opinion that the Winde is a fluxion of the aire when as the most subtile and liquid parts thereof be either stirred or melted and resolved by the Sunne The STOICKS affirme that every blast is a fluxion of the aire and that according to the mutation of regions they change their names as for example that which bloweth from the darknesse of the night and Sunne setting is named Zephyrus from the East and Sunne rising Apeliotes from the North Boreas and from the South Libs METRODORUS supposeth that a waterish vapour being inchafed by the heat of the Sun produceth and raiseth these winds and as for those that be anniversary named Etesia they blow when the aire about the North pole is thickened and congealed with cold and so accompanie the Sunne and flow as it were with him as he retireth from the Summer Tropicke after the 〈◊〉 Solstice CHAP. VIII Of Winter and Summer EMPEDOCLES and the STOICKS do hold that Winter commeth when the aire is predominant in thickenesse and is forced upward but Summer when the fire is in that wise predominant and is driven downward Thus having discoursed of the impressions aloft in the aire we will treat also by the way of those which are seene upon and about the earth CHAP. IX Of the Earth the substance and magnitude thereof THALES with his followers affirme there is but one Earth 〈◊〉 the Pythagorean mainteineth twaine one heere and another opposit against it which the Antipodes inhabit The STOICKS say there is one Earth and the same finite XENOPHANES holdeth that beneath it is founded upon an infinit depth and that compact it is of aire and fire METRODORUS is of opinion that Earth is the very sediment and ground of the water like as 〈◊〉 Sunne is the residence of the aire CHAP. X. The forme of the Earth THALES the STOICKS and their schoole affirme the Earth to be round in maner of a globe or ball ANAXIMANDER resembleth the Earth unto a columne or pillar of stone such as are seene upon the superficies thereof ANAXIMENES compareth it to a flat table LEUCIPPUS unto a drum or tabour DEMOCRITUS saith that it is in forme broad in maner of a platter hollow in the mids CHAP. XI The 〈◊〉 of the Earth THe disciples of THALES maintaine that the Earth is seated in midst of the world XENOPHANES affirmeth that it was first founded and rooted as it were to an infinite depth PHILOLAUS the Pythagorean saith that fire is the middle as being the hearth of the world in the second place he raungeth the Earth of the Antipodes and in the third this wherein wee inhabit which lieth opposite unto that counter earth and turneth about it which is the reason quoth he that those who dwell there are not seene by the inhabitants heere PARMENIDES was the 〈◊〉 Philosopher who set out and limited the habitable parts of the Earth to wit those which are under the two Zones unto the Tropicks or Solsticiall circles CHAP. XII Of the bending of the earth PYTHAGORAS is of opinion that the earth enclineth toward the Meridionall parts by reason of the 〈◊〉 which is in those South coasts for that the Septentrionall tracts are congealed and frozen with cold whereas the opposite regions be inflamed and burnt DEMOCRITUS yeeldeth this reason because of the ambient aire is weaker toward the South quoth hee the Earth as it groweth and encreaseth doth bend to that side for the North parts be 〈◊〉 whereas contrariwise the Southeren parts are temperate in which regard it weigheth more that way whereas indeed it is more plentifull in bearing fruits and those growing to greater augmentation CHAP. XIII The motion of the Earth SOme hold the Earth to be unmoveable and quite but PHILOLAUS the Pythagorean saith that it moveth round about the fire in the oblique circle according as the Sunne and Moone do HERACLIDES of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean would indeed have the Earth to move howbeit not from place to place but rather after a turning manner like unto a wheele upon the axell tree from West to East round about her owne center DEMOCRITUS saith that the Earth at first wandred to and fro by reason as well of smalnesse as lightnesse but waxing in time thicke and heavie it came to rest unmoveable CHAP. XIIII The division of the Earth and how many Zones it hath PYTHAGORAS saith that the earth is divided into five Zones proportionably to the sphaere of the universall heaven to wit the Artick circle the Tropick of Summer the Tropick of Winter the Aequinoctiall and the Antartick Of which the middlemost doth determine and set out the verie mids and heart of the earth and for that cause it is named Torrida Zona that is to say the burnt climat but that region is habitable as being temperate which lieth in the mids betweene the summer and the winter Tropick CHAP. XV. Of Earthquakes THALES and DEMOCRITUS attribute the cause of Earthquakes unto water The STOICKS thus define and say Earthquake is the moisture within the earth subtiliated and resolved into the aire and so breaking out perforce ANAXIMENES is of opinion that raritie and drinesse of the earth together be the causes of Earthquake wherof the one is engendred by excessive drougth the other by gluts of raine ANAXAGORAS holdeth that when the aire is gotten within the earth and meeteth with the superficies thereof which it findeth tough and thicke so as it cannot get forth it shaketh it in manner of trembling ARITSTOTLE alledgeth the Antiperistasis of the circumstant cold which environeth it about on everie side both above and beneath for heat endevoreth and maketh hast to mount aloft as being by nature light A drie exhalation therefore finding it selfe enclosed within and staied striveth to make way through the cliffs and thicks of the Earth in which busines it cannot chuse but by turning to and fro up and downe disquiet and shake the earth METRODORUS is of mind that no bodie being in the owne proper and naturall place can stirre or moove unlesse some one do actually thrust or pull it The earth therefore quoth he being situate in the owne place naturally mooveth not howsoever some placesthereof may remove into others PARMENIDES and DEMOCRITUS reason in this wise for that the earth on everie side is of equall distance and confineth still in one counterpoise as having no cause wherefore it should incline more to the one side than to the other therefore well it may shake onely but not stirre or remoove for all that ANAXIMENES saith that the Earth is caried up and downe in the aire for that it is broad and flat Others say that it floteth upon the water like as planks or boords and that for this cause it mooveth PLATO affirmeth that of all motions there be six sorts of circumstances above beneath on the right hand on the left before and behind Also that the earth cannot possibly moove according to any of these differences for that on everie
otherwise yet to the framing and composition of so great an empire and puissance it is very like they had made truce and were at accord that by one joint-consent also they wrought both together and finished the goodliest piece of work that ever was in the world Neither think I that I am deceived in this conjecture of mine but am perswaded that like as according to the saying of Plato the whole world was not made at first of fire and earth as the two principall and necessarie elements to the end that it might be visible and palpable considering that as the earth gave massinesse poise and firmitude so fire conferred thereunto colour forme and motion Besides the other two natures and elements which are betweene these two extremes to wit aire and water by softning melting tempering and quenching as it were the great dissociation and dissimilitude of the said extremes have drawen together incorporate and united by the meanes of them the first matter even so time and God together intending such a stately piece of worke as Rome tooke Vertue and Fortune and those they tempered and coupled in one as yoke-fellowes to the end that of the thing which is proper both to the one and the other they might found build and reare a sacred temple indeed an edifice beneficiall and profitable unto all a strong castle seated upon a firme ground-worke and an eternall element which might serve in stead of a maine pillar to susteine the decaying state of the world readie to reele and sinke downward and finally as a sure ankerhold against turbulent tempests and wandering waves of the surging seas as Democritus was woont to say For like as some of the naturall philosophers hold That the world at the first was not the world and that the bodies would not joine and mingle themselves together for to give unto nature a common forme composed of them all but when the said bodies such as yet were small and scattered heere and there slid away made meanes to escape and flie for feare they should be caught and interlaced with others such also as were more strong firme and compact even then strove mainly one against another and kept a foule coile and stirre together in such manner as there arose a violent tempest a dangerous ghust and troublesome agitation filling all with ruine error and shipwracke untill such time as the earth arose to greatnesse by the tumultuarie concourse of those bodies that grew together whereby she herselfe began first to gather a firme consistence and afterwards yeelded in her-selfe and all about her a 〈◊〉 seat and resting place for all other Semblably when the greatest empires and potentacies among men were driven and caried to and fro according to their fortunes and ranne one against another by reason that there was not one of that grandence and puissance as might command all the rest and yet they all desired that sovereignty there was a woonderfull confusion a generall destruction a strange hurliburly a tumultuary wandering and an universall mutation and change throughout the world untill such time as Rome grew to some strength and bignesse partly by laying and uniting to her-selfe the neighbour nations and cities neere about her and in part by conquering the seignories realmes and dominions of princes sarre of and strangers be yond sea by which meanes the greatest and principall things in the world began to rest and be setled as it were a firme foundation and sure seat by reason that a generall peace was brought into the world and the maine empire thereof reduced to one round circle so firme as it could not be checked or impeached for that indeed all vertues were seated in those who were the founders and builders of this mightie State and besides Fortune also was ready with her favour to second and accompany them as it shall more plainly appeere and be shewed in this discourse ensuing And now me thinks I see from this project as it were from some high rocke and watch tower Vertue and Fortune marching toward the pleading of their cause and to the judgment and decision of the foresaid question propounded but vertue in her part and maner of going seemeth to be milde gentle in the carriage also of her eie staied and composed the earnest care likewise and desire she hath to mainteine and defend her honor in this contention maketh her colour a little to rise in her face albeit she be farre behinde Fortune who commeth apace and maketh all the haste she can now there conduct her and attend upon her round about in manner of a guard a goodly traine and troupe Of worthies brave who martiall captaines were In bloudy warres and bloudy armours beare All wounded in the fore-part of their bodies dropping with bloud and swet mingled together leaning upon the truncheons of the launces pikes halfe broken which they hud won from their enemies But would you have us to demand and aske who they might be They say that they be the Fabricii the Camilli the Lucii surnamed Cincinnati the Fabii Maximi the Claudii Marcelli and the two Scipioes I see also C. Marius all angry and chasing at Fortune Mucius Scaevola likewise is amongst them who sheweth the stump of his burnt hand crying aloud withall And will you ascribe this hand also to Fortune And Marcus Horatius Cocles that valliant knight who fought so bravely upon the bridge covered all over with the shot of Tuskan darts and shewing his lame thigh seemeth to speake from out of the deep whirle-pit of the river into which he leapt these words And was it by chance Fortuue that my legge became broken I lame upon it Loe what a company came with vertue to the triall of this controversie and matter in question All warriours stout in complet armour dight Expert in feates of armes and prest to fight But on the other side the gate and going of Fortune seemes quicke and fast her spirit great and courage proud her hopes high and haughtie she over-goeth vertue and approcheth nere at hand already not mounting and lifting up her selfe now with her light and flight wings nor standing a tiptoe upon a round ball or boule commeth she wavering and doubtfull and then goeth her way afterwards in discontentment and displeasure but like as the Spartiates describe Venus saying That after she had passed the river Eurotas she layd by her mirrors and looking glasses cast aside her daintie jewels and other wanton ornaments and threw away that tissue and lovely girdle of hers and taking speare and shield in hand sheweth her selfe thus prepared and set out unto Lycurgus euen so Fortune having abandoned the Persians and Assyrians flew quicklie over Macedonia and soone shooke off Alexander the great then travailed she a while through Aegipt and Siria carying after her kingdomes as she went and so having ruined and ouerthrowen the Carthaginians state which with much variety and change she had oftentimes upheld she approched in the end
and upon which he is caried is eight and twentie times bigger than the whole earth ANAXAGORAS said it was by many degrees greater than all Peloponnesus HERACLITUS held that it was a mans foot broad EPICURUS againe affirmed that all abovesaid might be or that it was as bigge as it appeared to be at leastwise a little under or over CHAP. XXII Of the Sunnes forme ANAXIMENES imagined that the Sunne was flat and broad like unto a thinne plate of mettall HERACLITUS supposed it to be made like unto a boat somewhat curbed downeward and turning up The STOICKS suppose it to be round like unto the whole world and other starres EPICURUS saith that all this may be well enough CHAP. XXIII Of the Solsticies or Tropiques of the Sunne ANAXIMENES thinketh that the Starres are beaten backe by the thicke aire and the same making resistance ANAXAGORAS saith that they are occasioned by the repulse of the aire about the Beares or Poles which the Sunne himselfe by thrusting and making thicke causeth to be more powerfull EMPEDOCLES ascribeth the reason thereof to the sphaere that conteineth and impeacheth him from passing farther as also to the two Tropique circles DIOGENES imagineth that the Sun is extinct by the cold falling opposit upon the heat The STOICKS affirme that the Sunne passeth thorow the tract and space of his food and pasture lying under him which is the Ocean sea or the earth upon the vapours and exhalation whereof he feedeth PLATO PYTHAGORAS and ARISTOTLE holde that this is occasioned by the obliquitie of the Zodiacke circle thorow which the Sunne passeth biase as also by reason of the Tropicke circles which environ and guard him about and all this the very sphaere it selfe doth evidently shew CHAP. XXIIII Of the Sunnes eclipse THALES was the first who observed the Sunnes eclipse and said that it was occasioned by the Moone which is of a terrestriall nature when as in her race she commeth to be just and plumbe under him which may be plainly seene as in a mirrour by setting a bason of water underneath ANAXIMANDER said that the Sun became eclipsed when the mouth or tunnill at which the heat of his fire commeth forth is closed up HERACLITUS is of opinion that this hapneth when the bodie of the Sun which is made like a boat is turned upside downe so as the hollow part thereof is upward and the keele downward to our sight XENOPHANES affirmeth that this commeth by extinction of one Sun the rising of another againe in the East he addeth moreover and reporteth that there is an eclipse of the Sun during one whole moneth as also one entire and universall eclipse in such maner as the day scemeth to be night Others ascribe the cause thereof to the thickenesse of clouds which suddenly and after an hidden maner overcast the rundle and plate of the Sunne ARISTARCHUS reckoneth the Sunne among the fixed Starres saying that it is the earth which rolleth and turneth round about the Sunnes circle and according to the inclinations thereof the Sunnes lightsome bodie commeth to be darkened by her shade XENOPHANES holdeth that there be many Sunnes and Moones according to the divers Climats Tracts Sections and Zones of the earth and at a certeine revolution of time the rundle of the Sunne falleth upon some Climate or Section of the earth which is not of us inhabited and so marching as it were in some void place he suffereth eclipse he also affirmeth that the Sun goeth indeed infinitly forward stil but by reason of his huge distance and retract from us seemeth to turne round about CHAP. XXV Of the Moones substance ANNAXIMANDER saith that the Moone is a circle xix times bigger than the earth and like as that of the Sunne full of fire that she suffereth eclipse when her wheele turneth for that he saith that circle resembleth the wheele of a chariot the movature or felly whereof is hollow and full of fire howbeit there is an hole or tunnell out of which the fire doth exhale XENOPHANES saith that the Moone is a thicke compact and felted cloud The STOICKS hold that she is mixed of fire and aire PLATO affirmeth that she standeth more of a fierie substance ANAXAGORAS and DEMOCRITUS do hold that the Moone is a solid and firme bodie all fiery containing in it champian grounds mountaines and vallies HERACLITUS is of opinion that it is earth overspred with mists PYTHAGORAS also thinketh that the bodie of the Moone is of the nature of fire CHAP. XXVI Of the Moones 〈◊〉 THe STOICKS pronounce flatly that the Moone is bigger than the Earth like as the Sunne also PARMENIDES affirmeth it to be equall in brightnesse to the Sunne and that of him she hath her light CHAP. XXVII Of the Moones forme THe STOICKS say the Moone is round as a globe like as the Sunne EMPEDOCLES would have it to resemble abason or platter HERACLITUS compareth it to a boat and others to a round cylinder that she is shaped seven manner of waies at her first birth as it were she appeereth horned or tipped then divided or quartered afterwards growing somewhat together and soone after full from which time by little and little she waneth by degrees first bending somewhat close then quartered and after that tipped and horned untill at the change she appeereth not at all and they say this varietie of her configurations is occasioned by the earth shadowing her light more or lesle according as the convexitie of the earth commeth betweene CHAP. XXVIII Of the Moones illuminations ANAXIMANDER saith that she hath a light of her owne but the same very rare and thinne ANTIPHON affirmeth that she shineth with her owne light and whereas she is otherwhiles hidden it proceedeth from the opposition of the sunne namely when a greater fire commeth to darken a lesse a thing incident to other starres THALES and his followers hold that the Moone is lightned by the sunne HERACLITUS supposeth that the case of the sunne and Moone is all one for that both of them being formed like a boat and receiving moist exhalations they seeme in our sight illuminate the sunne brighter of the twaine for that he 〈◊〉 in a more cleere and pure aire and the Moone in that which is more troubled which is the reason that she seemeth more darke and muddy CHAP. XXIX Of the Moones Ecclipse ANAXIMENES saith that the Moone is Ecclipsed when the mouth or venting hole whereout issueth her fire is stopped BEROSUS is of opinion that it is when that face and side of hers which is not lightned turneth toward us HERACLITUS would have it to be when the convexitie or swelling part of the boat 〈◊〉 she doth represent regardeth us directly Some of the PYTHAGOREANS doe holde the ecclipse of the Moone to be partly a reverberation of light and in part an obstruction the one in regard of the earth the other of the Antipodes who tread opposite unto us But the moderne writers are of opinion that it is
