastes it; the teeth do chew it, and the stomach
doth receive, digest, and chylify it. The mesaraic veins suck out of it
what is good and fit, leaving behind the excrements, which are, through
special conduits for that purpose, voided by an expulsive faculty.
Thereafter it is carried to the liver, where it being changed again, it by
the virtue of that new transmutation becomes blood. What joy, conjecture
you, will then be found amongst those officers when they see this rivulet
of gold, which is their sole restorative? No greater is the joy of
alchemists, when after long travail, toil, and expense they see in their
furnaces th