Chapter XIX, Section 1

CHAPTER XIX. How the Virtues of Things Are to Be Tried and Found Out, Which Are in Them Specially, or in Any One Individual by Way of Special Gift . Moreover , thou must consider that the Virtues of things are in some things according to the Species, as boldness and courage in a lion and cock, fearfulness in a hare or lamb, ravenousness in a wolf, treachery and deceitfulness in a fox, flattery in a dog, covetousness in a crow and jackdaw, pride in a horse, anger in a tiger and boar, sadness and melancholy in a cat, lust in a sparrow, and so of the rest. For the greatest part of Natural Virtues doth follow the Species. Yet some are in things Individually; as there be some men which do so wonderfully abhor the sight of a cat that they cannot look upon her without quaking; which fear, it is manifest, is not in them, as they are men. And Avicen tells of a man that lived in his time, whom all poisonous things did shun, all of them dying which did by chance bite him, he himself not being hurt; and Albertus reports that in a city of the Ubians he saw a wench who would catch spiders to eat them, and being much pleased with such a kind of meat, was wonderfully nourished therewith. So is boldness in a wanton, and fearfulness in a thief. And upon this account it is that philosophers say that any particular thing that never was sick is good against any manner of sickness; therefore they say that a bone of a dead man, who never had a fever, being laid upon the patient, frees him of his quartan. There are also many singular virtues infused into particular things by Celestial bodies, as we have shewed before.