counted nine after that the monethly purgations stay upon the first conception and so it is thought that infants be of seven moneth whichs are not for that he knew how after conceptiō many women have had their menstruall flux POLYBUS DIOCLES and the EMPIRICKS know that the eight moneths childe also is vitall howbeit in some sort feeble for that many for feeblenesse have died so borne in generall and for the most part ordinarily none are willing to reare and feed the children borne at the seven moneth and yet many have beene so borne and growen to mans estate ARISTOTLE and HIPPOCRATES report that if in seven moneths the matrix be growen full then the infant 〈◊〉 to get foorth and such commonly live and doe well enough but if it incline to birth and be not sufficiently nourished for that the navill is weake then in regard of hard travell both the mother is in danger and her fruit becommeth to mislike and thriveth not but in case it continue nine moneths within the matrix then it commeth foorth accomplished and perfect POLYBUS affirmeth it to be requisite and necessarie for the vitalitie of infants that there should be 182 daies and a halfe which is the time of six moneths compleat in which space the sunne commeth from one Solstice or Tropicke to another but such children are said to be of seven moneths when it falleth out that the odde daies left in this moneth are taken to the seventh moneth But he is of opinion that those of eight moneths live not namely when as the infant hastneth indeed out of the wombe and beareth downward but for the most part the navell is thereby put to stresse and reatched so cannot feed as that should which is the cause of food to the infant The MATHEMATICIANS beare us in hand and say that eight moneths be dissociable of all generations but seven are sociable Now the dissociable signes are such as meet with such starres and constellations which be lords of the house for if upon any of them falleth the lot of mans life and course of living it signifieth that such shall be unfortunate and short lived These dissociable signes be reckonned eight in number namely Aries with 〈◊〉 is insociable Taurus with Scorpius is sociable Gemini with Capricorn Cancer with Aquarius Leo with Pisces and Virgo with Aries And for this cause infants of seven moneths and ten moneths be livelike but those of eight moneths for the insociable dissidence of the world perish and come to naught CHAP. XIX Of the generation of animall creatures after what maner they be engendred and whether they be corruptible THey who hold that the world was created are of opinion that living creatures also had their creation or beginning and shall likewise perish and come to an end The EPICUREANS according unto whom Animals had no creation doe suppose that by mutation of one into another they were first made for they are the substantiall parts of the world like as ANAXAGORAS and EURIPIDES affirme in these tearmes Nothing dieth but in changing as they doe one for another they shew sundry formes ANAXIMANDER is of opinion that the first Animals were bred in moisture and enclosed within pricky and sharpe pointed barks but as age grew on they became more drie and in the end when the said barke burst and clave in sunder round about them a small while after they survived EMPEDOCLES thinketh that the first generations as well of living creatures as of plants were not wholy compleat and perfect in all parts but disjoined by reason that their parts did not cohaere and unite together that the second generations when the parts begun to combine and close together seemed like to images that the third generations were of parts growing and arising mutually one out of another and the fourth were no more of semblable as of earth and water but one of another and in some the nourishment was incrassate and made thicke as for others the beautie of women provoked and pricked in them a lust of spermatike motion Moreover that the kinds of all living creatures were distinct and divided by certeine temperatures for such as were more familiarly enclined to water went into water others into the aire for to draw and deliver their breath to and fro according as they held more of the nature of fire such as were of a more heavie temperature were bestowed upon the earth but those who were of an equall temperature uttered voice with their whole breasts CHAP. XX. How many sorts of living creatures there be whether they be all sensitive and endued with reason THere is a treatise of ARISTOTLE extant wherein he putteth downe fower kinds of Animals to wit Terrestriall Aquaticall Volatile and Celestiall for you must thinke that he calleth heavens starres and the world Animals even as well as those that participate of earth yea and God he defineth to be a reasonable Animall and immortall DEMOCRITUS and EPICURUS doe say that heavenly Animals are reasonable 〈◊〉 holdeth that all Animals are endued with active reason but want the passive understanding which is called the interpreter or truchment of the minde PYTHAGORAS and PLATO do affirme that the soules even of those very Animals which are called unreasonable brute beasts are endued with reason howbeit they are not operative with that reason neither can they 〈◊〉 it by reason of the distempered composition of their bodies and because they have not speech to declare and expound themselves as for example apes and dogs which utter a babling voice but not an expresse language and distinct speech DIOGENES supposeth that they have an intelligence but partly for the grosse thicknesse of their temperature and in part for the abundance of moisture they have neither discourse of reason nor sense but fare like unto those who be furious for the principall part of the soule to wit Reason is defectuous and empeached CHAP. XXI Within what time are living creatures formed in the mothers wombe EMPEDOCLES saith that men begin to take forme after the thirtie sixt day and are finished and knit in their parts within 50. daies wanting one ASCLEPIADES saith that the members of males because they be more hot are jointed and receive shape in the space of 26. daies and many of them sooner but are finished and complet in all limbes within 50. daies but females require two moneths ere they be fashioned and fower before they come to their perfection for that they want naturall heat As for the parts of unreasonable creatures they come to their accomplishment sooner or later according to the temperature of the elements CHAP. XXII Of how many elements is composedech of the generall parts which are in us EMPEDOCLES thinketh that flesh is engendred of an equall mixture and temperature of the fower elements the sinewes of earth and fire mingled together in a duple proportion the nailes and cleies in living creatures come of the nerves refrigerat and made colde in
signified as much when he called the night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the sharpenesse at the point of the said shadow and yet the Moone as it appeareth in her ecclypses being caught and comprehended within the compasse of that shadow hath much adoo to get out of it by going forward in length thrice as much as her owne bignesse comes to Consider then how many times greater must the earth needs be than the Moone if it be so that the shadow which it casteth where it is sharpest and narrowest is thrice as much as the Moone But yee are afraid least the Moone should fall if she were avowed to the earth for it may be haply that Aeschylus hath sealed you a warrant and secured you for the earth when he said thus of Atlas He standeth like a pillar strong and sure From earth to heaven above that reacheth streight To beare on shoulders twaine he doeth endure A massie burden and unweldy weight if under the Moone there runne and be spred a light and thin aire not firme and sufficient for to susteine a solide masse whereas according to Pindarus To beare the earth there standmost putssant Columns and pillars of hard diamant And therefore Pharnaces for himselfe is out of all feare that the earth will fall mary he pittieth those who are directly and plumbe under the course of the Moone and namely the Aethiopians and those of Taprobana least so weightie a masse should tumble downe upon their heads And yet the Moone hath one good meanes and helpe to keepe her from falling to wit her very motion and violent revolution like unto those bullets or stones or whatsoever weights be put within a sling they are sure enough from slipping or falling out so long as they be violently swong and whirled about For every body is caried according to the naturall motion thereof if there be no other cause to empeach or turne it aside out of course which is the reason that the Moone mooveth not according to the motion of her poise considering the inclination thereof downward is staied and hindred by the violence of a circular revolution But peradventure more cause there were to marvel if she should stand altogether as the earth immoveable whereas now the Moone hath this great cause to empeach her for not tending downward hither As for the earth which hath no other motion at all to hinder it great reason there is that according to that onely weight of the owne it should moove downward and there settle for more heavy it is than the Moone not so much in this regard that greater it is but more for that the Moone by reason of heat and adustion of fire is made the lighter In briefe it appeareth by that which you say if it be true that the Moone be fire it hath need of earth or some other marter to rest upon and cleave 〈◊〉 for to mainteine nourish and quicken still the power that it hath for it cannot be conceived or imagined how fire should be preserved without fuell or matter combustible And you your selves affirme doe yee not that the earth abideth firme and sure without any base or piedstall to susteine and hold it up Yes verily quoth Pharnaces being in the proper and naturall place which is the very mids and center For this is it whereto all heavy and weightie things doe 〈◊〉 incline and are caried to from every side and about which they cling and be counterpeized but the upper region throughout if haply there be any terrestriall and heavy matter by violence sent up thither repelleth and casteth it downe againe with force incontinently or to speake more truely letteth it goe and fall according to the owne naturall inclination which is to tend and settle downward For the answer and refutation whereof I willing to give Luctus some reasonable time to summon his wits together and to thinke upon his reasons and calling unto Theon by name Which of the tragicall Poets was it Theon quoth I who said that Physicians Bitter medicines into the body powre When bitter choler they meane to purge and scoure And when he made me answere that it was Sophocles Well quoth I we must permit them so to doc upon necessity but we ought not to give eare unto Philosophers if they would maintaine strange paradoxes by other positions as absurd or to confute admirable opinions devise others much more extravagant and wonderfull like as these here who broch and bring in a motion forsooth tending unto a middle wherein what absurdity is there not Holde not they that the earth is as round as a ball and yet we see how many deepe profundities hautie sublimities manifold inequalities it hath affirme not they that there be antipodes dwelling opposit one unto another and those sticking as it were to the sides of the earth with their heeles upward their heads downward all arse verse like unto these woodwormes or cats which hang by their sharpe clawes Would not they have even us also that are here for to goe upon the ground not plumbe upright but bending or enclining sidelong reeling and staggering like drunken folke Doe they not tell us tales and would make us beleeve that if barres and masses of iron waighing a thousand talents a peece were let fall downe into the bottom of the earth when they came once to the middle centre thereof will stay and rest there albeit nothing els came against them nor sustained them up And if peradventure by some forcible violence they should passe beyond the said midst they would soone rebound backe thither againe of their owne accord Say not they that if a man should saw off the trunks or ends of beams on either side of the earth the same would never settle downeward still throughout but from without forth fall both into the earth and so equally meet one another and cling together about the hart or centre thereof Suppose not they that if a violent streame of water should runne downeward still into the ground when it met once with the very point or centre in the midst which they holde to be incorporall it would then gather together and turne round in maner of a whirlepoole about a pole waving to and fro there continually like one of these pendant buckets and as it hangeth wagge incessantly without end And verily some of these assertions of theirs are so absurd that no man is able to enforce himselfe to imagine in his minde although falsely that they are possible For this indeed is to make high and low all one this is to turne all upside downe that those things which become as farre as to the midst shal be thought below and under and what is under the middle shall be supposed above and aloft in such sort as that if a man by the sufferance and consent of the earth stood with his navell just against the middle and centre of it he should by this meanes have his head and his heeles both
your anguish mitigate your pensivenesse and stay your needlesse mourning and bootlesse lamentation for why If minde be sicke what physicke then But reasons fit for ech disease A wise man knowes the season when To use those meanes the heart to ease And according as the wise Poet Euripides saith Ech griefe of minde ech maladie Doth crave a severall remedie If restlesse sorow the heart torment Kind words of friends worke much content Where folly swaies in every action Great need there is of sharpe correction For verily among so many passions and infirmities incident to the soule of man dolor and heavinesse be most irkesome and goe neerest into it By occasion of anguish many a one they say hath run mad and fallen into maladies incurable yea and for thought and hearts-griefe some have bene driven to make away themselves Now to sorow and be touched to the quicke for the losse of a sonne is a passion that ariseth from a naturall cause and it is not in our power to avoid which being so I cannot for my part holde with them who so highly praise and extoll I wot not what brutish hard and blockish indolence and stupiditie which if it were possible for a man to enterteine is not any way commodious and available Certes the same would bereave vs of that mutuall benevolence and sweet comfort which we finde in the reciprocall interchange of loving others and being loved againe which of all earthly blessings we had most need to preserve and mainteine Yet do I not allow that a man should suffer himselfe to be transported and caried away beyond all compasse measure making no end of sorow for even that also is likewise unnaturall and proceedeth from a corrupt and erronious opinion that we have and therefore as we ought to abandon this excesse as simply naught hurtfull and not beseeming vertuous and honest minded men so in no wise must we disallow that meane and moderation in our passions following in this point sage Crantor the Academick Philosopher I could wish quoth he that we might be never sicke howbeit if we chance to fall into some disease God send us yet some sense and feeling in case any part of our bodie be either cut plucked away or dismembred in the cure And I assure you that senselesse impassibilitie is never incident unto a man without some great mischiefe and inconvenience ensuing for lightly it falleth out that when the bodie is in this case without feeling the soule soone after will become as insensible reason would therefore that wise men in these and such like crosses cary themselves neither void of affections altogether nor yet out of measure passionate for as the one bewraieth a fell and hard heart resembling a cruell beast so the other discovereth a soft and effeminate nature beseeming a tender woman but best advised is he who knoweth to keepe a meane and being guided by the rule of reason hath the gift to beare wisely and indifferently aswell the flattering favours as the scowling srownes of fortune which are so ordinarily occurrent in this life having this forecast with himselfe That like as in a free State and popular government of a common wealth where the election of sovereigne magistrates passeth by lots the one whose hap is to be chosen must be a ruler and commander but the other who misseth ought patiently to take his fortune and beare the repulse even so in the disposition and course of all our wordly affaires we are to be content with our portion allotted unto us and without grudging and complaint gently to yeeld