distress than the packthread experiences which is pulled in opposite directions by two strong hands, till at last it is broken by their efforts: far different from that knot of friendship, in which nature has been pleased to unite the neighbouring elements, planting in their bosoms similar qualities, whence they communicate and amicably sympathize with each other. It follows from all this, that levity is a term that signifies nothing absolute in nature, and must be rejected; or, if we retain it, it must only be to denote the relation of one substance having less weight to another which has more." - Meaning and context.">
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I say much more; that fire, being of so subtile a nature, that it can hardly be called a body, is consequently almost stripped of all resistance; whence it follows, that the air, mounting up without impediment, would reach the skies, driving fire from its place, and compelling it to seek a lower station, to the injury of their own doctrine. To this I will add another inconvenience, namely, the perpetual and unprofitable strife, which would ensue between the heavy and the light elements, the latter pulling upwards, and the former downwards, with all their might; whence would arise, at the place of their contiguity, incomparably greater distress than the packthread experiences which is pulled in opposite directions by two strong hands, till at last it is broken by their efforts: far different from that knot of friendship, in which nature has been pleased to unite the neighbouring elements, planting in their bosoms similar qualities, whence they communicate and amicably sympathize with each other. It follows from all this, that levity is a term that signifies nothing absolute in nature, and must be rejected; or, if we retain it, it must only be to denote the relation of one substance having less weight to another which has more.

— John Rey

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I say much more; that fire, being of so subtile a nature, that it can hardly be called a body, is consequently almost stripped of all resistance; whence it follows, that the air, mounting up without impediment, would reach the skies, driving fire from its place, and compelling it to seek a lower station, to the injury of their own doctrine. To this I will add another inconvenience, namely, the perpetual and unprofitable strife, which would ensue between the heavy and the light elements, the latter pulling upwards, and the former downwards, with all their might; whence would arise, at the place of their contiguity, incomparably greater distress than the packthread experiences which is pulled in opposite directions by two strong hands, till at last it is broken by their efforts: far different from that knot of friendship, in which nature has been pleased to unite the neighbouring elements, planting in their bosoms similar qualities, whence they communicate and amicably sympathize with each other. It follows from all this, that levity is a term that signifies nothing absolute in nature, and must be rejected; or, if we retain it, it must only be to denote the relation of one substance having less weight to another which has more." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
John Rey

About John Rey

John Rey (1583–1645) (or, in French) Jean Rey, was a physician of Périgord, France who in 1630 published a tract on calcination, or oxidation of metals, after being notified by Brun, an apothecary of Bergerac, France, of Brun's experiments (as early as 1629) on the calcination of tin. Brun had melted 2 pounds six ounces of tin, and after 6 hours the resulting calx weighed seven ounces more than the original tin. More than one hundred and forty years before Antoine Lavoisier, John Rey recognized that in the calcination of lead or tin, part of the air provided an increase in mass to the calcined metal oxide. His work was eclipsed first by the phlogiston theory and then later, by Lavoisier's discoveries disproving the existence of phlogiston. Lavoisier's oxygen theory confirmed Rey's earlier report, of which Lavoisier claimed he was unaware. After the presentation of Lavoisier's 1775 memoir at the Académie des sciences, Pierre Bayen (1725-1798) wrote a letter to Abbé François Rozier, director of the journal Observations sur la Physique, sur l'Histoire naturelle and sur les Arts, to ask him to publish an update notice, recognizing the priority Rey's work.