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From the commencement of the pestilence, Don Ferrante was one of

the most resolute in denying its existence, not indeed like the

multitude, with cries of rage, but with arguments which none

could accuse of want of concatenation. "In rerum natura," said

he, "there are but two kinds of things, substances and accidents;

and if I prove that the contagion can neither be one nor the

other of these I shall have proved that it does not exist; that

it is a chimera. Thus, then: substances are either material or

spiritual; that the contagion is a spiritual substance, is so

absurd an opinion, that no one would presume to advance it; it

is, then, useless to speak of it. Material substances are either

simple or compound. Now, the contagion is not a simple substance,

and I will prove it in three words.