Moreover, all the world is agreed, that from death to life there is no return. Yet the chemists assure us, if we moisten the calx of lead, and mix it… - Jean Rey

Having thus vanished levity, and its upward motion, from all the boundaries of nature, we aver anew, that the elements of air and fire, which alone come into the dispute, are endowed with gravity.

Thus the opinion of Cardan appears so frivolous, that I am grieved that a great man, and one who is justly esteemed by all the world, should have lately declared to me that he inclines towards it.

I imagine there are many persons who would have been startled (effarouchées) at the mere statement of this answer, had I given it in the outset, that will now receive it willingly, being, as I may say, tamed (apprivoisées) and rendered tractable, by the evident truth of the preceding essays. For doubtless they whose minds were preoccupied with the opinion that air is absolutely light, would have rushed to the encounter, exclaiming, Why do we not extract heat from cold, white from black, light from darkness, if from air, a thing absolutely light, we can extract so much weight? And they, who might have given credit to the weight of air, would have been unable to persuade themselves, that it could ever increase the weight of a substance balanced in itself.