our selves obedient for surely they that can not so doe would never be able with wisedome and moderation to weld any great prosperitie for of many wise speeches and well said sawes this sentence may go for one How ever fortune smile and looke full faire Be thou not proud nor beare a loftie mind Ne yet cast downe and plung'd in deepe ae spaire If that she frowne or shew herselfe unkind But alwaies one and same let men thee find Constant and firme reteine thy nature still As gold in fire which alter never will For this is the propertie of a wise man and wel brought up both for any apparent shew of prosperitie to be no changling but to beare himselfe alwaies in one sort also in adversitie with a generous and noble mind to mainteine that which is decent beseeming his own person for the office of true wisdome considerate discretion is either to prevent avoid a mischiefe cōming or to correct and reduce it to the least narrowest compasse when it is once come or els to be prepared and ready to beare the same manfully and with all magnanimitie For prudence as touching that which we call good is seene and emploied foure maner of waies to wit in getting in keeping in augmenting or in well and right using the same these be the rules as well of prudence as of other vertues which we are to make use and benefit of in both fortunes as well the one as the other for according to the old proverb No man there is on earth alive In every thing who ay doth thrive And verily By course of nature unneth it wrought may be That ought should check fatall necessitie And as it falleth out in trees and other plants that some yeeres they beare their burden and yeeld great store of frute whereas in others they bring foorth none at all also living creatures one whiles be frutefull and breed many yoong otherwhiles againe they be as barren for it and in the sea it is now tempest and then calme semblably in this life there happen many circumstances and accidents which winde and turne us into the chaunces of contrarie fortunes in regard of which varietie a man may by good right and reason say thus O Agamemnon thy father Atreus hee Alwaies to prosper hath not begotten thee For in this life thou must have one day joy Another griefe and wealth mixt with annoy And why thou art by mort all nature fraile Thy will against this course cannot prevaile For so it is the pleasure of the gods To make this change and worke in man such ods As also that which to the same effect the poet Menander wrote in this wise Sir Trophimus if you the onely wight Of women borne were brought into this light With priviledge to have the world at will To taste no woe but prosper alwaies still Or if some god had made you such behest To live in joy in solace and in rest You had just cause to fare thus as you doe And chafe for that he from his word doth goe And hath done what he can not justifie But if so be as truth will testifie Under one law this publike vitall aire You draw with us your breath for to repaire I say to you gravely in tragick stile You ought to be more patient the while To take all this in better woorth I say Let
reach and extend to all those who descend from it neither is the thing ingendred of the same nature that a piece of worke is wrought by art which incontinently is separate from the workeman for that it is made by him and not of him whereas contrariwise that which is naturally engendred is formed of the very substance of that which ingendred it in such sort as it doth carie about it some part thereof which by good right deserveth either to be punished or to be honoured even in it selfe And were it not that I might be thought to jest speake in game and not in good earnest I would aver and pronounce assuredly that the Athenians offered more wrong and abuse unto the brasen statue of Cassander which they caused to be defaced and melted and likewise the dead corps of Dionysius suffered more injurie at the hands of the Syracusians which after his death they caused to be carried out of their confines than if they had proceeded in rigor of justice against their of spring and posterity for the said image of Cassander did not participate one whit of his nature and the soule of Dionysius was departed a good while before out of his bodie whereas Niseus Apollocrates Antipater Philip all such other descended from vicious wicked parents reteined still the chiefe and principall part which is in them inbred and remaineth not quiet idle and doing nothing but such as whereby they live and are nourished whereby they negociate reason and discourse neither ought it to seeme strange and incredible that being of their issue they should likewise reteine their qualities and inclinations In summe I say and affirme that like as in Physicke whatsoever is holesome and profitable the same is also just and woorthy were he to be laughed at and mocked that calleth him unjust who for the Sciatica or disease of the huckle-bone would cauterize the thumbe or when the liver is impostumate scarifie the bellie and if kine or oxen be tender and soft in the clees anoint the extremities and tips of their hornes even so he deserveth to be scorned and reproved as a man of a shallow conceit who in chastisement of vice esteemeth any other thing just than that which may cure and heale the same or who is offended and angry if a medicine be applied or a course of Physicke used into some parts for curing others as they do who open a veine for to heale the inflammation of the eies such an one I say seemeth to see and perceive no further than his owne outward senses leade him and remembreth not well that a schoolemaster often times in whipping one of his scholars keepeth all the rest in awe and good order and a great captaine and generall of the field in putting to death for exemplarie justice one souldier in every ten reformeth all besides and reduceth them to their duetie and even so there happen not onely to one part by another but also to one soule by another certeine dispositions aswell to worse and impairing as to better and amendment yea and much more than to one body by the meanes of another for that there to wit in a bodie there must by all likelihood be one impression and the same alteration but here the soule which often times is led and caried away by imagination either to be confident or distrustfull and timorous fareth better or woorse accordingly And as I was going forward to speake Olympiacus interrupting my speech By these words of yours quoth he you seeme to set downe as a supposall a subject matter of great consequence and discourse to wit the immortalitie of the soule as if it remained still after the separation from the body Yea mary quoth he even this have I inferred by that which you do now grant or rather have granted heretofore for our discourse hath bene from the beginning prosecuted to this presupposed point That God dealeth distributeth to every of us according as we have deserved And how quoth he doth this follow necessarily that in case God doth behold all humaneaffaires dispose of every particular thing here upon earth the soules therfore should become either immortal incorruptible or els continue in their entire estate long after death O good sir quoth I be content is God thinke you so base minded or imploied in so small trifling matters and having so little to do that when we have no divine thing in us nor ought that in any sort resembleth him or is firme and durable but that we continually decay fade and perish like unto the leaves of trees as Homer saith and that in a small time he should all on a sudden make so great account of us like to those women who cherish and keepe the gardens as they say of Adonis within brittle pots and pannes of earth as to make our soules for one day to flourish and looke greene within our fleshly body which is not capable of any strong root of life and then within a while after suffer them to be extinguished and to die upon the least occasion in the world But if you please let us passe other gods and consider wee a little this our God onely him I meane who is honoured and invocated in this place namely whether hee knowing that the soules of the dead are presenly exhaled and vanished away to nothing like unto a vapour or smoake breathing forth of our bodies doth ordeine incontinently oblations to be offered and propitiatorie sacrifices to be made for the departed and whether he demand not great honors worship and veneration in the memoriall of the dead or whether hee doth it to abuse and deceive those that beleeve accordingly For I assure you for my part I will never graunt that the soule dieth but remaineth stil after death unlesse some one or other as by report Hercules did in old time come first and take away the propheticall stoole or trefeet of Pythius and destroy the oracle for ever rendring any more answers as it hath delivered even unto these our daies such as by report was given in old time to Corax the Naxian in these words Impietie great it is for to beleeve That soules doe die and not for ever live Then Patrocles What prophecie quoth he was this and who was that Corax for surely the thing it selfe that very name be both of them strange and unknowen to me That cannot be quoth I but thinke better of the matter for it is long of me who have used his surname in stead of his proper name for I mean him who flew Archilochus in battel whose name indeed was Callondas but men surnamed him Corax This mā was at the first rejected by the prophetesse Pythia as a murderer who had killed a worthy personage consecrated devoted unto the Muses but afterwards having used certaine humble praiers requests together with divers allegations of excuse pretēding to justifie his fact in the end he was enjoined by the
still bee somewhere and continue though they indured otherwise all maner of paines and calamities than wholy to bee taken out of the universall world and brought to nothing yea and willing they are and take pleasure to heare this spoken of one that is dead How he is departed out of this world into another or gone to God with other such like manner of speeches importing that death is no more but onely a change or alteration but not a totall and entire abolition of the soule And thus they use to speake Then shall I call even there to mind The sweet acquaintance of my friend Also What shall I say from you to Hector bold Or husband yours right deere who liv'd so old And herof proceeded and prevailed this errour that men supposed they are well eased of their sorrow and better appaied when they have interred with the dead the armes weapons instrustruments and garments which they were wont to use ordinarily in their life time like as Minos buried together with Glaucus His Candiot pipes made of the long-shanke bones Of dapple doe or hinde that lived once And if they be perswaded that the dead either desire or demand any thing glad they are and willing to send or bestow the same upon them And thus did Periander who burnt in the funerall fire together with his wife her apparell habilliments and jewels for that he thought she called for them and complained that she lay a cold And such as these are not greatly affraid of any judge Aeacus of Ascalaphus or of the river Acheron considering that they attribute unto them daunces theatricall plaies and all kinde of musicke as if they tooke delight and pleasure therein and yet there is not one of them all but is readie to quake for feare to see that face of death so terrible so unpleasant so glum and grizly deprived of all sense and growen to oblivion and ignorance of all things they tremble for very horrour when they heare any of these words He is dead he is perished he is gone and no more to be seene grievously displeased and offended they be when these and such like speeches are given out Within the earth as deepe as trees do stand His hap shall be to rot and turne to sand No feasts he shall frequent nor heare the lute And harpe ne yet the sound of pleasant flute Againe When once the ghost of man from corps is fled And pass'd the ranks of teeth set thicke in head All meanes to catch and fetch her are but vaine No hope there is of her returne againe But they kill them stone dead who say thus unto them We mortall men have bene once borne for all No second birth we are for to expect We must not looke for life that is eternall Such thoughts as dreames we ought for to reject For casting and considering with themselves that this present life is a smal matter or rather indeed a thing of nought in comparison of eternitie they regard it not nor make any account to enjoy the benefit thereof whereupon they neglect all vertue and the honourable exploits of action as being utterly discouraged and discontented in themselves for the shortnesse of their life so uncerteine and without assurance and in one word because they take themselves unfit and unworthy to performe any great thing For to say that a dead man is deprived of all sense because having bene before compounded that composition is now broken and dissolved to give out also that a thing once dossolved hath no Being at all and in that regard toucheth us not howsoever they seeme to be goodly reasons yet they rid us not from the feare of death but contrariwise they doe more confirme and enforce the same for this is it in deed which nature abhorreth when it shal be said according to the Poet Homers words But as for you both all and some Soone may you earth and water become meaning thereby the resolution of the soule into a thing that hath neither intelligence nor any sense at all which Epicurus holding to be a dissipation thereof into I wot not what emptinesse or voidnesse small indivisible bodies which he termeth Atomi by that meanes cutteth off so much the rather all hope of immortalitie for which I dare well say that all folke living men and women both would willingly be bitten quite thorow and gnawen by the hel-dog Cerberus or cary water away in vessels full of holes in the bottome like as the Danaides did so they might onely have a Being and not perish utterly for ever and be reduced to nothing And yet verily there be not many men who feare these matters taking them to be poeticall fictions and tales devised for pleasure or rather bug beares that mothers and nourses use to fright their children with and even they also who stand in feare of them are provided of certeine ceremonies and expiatorie purgations to helpe themselves withall by which if they be once cleansed and purified they are of opinion that they shall goe into another world to places of pleasure where there is nothing but playing and dauncing continually among those who have the aire cleere the winde milde and pure the light gracious and their voice intelligible whereas the privation of life troubleth both yoong and old for we all even every one of us are sicke for love and exceeding desirous To see the beautie of sunnes light Which on the earth doth shine so bright as Euripides saith neither willing are we but much displeased to heare this And as he spake that great immortall eie Which giveth light thorowout the fabricke wide Of this round world made haste and fast did hie With chariot swift cleane out of sight to ride Thus together with the perswasion and opinion of immortallity they bereave the common people of the greatest and sweetest hopes they have What thinke wee then of those men who are of the better sort and such as have lived justly and devoutly in this life Surely they looke for no evill at all in another world but hope and expect there the greatest and most heavenly blessings that be for first and formost champions or runners in a race are never crowned so long as they be in combat or in their course but after the combat ended and the victory atchieved even so when these persons are perswaded that the proofe of the victorie in this world is due unto them after the course of this life wonderfull it is and it can not be spoken how great contentment they finde in their hearts for the privitie and conscience of their vertue and for those hopes which assure them that they one day shall see those who now abuse their good gifts insolently who commit outrage by the meanes of their might riches and authoritie and who scorne and foolishly mocke such as are better than themselves paie for their deferts and suffer woorthily for their pride and insolencie And forasmuch as never any of them who
