İmzalar Öğretisi: Doğanın Dilsiz Konuşması

...the secrets of her Nature, in which she excels, she wished to bring forth in whatever language, or by whatever means she might be heard—though she would not be understood by everyone, since both languages and writing characters are specific and peculiar to individual nations. Therefore, she would have had to speak to either one nation or in infinite tongues; instead, through the clever skill of Nature, through her similarities of things, she speaks both briefly and clearly enough to everyone at once. All herbs, flowers, trees, and other things coming forth from the Earth are magical books and signs, communicated by the immense mercy of GOD, because those signs are our medicine; or rather, that through the knowledge of them we might come to the true medicine, that is, the signatum. He who therefore desires to be an expert physician and has knowledge of those things which pertain to him, should learn through that art which nature proposes externally through signs what she signifies internally. For everything that is Intrinsic bears the external Figure of that which is hidden, both in sensible and insensible creatures. While we are silent, Nature speaks as if by certain marks, and reveals the character and manners of each thing, just as was skillfully said by Adamantius, the translator of Polemon: "There is an answer even for the silent; for Nature speaks through signs, revealing the character of each." And just as our own innermost character can be investigated from the outermost marks of the body, so from the Exterior signs of plants, Man can be warned of their Interior powers. For a plant, as if with hidden words, reports its powers and treasures of hidden things to sick mortals, so that Man—the most miserable of all—may learn how he can bring help to his own diseases.