matter in the mean while for the receiving of those forms
which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be
conveyed by Stars; and the Giver of Forms distributes them by the
ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set as Rulers and
Controllers over his Works, to whom such a power is intrusted to things
committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all
other things may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form,
therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the _Ideas_, then from
the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from the aspects of the
Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the Elements
disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the
Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations,
therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms,
and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating
rules, in the Original Cause by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which
must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of
every thing.

"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb
and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing
Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself,
especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and
exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in
hymns always praising the highest Maker of all things.... There
is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of effects than the
connection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency
with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ whence every thing hath
its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence
it lives and receives its original being: And every virtue of herbs,
stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of
God, is placed there."(1) As compared with the _ex nihilo_ creationism
of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of
course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it which is
inacceptable to modern thought; but these are matters of form merely,
and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus
between spirit and matter AGRIPPA places the stars: modern thought
prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a
matter of fact, made the justification