all things When Firmus had discoursed in this wise Senecio opposed himselfe and said That the last similitude and comparison which he brought was that which first and principally made against him For you marke not ô Firmus quoth he how ere you were aware you opened the world like a gate as the proverbe saith even upon your selfe for that the world was before all other things as being most perfect and reason would that whatsoever is perfect should precede the unperfect the entier and sound goe before that which is wanting and defectious and the whole before the part for that there can be no parcell but the whole thereof went before for no man useth to speake thus The seeds-man or the egges henne but cōtrariwise we say The mans seed and the hennes egge as if both generative seed and egge did succeed and follow them taking their owne generation in them first and afterwards paying againe as it were a debt unto nature a successive generation from them for need they have of that which is proper and familiar unto them and thereupon are endued with a naturall desire and inclination to produce such another thing as that was from whence they came and heereupon it is that seed is thus defined to be a geniture or thing bred having need and desire of new generation Now there is nothing that either standeth in need or hath an appetite to that which is not or hath no being and wee may plainly see that egges have their totall essence and substance from that compact knot and composition which is gathered within the body of a living creature and faileth heerein onely that it hath not such organes instruments and vessels as they have which is the reason that you shall never finde written in any historie that an egge was ingendred immediately of the earth for even the poets themselves doe say That the egge out of which sprang Castor and Pollux fell from heaven whereas the earth even at this day produceth many complet and perfect creatures as for example mice in Aegypt and in many other places serpents frogges and grashoppers by reason that the principle and puissance generative is infused and inserted into it from without In Sicilie during the time of the Servile warre much carnage there was and a great quantitie of bloud shedde and spilt upon the earth many dead bodies corrupted and putrified above ground lying unburied by occasion whereof an infinit number of locusts were engendred which being spred over the face of the whole island spoiled and destroied all the come in the countrey all these creatures therefore are bred and fedde of the earth and of their nourishment they yeeld a generall superfluitie apt to ingender the same kind and that is called seed and for to be discharged thereof by meanes of a certeine mutuall pleasure the male and the female match and couple together and so some according to their nature breed and lay egges others bring foorth yoong ones alive whereby it is evidently seene that the primitive generation came first and immediatly from the earth but afterwards by a certeine conjunction of one with another in a second sort they breed their yoong In summe to say that the egge was before the hen is as much as if the matrice were before the woman for looke what relation there is betweene the said matrice and the egge the semblable hath the egge unto the chicken that is ingendered and hatched within it So that to demand how birds were made when there were egges is all one as to aske how men and women were created before the naturall parts and genetall members of the one sex and the other were made And verily the members for the most part have their subsistence and being together with the whole but the powers and faculties come after those members the functions succeed the faculties and consequently the effects or complements follow upon the said functions and operation now the accomplished worke or perfection of that generative facultie in the naturall parts is the seed or the egge so that we must of necessitie confesse that they be after the generation of the whole Consider moreover that as it is not possible that there should be concoction of meats or any nourishment before the living creature be fully made and compleat no more can there be any seed or egge for that both the one and the other is made by certeine concoctions and alterations neither is it seene how before the full perfection of a living creature there should be any thing that hath the nature of the superfluity or excrement of nutrition and yet I must needs say that naturall seed otherwise in some sort may go for the principle and beginning of life whereas the egge in no proportion answereth to such a principle for that it hath not a subsistence first nor any reason or nature of the whole because it is imperfect And hereupon it is that we never say that a living creature had any being or subsistence without an elementarie beginning but we affirme that there was a principle of generation to wit the power or facultie generative by which the matter was transmuted and wherein there was imprinted a generall temperature and that the egge afterwards is as it were a certein supergeneration much like unto the bloud milke of a living creature after nourishment concoction for never shall you see an egge engendred of mud for that an egge hath the generation and concretion within the bodie onely of a living creature whereas there be an innumerable sort of creatures procreated bred of mud and within mud And to seeke no surther for allegation of other examples to prove this there be taken every day an infinit number of eeles and yet never saw any man one eele either milter or spawner or that had any row in it And more than that if one let out all the water forth out of the poole and cleanse it from all mud and mire yet after the water is returned thither againe into the place there will be eeles soone engendred And therefore we may conclude necessarily that whatsoever in generation hath need of another can not chuse but be after it and that which otherwise may be of it selfe and without the other must of necessitie precede and goe before in generation for this is that prioritie whereof I speake To prove this marke how birds do build and make their nests before they lay egges women also provide cradles clouts beds and swadling-clothes for their little babes before they crie out or be delivered and yet you will not say I trow that either the nest was before the egge or the swadling cloths before the infant For as Plato saith the earth doth not imitate a woman but a woman the earth and consequently all other females And very like it is that the first procreation out of the earth was performed entire and accomplished by the absolute vertue and perfection of the Creatour
division of the earth 15 The zones or climates of the earth how many and how great they be 16 Of earth quakes 17 Of the sea how it is concret and how it comes to be bitter 18 How come the tides that is to say the ebbing and flowing of the seas 19 Of the circle called Halo Chapters of the fourth Booke 1 Of the rising of Nilus 2 Of the soule 3 Whether the soule be corporall and what is her substance 4 The parts of the soule 5 Which is the mistresse or principall part of the soule and wherein it doth consist 6 Of the soules motion 7 Of the soules immortalitie 8 Of the senses and sensible things 9 Whether the senses and imaginations be true 10 How many senses there be 11 How sense and notion is performed as also how reason is ingendred according to disposition 12 What difference there is betweene imagination imaginable and imagined 13 Of sight and how we doe see 14 Of the reflexions or resemblances in mirrors 15 Whether darknesse be visible 16 Of hearing 17 Of smelling 18 Of tasting 19 Of the voice 20 Whether the voice be incorporall and how commeth the resonance called eccho 21 How it is that the soule hath sense and what is the principal predomināt part therof 22 Of respiration 23 Of the passions of the body and whether the soule have a fellow-feeling with it of paine Chapters of the fift Booke 1 Of divination or 〈◊〉 of future things 2 How dreames 〈◊〉 3 What is the substance of naturall seed 4 Whether naturall seed be a body 5 Whether femals as well as males doe yeeld naturall seed 6 After what maner conceptions are 7 How males and females are engendred 8 How monsters are ingendred 9 What is the reason that a woman accompanying often times carnally with a man doth not 〈◊〉 10 How twinnes both two and three at once be occasioned 11 How commeth the resemblance of parents 12 What is the cause that infants be like to some other and not to the parents 13 How women proove barren and men unable to ingender 14 What is the reason that mules be barren 15 Whether the fruit within the wombe is to be accounted a living creature or no. 16 How such fruits be nourished within the wombe 17 What part is first accomplished in the wombe 18 How it commeth to passe that infants borne at seven moneths end doe live and are livelike 19 Of the generation of living creatures how they be ingendred and whether they be corruptible 20 How many kindes there be of living creatures whether they all have sense and use of reason 21 In what time living creatures receive forme within the mothers wombe 22 Of what elements is every generall part in us composed 23 How commeth sleepe and death whether it is of soule or bodie 24 When and how a man beginneth to come unto his perfection 25 Whether it is soule or bodie that either sleepeth or dieth 26 How plants come to grow and whether they be living creatures 27 Of nourishment and growth 28 From whence proceed appetites lusts and pleasures in living creatures 29 How the feaver is ingendred and whether it be an accessarie or symptome to another disease 30 Of health sicknesse and olde age THE FIRST BOOKE OF Philosophers opinions The Prooeme BEing minded to write of naturall philosophie we thinke it necessary in the first place and before all things els to set downe the whole disputation of Philosophie by way of division to the end that we may know which is naturall and what part it is of the whole Now the Stoicks say that sapience or wisdom is the science of all things aswell divine as humane and that Philosophie is the profession and exercise of the art expedient thereto which is the onely supreame and sovereigne vertue and the same divided into three most generall vertues to wit Naturall Morall and Verball by reason whereof Philosophie also admitteth a three-folde distribution to wit into Naturall Morall Rationall or Verball the Naturall part is that when as we enquire and dispute of the world and the things conteined therein Morall is occupied in intreating of the good and ill that concerneth mans life Rationall or Verball handleth that which perteineth unto the discourse of reason and to speech which also is named Logique or Dialelectique that is to say Disputative But Aristotle and Theophrastus with the Peripateticks in maner all divide Philosophie in this maner namely into Contemplative and Active For necessarie it is say they that a man to atteine unto perfection should be a spectatour of all things that are and an actour of such things as be seemely and decent and may the better be understood by these examples The question is demanded whether the Sunne be a living creature according as it seemeth to the sight to be or no He that searcheth and enquireth into the trueth of this question is altogether therein speculative for he seeketh no farther than the contemplation of that which is semblably if the demand be made whether the world is infinit or if there be any thing without the pourprise of the world for all these questions be meere contemplative But on the other side mooved it may be How a man ought to live how he should governe his children how he is to beare rule and office of State and lastly in what maner lawes are to be ordeined and made for all these are sought into in regard of action and a man conversant therein is altogether active and practique CHAP. I. What is Nature SInce then our intent and purpose is to consider and treat of Naturall philosophie I thinke it needfull to shew first what is Nature for absurd it were to enterprise a discourse of Naturall things and meane-while to be ignorant of Nature and the power thereof Nature then according to the opinion of Aristotle is the beginning of motion and rest in that thing wherein it is properly and principally not by accident for all things to be seene which are done neither by fortune nor by necessitie and are not divine nor have any such efficient cause be called Naturall as having a proper and peculiar nature of their owne as the earth fire water aire plants and living creatures Moreover those other things which we do see ordinarily engendered as raine haile lightning presteres winds and such like for all these have a certeine beginning and every one of them was not so for ever and from all eternitie but did proceed from some originall likewise living creatures and plants have a beginning of their motion and this first principle is Nature the beginning not of motion onely but also of rest and quiet for whatsoever hath had a beginning of motion the same also may have an end and for this cause Nature is the beginning aswell of rest as of moving CHAP. II. What difference there is betweene a principle and an element ARistotle and Plato are of opinion that there is a
side it lieth lowest of all things in the world and by occasion thereof resteth unmooveable hauing no cause why it should encline more to one part than to another but yet some places of her because of their raritie do jogge and shake EPICURUS keepeth his old tune saying it may well be that the earth being shogged and as it were rocked and beaten by the aire underneath which is grosse and of the nature of water therefore mooveth and quaketh As also it may be quoth he that being holow and full of holes in the parts below it is forced to tremble and shake by the aire that is gotten within the caves and concavities and there enclosed CHAP. XVI Of the Sea how it was made and commeth to be bitter ANAXIMANDER affirmeth that the Sea is a residue remaining of the primitive humidity whereof the Sunne hauing burnt up and consumed a great part the rest behind he altered and turned from the naturall kind by his excessive ardent heat ANAXAGORAS is of opinion that the said first humiditie being diffused and spred abroad in manner of a poole or great meere was burnt by the motion of the sunne about it and when the oileous substance thereof was exhaled and consumed the rest setled below and turned into a brackish and bitter-saltnesse which is the Sea EMPEDOCLES saith that the Sea is the sweat of the earth enchafed by the sunne being bathed and washed all over aloft ANTISTON thinketh it to be the sweat of heat the moisture whereof which was within being by much seething and boiling sent out becommeth salt a thing ordinary in all sweats METRODORUS supposeth the Sea to be that moisture which running thorough the earth reteined some part of the densitie thereof like as that which passeth through ashes The disciples of PLATO imagine that so much of the elementarie water which is congealed of the aire by refrigeration is sweet and fresh but whatsoever did evaporate by burning and inflammation became salt CHAP. XVII Of the Tides to wit the ebbing and flowing of the sea what is the cause thereof ARISTOTLE and HERACLITUS affirme that it is the sunne which doth it as who stirreth raiseth and carieth about with him the most part of the windes which comming to blow upon the Ocean cause the Atlanticke sea to swell and so make the flux or high water but when the same are allaied and cleane downe the sea falleth low and so causeth a reflux and ebbe or low water PYTHEAS of Marseils referreth the cause of Flowing to the full moone and of Ebbing to the moone in the wane PLATO attributeth all to a certeine rising of the waters saying There is such an elevation that through the mouth of a cave carieth the Ebbe and Flow to and fro by the meanes whereof the seas doe rise and flow contrarily TIMAEUS alledgeth the cause hereof to be the rivers which falling from the mountaines in Gaule enter into the Atlantique sea which by their violent corruptions driving before them the water of the sea cause the Flow and by their ceasing and returne backe by times the Ebbe SELEUCUS the Mathematician who affirmed also that the earth mooved saith that the motion thereof is opposit and contrary to that of the moone also that the winde being driven to and fro by these two contrary revolutions bloweth and beateth upon the Atlanticke ocean troubleth the sea also and no marvell according as it is disquieted it selfe CHAP. XVIII Of the round circle called Halo THis Halo is made after this manner betweene the body of the moone or any other starre and our eie-sight there gathereth a grosse and mistie aire by which aire anon our sight commeth to be reflected and diffused and afterwards the same incurreth upon the said starre according to the exterior circumference thereof and thereupon appeereth a circle round about the starre which being there seene is called Halo for that it seemeth that the apparent impression is close unto that upon which our sight so enlarged as is before said doth fall THE FOURTH BOOKE OF Philosophers opinions The Prooeme HAving runne through the generall parts of the world I will now passe unto the particulars CHAP. I. Of the rising and inundation of Nilus THALES thinketh that the anniversarie windes called Etcsiae blowing directly against Aegypt cause the water of Nilus to swell for that the sea being driven by these windes entreth within the mouth of the said river and hindereth it that it cannot discharge it selfe freely into the sea but is repulsed backward EUTHYMENES of Marseils supposeth that this river is filled with the water of the ocean and the great sea lying without the continent which he imagineth to be fresh and sweet ANAXAGORAS saith that this hapneth by the snowe in Aethiopia which melteth in summer and is congealed and frozen in winter DEMOCRITUS is of opinion that it is long of the snowe in the north parts which about the aestival solstice and returne of the sunne being dissolved and dilated breedeth vapors and of them be engendred clouds which being driven by the Etesian windes into Aethiopia and Aegypt toward the south cause great and violent raines wherewith both lakes and the river also Nilus be filled HERODOTUS the Historian writeth that this river hath as much water from his sources and springs in winter as in summer but to us it seemeth lesse in winter because the sunne being then neerer unto Aegypt causeth the said water to evaporate EPHORUS the Historiographer reporteth that all Aegypt doth resolve and runne at it were wholly into swet in summer time whereunto Arabia and Libya doe conferre and contribute also their waters for that the earth there is light and sandy EUDOXUS saith that the priests of Aegypt assigne the cause hereof to the great raines and the Antiperistasis or contrarie occurse of seasons for that when it is Summer with us who inhabit within the Zone toward the Summer Tropicke it is Winter with those who dwell in the opposit Zone under the Winter Tropicke whereupon saith he proceedeth this great inundation of waters breaking downe unto the river Nilus CHAP. II. Of the Soule THALES was the first that defined the Soule to be a nature moving alwaies or having motion of it selfe PYTHAGORAS saith it is a certeine number moving it selfe and this number he taketh for intelligence or understanding PLATO supposeth it to be an intellectuall substance mooving it selfe and that according to harmonicall number ARISTOTLE is of opinion that it is the first Entelechia or primitive act of a naturall and organicall bodie having life potentially DICEARCHUS thinketh it to be the harmonie and concordance of the foure elements ASCLEPIADES the Physician defineth it to be an exercise in common of all the senses together CHAP. III. Whether the Soule be a body and what is the substance of it ALl these Philsosophers before rehearsed suppose that the Soule is incorporall that of the owne nature it mooveth and is a spirituall substance and the action of a
