The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World

Then the Empress asked them, Of what forms of Matter those Vehicles were? They said they were of several different forms; some gross and dense, and others more pure, rare, and subtil. If you be not Material, said the Empress, how can you be Generators of all Creatures? We are no more, answered they, the Generators of material Creatures, then they are the Generators of us Spirits. Then she asked, Whether they did leave their Vehicles? No, answered they; for we being incorporeal, cannot leave or quit them: but our Vehicles do change into several forms and figures, according as occasion requires. Then the Empress desired the Spirits to tell her, Whether Man was a little World? They answered, That if a Fly or Worm was a little World, then Man was so too. she asked again, Whether our Fore-fathers had been as wise, as Men were at present, and had understood sense and reason, as well as they did now? They answered, That in former Ages they had been as wise as they are in this present, nay, wiser; for, said they, many in this age do think their Fore-fathers have been Fools, by which they prove themselves to be such. The Empress asked further, Whether there was any Plastick power in Nature? Truly, said the Spirits, Plastick power is a hard word, & signifies no more then the power of the corporeal, figurative motions of Nature.