Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things?  A. Because, being pliant, soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can it enter into it.

Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar not?  A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to be compounded with anything, is cold quickly and so extremely that it is most cold.  Water being cold of nature, doth easily freeze when it is made colder than its own nature.  Wine being hot, and of subtle parts, suffereth no freezing.

Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same effect?  A. That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat and cold.  Snow and liquid do freeze with cold; a plaster and gravel in the bladder are made dry with heat.  The effect indeed is the same, but by two divers actions; the heat doth consume and eat the abundance of moisture; but the cold stopping and shutting with its over much thickness, doth wring out the filthy humidity, like as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast out the water which it hath in the pores and small passages.

Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful matter doth happen, as a great noise or a crack made, the sudden downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree?  A. Because that oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time and made thin and weak, all the heat vehemently, suddenly and sharply flying into the inward part of the body, consumeth the humours which cause the disease.  So treacle hath this effect, and many such like, which are hot and dry when taken after connexion.

Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly?  A. Because they are lined in the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and being put to glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much more; and casts its beams through its passages, and without the body of the glass; and by that means the glass is very shining and clear.

Q. Why do we see ourselves in glasses and clear water?  A. Because the quality of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who looketh on it.

Q. What is the reason that if you cast a stone in standing water which is near the surface of the earth, it causes many circles, and not if the water be deep in the earth?  A. Because the stone, with the vehemence of the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of it, until it come to the bottom; and if there be a very great vehemence in the throw, the circle is still greater, the stone going down to the bottom causing many circles.  For, first of all, it doth divide the outermost and superficial parts of the water in many parts, and so, always going down to the bottom, again dividing the water, it maketh another circle, and this is done successively until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of the stone is slackened, still as it goes down, of necessity the last circle is less than the first, because by that and also by its force the water is divided.