those places where the aire toucheth them the bones of water and earth within and of these fower medled and contempered together sweat and teares proceed CHAP. XXIII When and how doth man begin to come to his perfection HERACLITUS and the STOICKS suppose that men doe enter into their perfection about the second septimane of their age at what time as their naturall seed doth moove and runne for even the very trees begin then to grow unto their perfection namely when as they begin to engender their 〈◊〉 for before then unperfect they are namely so long as they be unripe and fruitlesse and therefore a man likewise about that time is perfect and at this septenarie of yeeres he beginneth to conceive and understand what is good and evill yea and to learne the same Some thinke that a man is consummate at the end of the third septimane of yeeres what time as he maketh use of his full strength CHAP. XXIIII In what manner Sleepe is occasioned or death ALCMEON is of this mind that Sleepe is caused by the returne of blood into the confluent veines and Waking is the diffusion and spreading of the said blood abroad but Death the utter departure thereof EMPEDOCLES holdeth that Sleepe is occasioned by a moderate cooling of the naturall heat of blood within us and Death by an extreme coldnesse of the said blood DIOGENES is of opinion that if blood being diffused and spred throughout fill the veines and withall drive backe the aire setled 〈◊〉 into the breast and the interior belly under it then ensueth Sleepe and the breast with the precordiall parts are 〈◊〉 thereby but if that aereous substance in the 〈◊〉 exspire altogether and exhale forth presently 〈◊〉 Death PLATO and the 〈◊〉 affirme that the 〈◊〉 of Sleep is the 〈◊〉 of the spirit sensitive not by way of 〈◊〉 and to the earth 〈◊〉 by elevation aloft namely when it is carried to the 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 between the 〈◊〉 the very 〈◊〉 of reason but when there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 sensitive 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Death doth ensue CHAP. XXV Whether of the twaine it is that 〈◊〉 or dieth the Soule or the Bodie ARISTOTLE vorely 〈◊〉 that Sleepe is common to Bodie and Soule both and the cause thereof is a certaine humiditie which doth steeme and arise in manner of a vapour out of the stomack and the food therein up into the region of the head and the naturall heat about the heart cooled thereby But death he deemeth to be an entire and totall refrigeration and the same of the Bodie onely and in no wise of the Soule for it is immortall ANAXAGORAS saith that Sleepe belongeth to corporall action as being a passion of the Bodie and not of the Soule also that there is 〈◊〉 wife a certaine death of the Bodie to wit the separation of it and the Bodie 〈◊〉 LEUCIPPUS is of opinion that Sleepe pertaineth to the Bodie onely by concretion of that which was of subtile parts but the excessive excretion of the animall heat is Death which both saith he be passions of the Bodie and not of the Soule EMPEDOCLES saith that Death is a separation of those elements whereof mans Bodie is compounded according to which position Death is common to Soule and Bodie and Sleep a certaine dissipation of that which is of the nature of fire CHAP. XXVI How Plants come to grow and whether they be animate PLATO and EMPEDOCLES hold that Plants have life yea and be animall creatures which appeareth say they by this that they wag to and fro and stretch forth their boughs like armes also that when they be violently strained and bent they yeeld but if they be let loose they returne againe yea in their growth are able to overcome waight laid upon them ARISTOTLE granteth that they be living creatures but not animall for that animal creatures have motions and appetites are sensitive and endued with reason The STOICKS and the EPIGUREANS hold that they have no soule or life at all for of animallcreatures some have the appetitive concupsicible soule others the reasonable but Plants grow after a sort casually of their owne accord and not by the meanes of any soule EMPEDOCLES saith that Trees sprang and grew out of the ground before animall creatures to wit ere the Sunne desplaied his beames and before that day and night were distinct Also that according to the proportion of temperature one came to be named Male another Female that they 〈◊〉 up and grow by the power of heat within the earth in such sort as they be parts of the earth like as unborne fruits in the wombe be parts of the matrice As for the fruits of trees they are the superfluous excrements of water and fire but such as have defect of that humiditie when it is dried up by the heat of the Summer lose their leaves whereas they that have plentie thereof keepe their leaves on still as for example the Laurell Olive and Date tree Now as touching the difference of their juices and sapors it proceedeth from the diversitie of that which nourisheth them as appeareth in Vines for the difference of Vine trees maketh not the goodnesse of Vines for to be drunke but the nutriment that the territorie and soile doth affoord CHAP. XXVII Of 〈◊〉 and Growth EMPEDOCLES is of opinion that animall creatures are nourished by the substance of that which is proper and familiar unto them that they grow by the presence of naturall heat that they diminish 〈◊〉 and perish through the default both of the one and the other And as for men now a daies living in comparison of their auncestos they be but babes new borne CHAP. XXVIII How 〈◊〉 creatures came to have appetite and pleasure EMPEDOCLES supposeth that Lust and Appetites are incident to animall creatures through the defect of those elements which went unto the framing of ech one that pleasures arise from humiditie as for the motions of perils and such like as also troubles and hinderances c. **** CHAP. XXIX After what sort a Fever is engendred and whether it is an accessary to another malady ERASISTRATUS defineth a Fever thus A Fever quoth he is the motion of bloud which is entred into the veines or vessels proper unto the spirits to wit the arteries and that against the will of the patient for like as the sea when nothing troubleth it lieth still and quiet but if a boisterous and violent winde be up and bloweth upon it contrary unto nature it surgeth and riseth up into billowes even from the very bottom so in the body of man when the bloud is mooved it invadeth the vitall and spirituall vessels and being set on fire it enchafeth the whole body And according to the same physicians opinion a Fever is an accessary or consequent comming upon another disease But DIOCLES affirmeth that Symptones apparent without foorth doe shew that which lieth hidden within Now we see that an Ague followeth upon those accidents
capitulations and covenants of peace after mid-day Or rather this may be because it is not possible to set downe 〈◊〉 the beginning and end of the day by the rising and setting of the sunne for if we do as the vulgar sort who distinguish day and night by the sight and view of eie taking the day then to begin when the sunne ariseth and the night likewise to begin when the sunne is gone downe and hidden under our horizon we shall never have the just Acquinox that is to say the day and night equall for even that verie night which we shall esteeme most equall to the day will proove shorter than the day by as much as the body or bignesse of the sunne 〈◊〉 Againe if we doe as the Mathematicians who to remedie this absurditie and 〈◊〉 set downe the confines and limits of day and night at the verie instant point when the 〈◊〉 seemeth to touch the circle of the horizon with his center this were to overthrow all evidence for fall out it will that while there is a great part of the sunnes light yet under the earth although the sunne do shine upon us we will not confesse that it is day but say that it is night still Seeing then it is so hard a matter to make the beginning of day and night at the rising or going downe of the sunne for the absurdities abovesaid it remaineth that of necessitie we take the beginning of the day to be when the sunne is in the mids of the heaven above head or under our feet that is to say either noon-tide or mid-night But of twaine better it is to begin when he is in the middle point under us which is just midnight for that he 〈◊〉 then toward us into the East whereas contrariwise after mid-day he goeth from us Westward 85 What was the cause that in times past they would not suffer their wives either to grinde corne or to lay their hands to dresse meat in the kitchin WAs it in memoriall of that accord and league which they made with the Sabines for after that they had ravished carried away their daughters there arose sharpe warres betweene them but peace ensued thereupon in the end in the capitulations whereof this one article was expresly set downe that the Roman husband might not force his wife either to turne the querne for to grinde corne nor to exercise any point of cookerie 86 Why did not the Romans marie in the moneth of May IS it for that it commeth betweene Aprill and June whereof the one is consecrated unto Venus and the other to Juno who are both of them the goddesses which have the care and charge of wedding and marriages and therefore thinke it good either to go somewhat before or else to stay a while after Or it may be that in this moneth they celebrate the greatest expiatorie sacrifice of all others in the yeere for even at this day they fling from off the bridge into the river the images and pourtraitures of men whereas in old time they threw downe men themselves alive And this is the reason of the custome now a daies that the priestresse of Juno named Flamina should be alwaies sad and heavie as it were a mourner and never wash nor dresse and trim her selfe Or what and if we say it is because many of the Latine nations offered oblations unto the dead in this moneth and peradventure they do so because in this verie moneth they worship Mercurie and in truth it beareth the name of Maja Mercuries mother But may it not be rather for that as some do say this moneth taketh that name of Majores that isto say ancients like as June is termed so of Juniores that is to say yonkers Now this is certaine that youth is much meeter for to contract marriage than 〈◊〉 age like as Euripides saith verie well As for old age it Venus bids farewell And with old folke Venus is not pleasdwell The Romans therefore maried not in May but staied for June which immediately followeth after May. 87 What is the reason that they divide and part the haire of the new brides head with the point of a javelin IS not this a verie signe that the first wives whom the Romans espoused were compelled to mariage and conquered by force and armes Or are not theinwives hereby given to understand that they are espoused to husbands martiall men and soldiers and therefore they should lay away all delicate wanton and costly imbelishment of the bodie and acquaint themselves with simple and plaine attire like as Lycurgus for the same reason would that the dores windowes and roofes of houses should be framed with the saw and the axe onely without use of any other toole or instrument intending thereby to chase out of the common-weale all curiositie and wastfull superfluitie Or doth not this parting of the haires give covertly to understand a division and separation as if mariage the bond of wedlock were not to be broken but by the sword and warlike force Or may not this signifie thus much that they referred the most part of ceremonies concerning mariage unto Juno now it is plaine that the javelin is consecrated unto Juno insomuch as most part of her images and statues are portraied resting and leaning upon a launce or javelin And for this cause the goddesse is surnamed Quiritis for they called in old time a speare Quiris upon which occasion Mars also as they say is named Quiris 88 What is the reason that the monie emploied upon plaies and publike shewes is called among them Lucar MAy it not well be that there were many groves about the citie consecrated unto the gods which they named 〈◊〉 the revenues whereof they bestowed upon the setting forth of such solemnities 89 Why call they Quirinalia the Feast of fooles WHether is it because as Juba writeth they attribute this day unto those who knew not their owne linage and tribe or unto such as have not sacrificed as others have done according to their tribes at the feast called Fornacalia Were it that they were hindred by other affaires or had occasion to be forth of the citie or were altogether ignorant and therefore this day was assigned for them to performe the said feast 90 What is the cause that when they sacrifice unto Hercules they name no other God but him nor suffer a dog to be seene within the purprise and 〈◊〉 of the place where the sacrifice is celebrated according as Varro hath left in writing IS not this the reason of naming no god in their sacrifice for that they esteeme him but a demigod and some there be who hold that whiles he lived heere upon the earth Evander erected an altar unto him and offered sacrifice thereupon Now of all other beasts he could worst abide a dog and hated him most for this creature put him to more trouble all his life time than any other witnesse hereof the three headed dog Cerberus
a foule person is worthy to be loved because there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hope and expectance that one day he will become faire mary when he hath gotten this beawty once and is withall become good and honest then he is beloved of no man For love say they is a certaine hunting as it were after a yong body as yet rude and unperfect howbeit framed by nature unto vertue LAMPRIAS And what other thing do we now my good friend but refute the errors of their sect who do thus force pervert and destroy all our common conceptions with their actions which be senselesse and their words and termes as unusuall and strange For there was no person to hinder this love of wise men toward yong folke if affection were away although all men and women to both thinke and imagin love to be such a passion as the woers of Penelope in Homer seeme to acknowledge Whose heat of love was such that in their hart They wisht in bed to lie with her apart Like as Jupiter also said to Juno in another place of the said poet Come let us now to bed both goe and there with sweet delight Solace our selves for never earst before remember I That any love to women fatre no nor to Goddesse bright Thus tam'd my hart or prict me so with them to company DIADUMENUS Thus you see how they expell and drive morall philosophy into such matters as these So tntricate and tortuous So winding qutte throughout That nothing sound is therein found But all turnes round about And yet they deprave vilipend disgrace and flout all others as if they were the men alone who restored nature and custome into their integrety as it ought to be instituted their speech accordingly But nature of it selfe doth divert and induce by appetitions pursuits inclinations and impulsions ech thing to that which is proper and fit for it And as for the custome of Logicke being so wrangling and contentious as it is it receiveth no good at all nor profit like as the eare diseased by vaine sounds is filled with thickenesse and hardnesse of hearing Of which if you thinke so good we will begin anew and discourse else were another time but now for this present let us take in hand to run over their naturall philosophy which no lesse troubleth and confoundeth common anticipations and conceptions in the maine principles and most important points than their morall doctrine as touching the ends of all things First and formost this is apparently absurd and against all common sense to say that a thing is yet hath no being nor essence and the things which are not yet have a being which though it be most absurd they affirme even of the universall world for putting downe this supposition that there is round about the said world a certaine infinit voidnesse they affirme that the universall world is neither body nor bodilesse whereupon ensueth that the world is and yet hath no existence For they call bodies onely existent for as much as it is the property of a thing existent to doe and suffer somewhat And seeing this universall nature hath no existence therefore it shall neither doe nor suffer ought neither shall it be in any place for that which occupieth place is a bodie but that universall thing is not a body Moreover that which occupieth one and the same place is said to remaine and rest and therefore the said universall nature doth not remaine for that it occupieth no place and that which more is it mooveth not at all first because that which mooveth ought to be in a place and roome certaine Againe because whatsoever mooveth either mooveth it selfe or else is mooved by another now that which mooveth it selfe hath certeine inclinations either of lightnesse or ponderosity which ponderosity and lightnesse be either certeine habitudes or faculties powers or else differences of ech body but that universality is no body whereupon it must of necessity follow that the same is neither light nor heavy and so by good consequence hath in it no principle or beginning of motion neither shall it be mooved of another for without beyond it there is nothing so that they must be forced to say as they doe indeed that the said universall nature doth neither rest nor moove In sum for that according to their opinion we must not say in any case that it is a body and yet the heaven the earth the living creatures plants men and stones be bodies that which is no body it selfe shall by these reckonings have parts thereof which are bodies and that which is not ponderous shall have parts weightie and that which is not light shall have parts light which is as much against common sense and conceptions as dreames are not more considering that there is nothing so evident and agreeable to common sense than this distinction If any thing be not animate the same is inanimate and againe if a thing be not inanimate the same is animate And yet this manifest evidence they subvert and overthrow affirming thus as they do that this universal frame is neither animate nor inanimate Over and besides no man thinketh or imagineth that the same is unperfect considering that there is no part thereof wanting and yet they holde it to be unperfect For say they that which is perfect is finite and determinate but the whole and universall world for the infinitenesse thereof is indefinite So by their saying some thing there is that is neither perfect not unperfect Moreover neither is the said universall frame a part because there is nothing greater than it nor yet the whole for that which is whole must be affirmed like wise to be digested and in order whereas being as it is infinite it is indeterminate and out of order Furthermore The other is not the cause of the universall world for that there is no other beside it neither is it the cause of The other nor of it selfe for that it is not made to do any thing and we take a cause to be that which worketh an effect Now set case we should demand of all the men in the world what they imagine NOTHING to be and what conceit they have of it would they not say thinke you that it is that which is neither a cause it selfe nor hath any cause of it which is neither a part nor yet the whole neither perfect nor unperfect neither having a soule nor yet without a soule neither moving nor stil quiet nor subsisting and neither body nor without body For what is all this but Nothing yet what all others do affirme and verifie of Nothing the same doe they alone of the universall world so that it seemeth they make All and Nothing both one Thus they must be driven to say that Time is nothing neither Praedicable nor Proposition nor Connexion nor Composition which be termes of Logicke that they use no Philosophers so much and yet they say that they have no existence nor being
together standing upward and if one should come and digge through the place beyond that part of him which was above shall in the digging be drawen downeward and that which was beneath be cast upward both at once and if there may be imagined another to goe cleane contrary unto him their feet which were opposite one unto the other should neverthelesse be said and be indeed both together beneath and above Thus they both carrying upon their backs and also drawing after them not I assure you a box or little budget but a fardle and packe I sweare unto you of judglers boxes full of so many and so grosse paradoxes and absurdities wherewith they play passe and repasse yet the say for all this that others erre who place the Moone which they holde to be earth above and not where the midst and centre of the world is And yet if every ponderous body incline to the same place and bendeth from all sides and on every part to the midst thereof certainly the earth shall not appropriate and chalenge unto it selfe waightie masses as parts thereof because it is the middle of the world more than in regard it is whole and entire and the gathering together of heavie bodies about it shall be no signe nor argument to shew that it is the middle of the world but rather to proove and testifie that these bodies which have beene taken and pulled from it and returne againe have a communication and conformitie in nature with the earth For like as the Sunne converteth into it selfe the parts whereof it is composed even so the earth receiveth and beareth a stone as a part appertaining unto it in such sort as in time every one of these things is concorporate and united with it And if it chance that there be some other body which from the begginning was not allotted and laid unto the earth nor plucked from it but had a part from it a proper consistence and peculiar nature of the owne as they may say the Moone had what should let but it may abide severally by it selfe compacted and bound close together in all the proper parts thereof For heereby is not shewed demonstratively that the earth is the midst of the whole world and the conglobation of waighty bodies heere and their concretion which the earth declareth unto us the maner how it is probable that the parts the which be their gathered to the bodie of the Moone may there also remaine But he who driveth all earthly and ponderous things into one place ranging them altogether and making them the parts of one and the same bodie I marvell why he attributeth not in like maner the same force and constraint unto light substances but suffereth so many conglobations of fire to be apart and distinct asunder neither can I see the reason why he should not bring all the starres into one and thinke that there ought to be one entire body of all those substances that flie upward and are of firie nature But you Mathematicians friend Pollonides 〈◊〉 that the Sunne is distant from the Primum Mobile and highest scope of heaven infinite thousands of miles and after him that the day starre Venus and Mercury with the other Planets which being situate under the fixed starres and distant one from another by great intervals and spaces betweene doe make their severall revolutions meane while you doe not thinke that the world affordeth unto heavy and terrestriall bodies a great and large place in it and a distance one from another But see what a ridiculous thing it were to denie the Moone to be earth because it is not seated in the lowest place of the world and withall to affirme it to be a star so farre remote from the firmament and Primum Mobile even a huge number of Stadia as if it were plunged low into some deepe gulfe for so farre under other starres she is as no man can expresse and even you Mathematicians want numbers to reckon and summe the distance and she seemeth after a sort to touch the very earth making her revolution as she doth so nere unto the tops of high mountaines leaving behinde her as Empedocles saith the very prints and tracts of her chariot wheeles upon them for often times she surpasseth not the shadow of the earth which is very short and reacheth not high by reason of the excessive greatnesse of the Sunne that shineth upon it and she seemeth to walke her stations so neere unto the upper face of the earth and in a maner within the armes of it that she obstructeth and hideth from us the light of the Sunne because she mounteth not above this shadowy terrestriall and darke region like unto the night which is as one would say the very finage and marches allotted to the earth And therefore a man may be bolde to say that the Moone is within the limits and confines of the earth seeing withall that darkened and shadowed it is by the high crests and tops of mountaines therein But to leave all other starres aswell fixed as wandering consider the demonstrations of Aristarchus in his treatise of Magnitudes and Distances that the distance of the Sunne from us is more than that of the Moone above eighteene folde but under twentie and he verily who raiseth the Moone highest saith that she is from us six and fiftie times as farre as is the centre of the earth the distance whereof is fortie thousand stadia By their calculation who keepe a meane and according to this supputation the Sunne ought to be distant from the Moone more than foure thousand and thirty stadia ten thousand times tolde so farre I say is she off from the Sunne in regard of her ponderosity and so neere approcheth she unto the earth so that if by places we ought to distinguish of substances the region and portion of the earth challengeth the Moone and in regard of her proximity and vicinage unto it she ought by right to be reckoned and enrolled among the natures affaires and bodies terrestriall Neither shall we do amisse in my conceit if having given unto these bodies that are said to be aloft so large a space and distance we allow also to those beneath such a race and spacious routne to runne in as is from the earth to the Moone for as he is not moderate nor tolerable who calleth the upper superficies onely and cope of the heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say aloft or superiour and all the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say beneath so he who termeth the earth or rather the center of it onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say below or inferiour is not to be endured considering that the huge vastity of the world may affoord even in this region beneath such a competent space as is meet and convenient for motion For if one would mainteine that all above the earth is immediately to be counted high and aloft another presently will come
upon him with this contradiction and say that he may aswel hold that whatsoever is beneath the Primum mobile or starrie firmament ought to be called Below In summe how is the earth called The middle and whereof is it the middle for the universall frame of the world called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is infinit and this infinit which hath neither head nor foot how can it in reason have a navill for even that which we call the mids of any thing is a kinde of limitation whereas infinitie is a meere privation of all limits and bounds As for him who saith it is not in the mids of that universalitie but of the world he is a pleasant man if he thinke not withall that the world it selfe is subject to the same doubts and difficulties for the said universall frame leaveth not unto the very world a middle but is without a certeine seat without assured footing mooving in a voidnesse infinite not into some one place proper unto it and if haply it should meet with some any other cause of stay and so abide stil the same is not according to the nature of the place And as much may we conjecture of the Moone that by the meanes of some other soule or nature or rather of some difference the earth 〈◊〉 firme beneeath and the Moone mooveth Furthermore you see how they are not ignorant of a great errour and inconvenience for if it be true that whatsoever is without the centre of the earth it skils not how is to be counted Above and Aloft then is there no part of the world to be reckoned Below or Beneath but aswell the earth it selfe as al that is upon it shal be above aloft and to be short every bodie neere or about the centre must go among those things that are aloft neither must we reckon any thing to be under or beneath but one pricke or point which hath no bodie and the same forsooth must make head and stand in opposition necessarily against all the whole nature besides of the world in case according to the course of nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say above and beneath be opposite And not onely this absurdity will follow but also all heavie and ponderous bodies must needs lose the cause for which they bend and incline hither for bodie there will be none toward which it should move and as for this pricke or centre that hath no bodie there is no likelihood neither would they themselves have it so that it should be so puissant and forcible as to draw to it and reteine about it all things And if it be found unreasonable and repugnant to the course of nature that the world should be all above and nothing beneath but a terme or limit and the same without body without space and distance then this that we say is yet more reasonable namely that the region beneath and that above being parted distinctly one from another have neverthelesse ech of them a large and spacious roume to round themselves in But suppose if it please you it were against nature that terrestriall bodies should have any motion in heaven let us consider gently and in good termes not after a tragicall maner but mildly This prooveth not by-and-by that the Moone is not earth but rather that earth is in some place where naturally it should not be for the fire of the mountaine Aetna is verily under the ground against the nature of it howbeit the same ceaseth not therefore to be fire The winde conteined within leather bottles is of the owne nature light and given to mount upward but by force it commeth to be there where naturally it ought not to be Our very soule it selfe I beseech you in the name of Jupiter is it not against nature deteined within the body being light in that which is heavie being of a firie substance in that which is colde as yee your 〈◊〉 and being invisible in that which is grosse and palpable do we therefore denie that the soule is within the bodie that it is a divine substance under a grosse and heavie masse that in a moment it passeth thorowout heaven earth and sea that it pierceth and entreth within flesh nerves and marrow and finally is the cause together with the humors of infinit passions And even this Jupiter of yours such as you imagine and depaint him to be is he not of his owne nature a mighty and perpetuall fire howbeit now he submitteth himselfe and is pliable subject he is to all formes and apt to admit divers mutations Take heed therefore and be well advised good sir lest that in transferring and reducing every thing to their naturall place you doe not so philosophize as that you will bring in a dissolution of all the world and set on foot againe that olde quarrell and contention among all things which Empedocles writeth of or to speake more to the purpose beware you raise not those ancient Titans and Giants to put on armes against nature and so consequently endevour to receive and see againe that fabulous disorder and confusion whereby all that is weightie goeth one way and whatsoever is light another way apart Where neither light some countenance of Sunne nor earth all greene With herbs and plants admired is nor surging sea is seene according as Empedocles hath written wherein the earth feeleth no heat nor the water any winde wherein there is no ponderosity above nor lightnesse beneath but the principles and elements of all things be by themselves solitary without any mutuall love or dilection betweene them not admitting any society or mixture together but avoiding and turning away one from the other mooving apart by particular motions as being disdainfull proud and carying themselves in such sort as all things do where no god is as Plato saith that is as those bodies are affected wherein there is no understanding nor soule untill such time as by some divine providence there come into nature a desire and so amity Venus and Love be there engendred according to the sayings of Empedocles Parmenides and Hesiodus to the end that changing their naturall places and communicating reciprocally their gifts and faculties some driven by necessity to moove other bound to rest they be all forced to a better state remitting somewhat of their 〈◊〉 and yeelding one to another they grew at length unto accord harmony and societie For if there had not beene any other part of the world against nature but that ech one had bene both in place and for quality as it ought naturally to be without any need of change or transposition so that there had beene nothing at the first wanting I greatly doubt what and wherein was the worke of divine providence or whereupon it is that Jupiter was the father creator and maker For in a campe or field there would be no need of a man who is expert and skilfull in ranging and ordering of battell
in case every souldier of himselfe knew his ranke his place his time and opportunity which he ought to take keepe and observe Neither would there be any use of gardiners carpenters or masons if water were of it selfe taught naturally to go where as it is needfull and to runne and overflow a place which requireth watering and if bricks timber-logs and stones by their owne inclinations and naturall motions were to range and couch themselves orderly in their due places Now if this reason and argument of theirs doth directly abolish all providence if order belong unto God together with the distinction of all things in the world why should any man wonder that nature hath beene so disposed and ordeined by him as that fire should be here and the starres there and againe that the earth should be seated here below the Moone placed there above lodged in a more sure strong prison devised by reason than that which was first ordeined by nature For were it so that absolutely and of necessitie all things should follow their naturall instinct and move according to that motion which naturally is given them neither would the Sunne runne his course any more circularly nor Venus nor any other planet whatsoever for that such light substances and standing much upon fire mount directly upward Now if it be so that nature reciveth such an alteration and change in regard of the place as that our fire here being moved and stirred riseth plumbe upward but after it is gotten once up to heaven together with the revolution thereof turneth round what marvell is it if semblably heavie and terrestriall bodies being out of their naturall places be forced overcome by the circumstant aire to take unto another kind of motion For it can not be said with any reason that heaven hath this power to take from light substances the propertie to mount aloft and can not likewise have the puissance to vanquish heavie things such as naturally move downward but one while it maketh use of that power of her owne another while of the proper nature of things alwaies tending to the better But to let passe these habitudes and opinions whereto we are servilly addicted and to speake frankly and without feare what our minde is I am verily perswaded that there is no part of the universall world that hath by itselfe any peculiar order seat or motion which a man simply may say to be naturall unto it but when ech part exhibiteth and yeeldeth profitably that wherefore it is made and whereto it is appointed moving it selfe doing or suffering or being disposed as it is meet and expedient for it either for safetie beautie or puissance then seemeth it to have place motion and disposition proper and convenient to the owne nature For man who is disposed if any thing els in the whole world according to nature hath in the upper parts of the bodie and especially about his head those things that be ponderous and earthly but in the mids thereof such as be hote and of a firy nature his teeth some grow above others beneath and yet neither the one range of them nor the other is against nature Neither is that fire which shineth above in his eies according to nature and that which is in the bellie and heart contrary to nature but in ech place is it properly seated and commodiously Now if you consider the nature of shell-fishes you shall finde that as Empedocles saith The 〈◊〉 murets of the sea and shell-fish everyone With massie coat the tortoise eke with crust as hard as stone And vaulted backe which archwise he aloft doth hollow reare Shew all that heavie earth they do above their bodies beare And yet this hard coat and heavie crust like unto a stone being placed over their bodies doth not presse or crush them neither doth their naturall heat in regard of lightnesse slie up and vanish away but mingled and composed they are one with the other according to the nature of every one And even so it standeth to good reason that the world in case it be animall hath in many places of the body thereof earth and in as many fire and water not driven thither perforce but so placed disposed by reason for the eie was not by the strength of lightnesse forced to that part of the body wherein it is neither was the hart depressed downe by the weight that it had into the brest but because it was better and more expedient for the one and the other to be seated where they are Semblably we ought not to thinke that of the parts of the world either the earth setled where it is because it fell downe thither by reason of ponderositie or the Sunne in regard of lightnesse was caried upward like unto a bottle bladder full of winde which being in the bottome of the water presently riseth up as Metrodorus of Chios was perswaded or other stars as if they were put in a ballance inclined this way or that as their weight more or lesse required and so mounted higher or lower to those places where now they are seated but rather by the powerfull direction of reason in the first constitution of the world some of the starres like unto bright and glittering eies have beene set fast in the firmament as one would say aloft in the very forhead thereof and the Sunne representing the power and vigor of the heart sendeth and distributeth in maner of bloud and spirits his heat and light thorowout all The earth and sea are to the world proportionable to the paunch and bladder in the body of a living creature the moone situate betweene the Sunne and the earth as betweene the heart and the bellie resembling the liver or some such soft bowell transmitteth into the inferiour parts here beneath the heat of those superior bodies and draweth to herselfe those vapors that arise from hence and those doth she 〈◊〉 refine by way of concoction and purification and so send and distribute them round about her Now whether that solid and terrestriall portion in it hath some other propertie serving for a profitable use or no it is unknowen to us but surely it is evermore the best and surest way in all things to go by that which is necessarie for what probabilitie or likelihood can we draw from that which they deliver They affirme that of the aire the most subtile and lightsome part by reason of the raritie thereof became heaven but that which was thickened and closely driven together went to the making of starres of which the Moone being the heaviest of all the rest was concret and compact of the most grosse and muddy matter thereof and yet a man may perceive how she is not separate nor divided from the aire but mooveth and performeth her revolution through that which is about her even the region of the winds and where comets or blasing starres be engendered and hold on their course Thus these bodies have not
beene by their naturall inclinations according as ech of them is light or heavie placed and situate as they be but surely by some other reason they have beene so ranged and ordeined After these words were said when I would have given unto Lucius his turne to speake and to hold on this discourse there being nothing at all behinde left but the demonstrations of this doctrine Aristotle began to smile I am a witnesse quoth he that you have directed al these your contradictions and refutations against those who hold that the Moone is it selfe halfe fire and who affirme that all bodies of their owne accord tend either upward or downward directly But whether there be any one who saith that the Starres of their owne nature have a circular motion that in substance they be far different from the foure elements that came not ever so much as by chance and fortune into your remembrance and therefore I count my selfe exempt from all trouble and molestation in that behalfe Why good sir quoth Luctus if yee should haply suppose and set downe that the other starres and the whole heaven besides were of a pure and syncere nature voide of all change and mutation in regard of passion as also bring in a certeine circle in which they performed their motions by a perpetuall revolution you should not finde any one at this time to gaine-say you notwithstanding there were in this position doubts and difficulties innumerable But when your speech is descended so low as to touch the Moone then can it not mainteine in her that impassibility and the celestiall beautie of that body But to leave all other inequalities and differences therein certes that very face which appeareth in the body of the Moone commeth necessarily from some passion of her owne substance or else by the mixture of some other for that which is mingled in some sort alwaies suffereth because it looseth that former puritie being perforce overcast and filled with that which is woorse As for that dull and slow course of hers that weake and feeble heat whereby as the Poet Jon saith The grapes their kinde concoction lacke And on the vine tree turne not blacke unto what shall we attribute the same if not to her imbecilitie in case an eternall and heavenly body can be subject unto any such passion In summe my good friend Aristotle if the Moone be earth surely a most faire and beautifull thing it seemeth to be and full of great maiestie if a starre or light or some divine and celestiall body I am affraid least she proove deformed and foule yea and disgrace that beautifull name of hers in case of all those bodies in heaven which are in number so many she onely remaineth to have need of the light of another Casting behinde her eie alwaies Upon the Sunne and his bright raies according as Parmentdes writeth And verily our familiar friend having in a lecture of his prooved by demonstration this proposition of Anaxagoras that all the light which the Moone hath the Sunne giveth unto her was commended and well reputed for it For mine owne part I am not minded to say what I have learned either of you or with you but taking this for a thing granted and confessed I will proceed forward to the rest behinde Probable therefore it is that the Moone is illuminate not in maner of a glasse or crystall stone by the bright irradiation and shining beames of the Sunne striking through her neither yet by a certaine collustration and mutuall conjunction of lights as torches which being set a burning together do augment the light for so it would be no lesse ful moone in the conjunction or first quarter than in the opposition in case she did not conteine and keepe in nor repell the raies of the sunne but suffer them to passe through her by reason of her raritie and frugositie or if by a contempeture she shineth and kindleth as it were the light about her for we cannot alledge her oblique and biase declination or her aversions and turnings away before and after the conjunction or change as when it is halfe Moone tipped croisant or in the wane but being directly and plumbe under the bodie that illuminateth it as Democritus saith it receiveth and admitteth the Sunne in such sort as by all likelihood she should then appeare and he shine through her But so farre is she from so doing that both herselfe at such a time is unseene and many times hideth the Sunne and keepeth off his beames from us for according to Empedocles His raies aloft she turneth cleane aside That to the earth beneath they cannot wend The earth it selfe she doth obscure and hide So farre as she in compasse doth extend As if this light of the Sunne fell upon night and darknesse and not upon another starre And whereas Posadonius saith that in regard of the thicknes depth of the Moones body the light of the Sun can not through her pierce as far as unto us this is manifestly convinced as untrue For the aire as infinite as it is and deeper by many degrees than the Moone is neverthelesse illuminated and lightned all over and thoughout by the Sunne It remaineth therefore that according to the opinion of Empedocles the Moone-light which appeareth unto us commeth by the reflexion and repercussion of the Sunne-beames And heereupon it is that the same is not with us hot and bright as of necessitie it would be if it did proceed either from the inflammation or commixtion of two lights But like as the refraction or reverberation of a voice doth cause an eccho or resonance more obscure than is the voice it selfe as it was pronounced and as the raps that shot rebounding backe againe doeth give are more milde and soft Even so the Sunne beames when they beat Upon the Moone in compasse great yeeld a weake and feeble reflexion or refluxion as one would say of light the force thereof being much abated resolved by the refraction reflexion Then Sylla Certes great probalitie this carieth with it that you have delivered But the most forcible objection that is made against this position how thinke you is it any waies mitigated and mollified or hath our friend heere passed it over quite with silence Whereby speake you this quoth Lucius what opposition meane you or is it the doubt or difficulty about the Moone when she appeareth the one halfe Even the very same quoth Sylla for there is some reason considering that all reflexion is made by equall angles that when the halfe Moone is in the middes of heaven the light should not be caried from her upon the earth but glaunce and fall beyond the earth for the Sunne being upon the Horizon toucheth with his raies the Moone and therefore being reflected and broken aequally they must light upon the opposite bound of the Horizon and so not send the light hither or else there shall ensue a great distortion and difference of the
another when they be parted and asunder and they embrace one the other in the darke many times Moreover that this Core or Proserpina is one while above in heaven and in the light another while in darkenesse and the night is not untrue onely there is some error in reckoning and numbring the time For we see her not six moneths but every sixth moneth or from six moneths to six moneths under the earth as under her mother caught with the shadow and seldome is it found that this should happen within five moneths for that it is impossible that she should abandon and leave Pluto being his wife according as Homer hath signified although under darke and covert wordes not untruely saying But to the farthest borders of the earth and utmost end Even to the faire Elysian fields the gods then shall thee send For looke where the shadow endeth and goeth no farther that is called the limit and end of the earth and thither no wicked and impure person shall ever be able to come But good folke after their death in the world being thither carried lead there another easie life in peace and repose howbeit not altogether a blessed happie and divine life untill they die a second death but what death this is aske me not my Sylla for I purpose of my selfe to declare shew it unto you hereafter The vulgar sort be of opinion that man is a subject compounded and good reason they have so to thinke but in beleeving that he consisteth of two parts onely they are deceived for they imagine that the understanding is in some sort a part of the soule but the understanding is better than the soule by how much the soule is better and more divine than the bodie Now the conjunction or composition of the soule with understanding maketh reason but with the bodie passion whereof this is the beginning and principle of pleasure and paine the other of vertue and vice Of these three conjoined and compact in one the earth yeeldeth for her part the body the Moone the soule and the Sunne understanding to the generation or creation of man and understanding giveth reason unto the soule **** even as the Sunne light and brightnesse to the Moone As touching the deathes which we die the one maketh man of 3. two and the other of 2. one And the former verily is in the region and jurisdiction of Ceres which is the cause that we sacrifice unto her Thus it commeth to passe that the Athenians called in olde time those that were departed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Cereales As for the other death it is in the Moone or region of Proserpina And as with the one terrestriall Mercury so with the other celestiall Mercurie doth inhabit And verily Ceres dissolveth and seperateth the soule from the bodie sodainly and forcibly with violence but Proserpina parteth the understanding from the soule gently and in long time And heereupon it is that the is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one would say begetting one for that the better part in a man becommeth one and alone when by her it is separated and both the one and the other hapneth according to nature Every soule without understanding as also endued with understanding when it is departed out of the body is ordeined by fatall destiny to wander for a time but not both alike in a middle region betweene the earth and the Moone For such soules as have beene unjust wicked and dissolute suffer due punishment and paines for their sinfull deserts whereas the good and honest untill such time as they have purified and by expiration purged foorth of them all those infections which might be contracted by the contagion of the body as the cause of all evill must remaine for a certeine set time in the mildest region of the aire which they call the meddowes of Pluto Afterwards as if they were returned from some long pilgrimage or wandring exile into their owne countrey they have a taste of joy such as they fecie especially who are professed in holy mysteries mixed with trouble and admiration and ech one with their proper and peculiar hope for it driveth and chaseth foorth many soules which longed already after the Moone Some take pleasure to be still beneath and even yet looke downward as it were to the bottome but such as be mounted aloft and are there most surely bestowed first as victorious stand round about adorned with garlands and those made of the wings of Eustathia that is to saie Constancie because in their life time here upon earth they had bridled and restreined the unreasonable and passible part of the soule and made it subject and obedient to the bridle of reason Secondly they resemble in sight the raies of the Sunne Thirdly the soule thus ascended on high is there confirmed and fortified by the pure aire about the Moone where it doth gather strength and solidity like as iron and steele by their tincture become hard For that which hitherto was loose rare and spongeous groweth close compact and firme yea and becommeth shining and transparent in such sort as nourished it is with the least exhalation in the world This is that Heracletus meant when he said that the soules in Plutoes region have a quicke sent or smelling And first they behold there the greatnesse of the Moone her beauty and nature which is not simple nor void of mixture but as it were a composition of a starre and of earth And as earth mingled with a spirituall aire and moisture becommeth soft and the blood tempered with flesh giveth it sense even so say they the Moone mingled with a celestiall quintessence even to the very bottome of it is made animate fruitfull and generative and withall equally counterpeised with ponderosity and lightnesse For the whole world it selfe being thus composed of things which naturally moove downward and upward is altogether void of motion locall from place to place which it seemth that Xenocrates himselfe by a divine discourse of reason understood taking the first light thereof from Plato For Plato was he who first affirmed that every starre was compounded of fire and earth by the meanes of middle natures given in certeine proportion in as much as there is nothing object to the sense of man which hath not in some proportion a mixture of earth and light And Xenocrates said that the Sunne is compounded of fire and the first or primitive solid the Moone of a second solid and her proper aire in summe throughout neither solid alone by it selfe nor the rare apart is capable and susceptible of a soule Thus much as touching the substance of the Moone As for the grandence bignesse thereof it is not such as the Geometricians set downe but farre greater by many degrees And seldome doth it measure the shadow of the earth by her greatnesse not for that the same is small but for that it bringeth a most servent and swift motion to the end
that quickly and with speed she might passe the darke place and bring away with her the soules of the blessed which make haste and crie because all the while they are within the shade they can not heare any more the 〈◊〉 of celestiall bodies and withall underneath the soules of the damned which are punished lamenting wailing and howling in this shadow are presented unto them And this is the reason that in the eclipses of the Moone many were wont to ring basons and 〈◊〉 of brasse and to make a great noise and clattering about these soules And affrighted they are to beholde that which they call the face of the Moone when they approch neere unto it seeming to be a terrible and fearefull sight whereas it is no such matter But like as the earth with us hath many deepe and wide gulfes as namely one here to wit the Mediterranean sea lying betweene Hercules pillars and so running into the land hither to us and another without that is to say the Caspian sea and that also of the red sea So there be these deepe concavities and vallies of the Moone and those in number three whereof the greatest they call The hole or gulfe of 〈◊〉 wherein the soules do punish and are punished according as they either did or suffred hurt whiles they were here the other two be small to wit the very passages whereby the soules must go one while to the tract of the Moone lying toward heaven and another while to that which 〈◊〉 the earth And verily that which looketh to heaven they call the Elysian field whereas the other earth-ward to us the field of Proserpina not her I meane who is under the ground just against us Howbeit the Daemons do not converse alwaies in the Moone but descend other-whiles hither below for the charge and superintendance of oracles there be assistant likewise to the highest mysteries and ceremonies and those they do celebrate having an observant eie to wicked deeds which they punish and withall ready they are to preserve the good in perils 〈◊〉 of warre as the sea In which charge and function if they themselves commit any fault and heere upon earth do ought either by injust favour or envie they feele the smart thereof according to their merits for thrust downe they are againe to the earth and sent with a witnesse into mens bodies But of the number of the better sort are they who served and accompanied Saturne as they themselves report such as in times past also were the Idaei Dactyli in Crete the Corybants in Phrygia those of 〈◊〉 in the city of Lebadia named Trophoniades besides an infinit number of others in sundry parts of the earth habitable whose names temples and honors remaine continue unto this day but the powers puissances of some do faile and are quite gone as being translated into another place making a most happy change which translation some obteine sooner other later after that the understanding is separate from the soule and separated it is by the love and desire to enjoy the image of the Sunne by which that divine blessed and desirable beautie which every nature after divers sorts seeketh after shineth For even the verie Moone turneth about continually for the love of the Sunne as longing to companie and converse with him as the very fountaine of all fertilitie Thus the nature of the soule is spent in the Moone reteining onely certeine prints marks and dreames as it were of her life and hereof thinke it was well and truely said The soule made haste as one would say Like to a dreame and flew away which it doth not immediatly upon her separation from the bodie but afterwards when she is alone by herselfe and severed from the understanding And in trueth of all that ever Homer wrote most divinely he seemeth to have written of those who are departed this life be among the spirits beneath these verses Next him I knew of Hercules the strength and image plaine Or semblance for himselfe with gods immortall did remaine For like as every one of us is not ireand courage nor feare nor yet lust no more than flesh or humours but that indeed whereby we discourse and understand even so the soule it selfe being cast into a forme by the understanding and giving a forme unto the bodie and embracing it on every side expresseth and receiveth a certeine impression and figure so as albeit she is distinctly separate both from understanding and also from the bodie she reteineth still the forme and semblance a long time insomuch as well she may be called an image And of these soules as I have already said the Moone is the element because soules doe resolve into her like as the bodies of the dead into the earth As for such as have bene vertuous and honest and which loved a studious and quiet life imploied in philosophie without medling in troublesome affaires soone are resolved for that being left and rid of understanding and using no more corporall passions they vanish away incontinently but the soules of ambitious persons and such as are busied in negotiations of amorous folke also given to the love of beautifull bodies and likewise of wrathfull people calling still to remembrance those things which they did in their life even as dreames in their sleepe walke wandring to and fro like to that ghost of Endymion for considering their inconstancie and aptnesse to be over subject unto passions the same transporteth and plucketh them from the Moone unto another generation not suffering them quietly there to passe and vanish away but stil allureth and calleth them away for now is there nothing small staied quiet constant and accordant after that being once abandoned of the understanding they come to be seized with the passions of the body so that of such soules void of reason came and were bred afterwards the Tityi and Typhons and namely that Typhon who in times past by force and violence seized the city Delphos and overturned up-side-downe the sanctuarie of the oracle there most ungracious imps destitute of all reason and understanding and abandoned to all passions upon a proud spirit and violence wherewith they were pusfed up Howbeit at length after long time the Moone receiveth the soules and composeth them the Sunne also inspiring into them againe and sowing in their vitall facultie understanding maketh them new soules yea and the earth in the third place giveth them a new bodie for nothing doth she give after death of all that which she taketh to generation And the sunne receiveth nothing of others but taketh againe that understanding which he gave But the Moone giveth and receiveth joineth and disjoineth uniteth and separateth according to her divers faculties and powers of which the one is named Ilithyia to wit that which joineth another Artonius or Diana which parteth and diuideth Of the three fatall sisters or destinies she whom they name Atropos is placed within the Sunne and giveth the
prince right good and gracious A knight withall most valourous and making this account that the praise which another had given to king Agamemnon before time stood for a law unto himselfe insomuch as he would say that Homer in that one 〈◊〉 recommended the vertue of Agamemnon and prophesied the prowesse of Alexander And therefore so often as he passed over the Streight of Helle spont his maner was to goe and 〈◊〉 Troy where he represented unto his owne minde the woorthy feats of armes which those brave princes and noble worthies performed who fought there And when one of that countrey promised to bestow upon him in free gift if he would accept it the harpe of Paris I have no need quoth he of it for I haue already that of Achilles to the sound whereof he was woont for his recreation The praises for to sing and chant Of dowtie knights and valiant whereas this here of Paris warbled a wanton and feminine harmony to which he used to sing sonnets and balads of Love Now most certeine it is that to love wisdome and to have in esteeme sages and learned persons is an infallible signe of a philosophicall spirit And this was in Alexander if ever in any other prince for what kindnesse and affection he caried to his tutour and master Aristotle also that hee did as great honour unto Anaxarchus the skilfull Musician as to no favourite and familiar friend the like I have alreadie shewed elsewhere The first time that ever Pyrrho the Elian talked and conferred with him hee gave unto the man tenne thousand pieces of golde unto Xenocrates one of Platoes disciples he sent a present of fiftie talents And as most historiographers doe report he made Onesicritus one of Diogenes his scholars his admirall at sea And himselfe meeting upon a time with Diogenes at Corinth where he communed with him he so woondered at his maner of life and had his gravitie in such admiration that many a time after in speaking of him he would say Were I not Alexander I would be Diogenes which was as much to say as thus I could willingly employ my whole life and spend my time at my booke and in contemplation but that I am determined to be a Philosopher in deed and action He said not If I were not a king I could finde in mine heart to be Diogenes nor If I were not rich and one that loved to go gay and in sumptuous robes c. For he never in his life preferred fortune before wisdome nor the purple mantle of estate or the roiall diademe before a scrip and a poore threedbare Philosophers cloake but simply this was his saying Were I not Alexander I would be Diogenes that is to say Had I not proposed to my selfe to joine together in mutuall societie Barbarous nations with the Greeks and by travelling in voiage thorow the earth to polish and make civill what savage people soever I find searching from one end of the world to another and visiting all the coasts of the sea to joine Macedonie unto the Ocean to sow as it were Greece in all parts and to spread thorowout all nations peace and justice yet would I not sit still idle in delights and take my pleasure but imitate the simplicity and frugality of Diogenes But now pardon me I pray thee ô Diogenes I follow Hercules I take the way of Perseus I tread the trace of god Bacchus my stocke-father and author of my race and progeny I would gladly that the Greeks might once more dance with victory among the Indians and reduce into the memory and remembrance of those mountainers and savage nations who dwell beyond the mountaine Caucasus the joily feasts and meriments of the Bacchanales And even there by report there be those who follow a certeine strict austere and naked profession of wisdome called thereupon Gymnosophists holy men living according to their owne lawes devoted altogether to a contemplative service of God making lesse account of this life than Diogenes doth and living more barely as having no need at all of bagge and wallet for no provision make they of victuals because the earth furnisheth them alwaies with that which is new and fresh to their hand the rivers affoord them drinke the leaves falling from trees and the greene grasse of the earth together serve for their beds by my meanes shal they know Diogenes and Diogenes them I must also alter the stampe of the coine and in stead of a Barbarian marke signe it after the Greeke maner and according to their common wealth Well thus much of his words and sayings come we now to his deeds And doe they seeme to cary before them the blinde rashnesse and temerity of Fortune and bare force of armes and violences of the hand or rather of the one side great prowesse and justice on the other side much clemency and lenity together with good order and rare prudence of one managing all things by sober discreet and considerate judgement Certes I am not able to say and discerne in all his acts thus much as to pronounce That this was a deed of valour that of humanity and another of patience or continence but every exploit of his seemeth to have beene mingled and compounded of all vertues in one to confirme the famous sentence and opinion of the Stoicks That every act a wise man doth effect by all vertues jointly together True it is indeed that in ech action there is one vertue or other eminent and predominant alwaies above others but the same inciteth and directeth the rest to the same end and even so we may see in the acts of Alexander That as his martiall valour is humane so his humanitie is valourous his bounty is thrifty his liberality frugall his choler soone appeased his heat quickly cold his loves temperate his pastimes not idle and his travels not without their solace and recreation who evermore tempered feasts with warre military expeditions with games masks and sports who interlaced among his sieges of cities warlike exploits and executions festivall Bacchanales and nuptiall songs of Hymenaeus Who was there ever greater enemy to those that doe wrong or more mercifull and gracious to the afflicted Who ever caried himselfe more heavie to stiffe-necked and obstinate persons and more friendly againe to humble suppliants And heere in this place it comes into my minde for to alledge and cite the saying of king Porus who being brought prisoner before king Alexander and demanded by him in what maner he wished that he should use him Roially quoth he ô Alexander And when Alexander replied againe and asked what he had els to say Nothing quoth Porus for in that one word Roially is comprised all And even so me thinks that in all the actions of Alexander a man may use this for a reffrein or faburden All Philosophically For this in deed conteineth all He was enamoured of Roxane the daughter of Oxiathres by occasion that he saw her to dance with a
of the soule which is subject to passions For sweet odors as they doe many times excite and stirre up the sense when it is dull and beginneth to faile so contrariwise they make the same as often drowsie and heavy yea and bring it to quietnesse whiles those aromaticall smels by reason of their smoothnesse are spred and defused in the bodie According as some Physicians say that sleepe is engendred in us when the vapour of the food which we have received creepeth gently along the noble parts and principall bowels and as it toucheth them causeth a kinde of tickling which lulleth them asleepe This Cyphi they use in drinke as a composition to season their cups and as an ointment besides for they hold that being taken in drinke it scowreth the guttes within and maketh the belly laxative and being applied outwardly as a liniment it mollifieth the bodie Over and above all this Rosin is the worke of the Sunne but Myrrh they gather by the Moone light out of those plants from which it doth destill But of those simples whereof Cyphi is compounded some there be which love the night better as many I meane as be nourished by cold windes shadowes dewes and moisture For the brightnesse and light of the day is one and simple and Pindarus saith that the Sunne is seene through the pure and solitarie aire whereas the aire of the night is a compound and mixture of many lights and powers as if there were a confluence of many seeds from every starre running into one By good right therefore they burne these simple perfumes in the day as those which are engendred by the vertue of the Sunne but this being mingled of all forts and of divers qualities they set on fire about the evening and beginning of the night OF THE ORACLES THAT HAVE CEASED TO GIVE ANSWERE The Summarie THe spirit of errour hath endevoured alwaies and assaied the best he can to mainteine his power and dominion in the world having after the revolt and fall of Adam beene furnished with instruments of all sorts to tyrannize over his slaves In which number we are to range the oracles and predictions of certaine idoles erected in many places by his instigation by meanes whereof this sworne enemy to the glory of the true God 〈◊〉 much prevailed But when it pleased our heavenly father to give us his sonne for to be our Saviour who descending from heaven to earth tooke upon him our humane nature wherein he susteined the 〈◊〉 and punishment due for our sinnes to deliver us out of hell and by vertue of his merits to give us entrance into the kingdome of heaven the trueth of his grace being published and made knovenin the world by the preaching of the Aposlles and their faithfull successours the Divell and his angels who had in many parts and places of the world abused and deceived poore idolaters were forced to acknowledge their Sovereigne and to keepe silence and suffer him to speake unto those whom he meant to call unto salvation or els to make them unexcusable if they refused to heare his voice This cessation of the Oracles put the priests and sacrificers of the the Painims to great trouble and woonderfull perplexitie in the time of the Romane Emperours whiles some imputed the cause to this others to that But our authour in this Treatise discourseth upon this question shewing thereby how great and lamentable is the blindnesse of mans reason and wisedome when it thinketh to atteine unto the secrets of God For all the speeches of the Philosophers whom he bringeth in heere as interlocutours are 〈◊〉 tales and fables devised for the nonce which every Christian man of any meane judgemeut will at the first sight condemne Yet thus much good there is in this discourse that the Epicureans are here taxed and condemned in sundry passages As touching the contents of this conference the occasion thereof ariseth from the speech of Demetrius and Cleombrotus who were come unto the Temple of Apollo for the one of them having rehearsed a woonder as touching the Temple of Jupiter Ammon mooveth thereby a farther desire of disputation but before they enter into it they continue still the former speech of the course and motion of the Sunne Afterwards they come to the maine point namely Why all the Oracles of Greece excepting that onely of Lebadia ceased To which demand 〈◊〉 a Cynique Philosopher answereth That the wickednesse of men is the cause thereof Ammonius 〈◊〉 attributeth all unto the warres which had consumed the Pilgrims that used to resort unto the said Oracles Lamprias proposeth one opinion and Cleombrotus inferring another of his fall into a discourse and common place as touching Daemons whom he verily raungeth betweene gods and men disputing of their nature according to the Philosophie of the Greeks Then he proveth that these Daemons have the charge of Oracles but by reason that they departed out of one countrey into another or died these Oracles gave over To this purpose he telleth a notable tale as touching the death of the great Pan concluding thus that 〈◊〉 Daemons be mortall we ought not to woonder at the cessation of Oracles After this Ammonius confuteth the Epicureans who holde That there be no 〈◊〉 And upon the confirmation of the former positions they enter together into the examination of the opinions of the 〈◊〉 and Platonists concerning the number of the worlds to wit whether they be many or infinit growing to this resolution after long dispute that there be many and 〈◊〉 to the number of five Which done Demetrius reviving the principall question moveth also a 〈◊〉 one Why the Daemons have this power to speake by Oracles Unto which there be many and 〈◊〉 answeres made which determine all in one Treatise according to the Platonists Philosophie of 〈◊〉 principall efficient and finall cause of those things that are effected by reason and particularly of 〈◊〉 and predictions for which he maketh to concurre the Earth the Sunne Exhalations Daemons and the Soule of man Now all the intention and drift of Plutarch groweth to this point that the earth being incited and moved by a naturall vertue and that which is proper unto it and in no wise divine and perdurable hath brought forth certaine powers of divination that these inspirations breathing and arising out of the earth have touched the understandings of mē with such efficacy as that they have caused them to foresee future things afarre off and long ere they hapned yea and have addressed and framed them to give answere both in verse and prose Item that like as there be certeine grounds and lands more 〈◊〉 one than the other or producing some particular things according to the divers and peculiar proprietie of ech there be also certeine places and tracts of the world endued with this temperature which both ingender and also incite these Enthusiaque and divining spirits Furthermore that this puissance is meere divine indeed howbeit not per petuall eternall
by an even number and dubled bringeth forth Ten a perfect number but if by the odde it representeth it selfe againe Heere I omit to say that it is composed of the two first quadrate numbers to wit of Unity and Foure and that it is the first number which is equivalent to the two before it in such sort as it compoundeth the fairest triangle of those that have right angle and is the first number that containeth the sesquialter all proportion For haply these reasons be not well sutable nor proper unto the discourse of this present matter but this rather is more convenient to alledge that in this number there is a naturall vertue and facultie of dividing and that nature divideth many things by this number For even in our owne selves she hath placed five exterior senses as also five parts of the soule to wit naturall sensitive concupiscible irascible and reasonable likewise so many fingers in either hand Also the generall seed is at the most distributed into five portions for in no history is it found written that a woman was delivered of more than five children at one birth The Aegyptians also in their fables doe report that the goddesse Rhea brought forth five gods and goddesses signifying heereby under covert words that of one and the same matter five worldes were procreated Come to the universall fabricke and frame of nature the earth is divided into five zones the heaven also in five circles two Arctiques two Tropickes and one Aequinoctiall in the midst Moreover five revolutions there be of the Planets or wandring starres for that the Sunne Venus and Mercurie run together in one race Furthermore the very world it selfe is composed 〈◊〉 respective to five Like as even among us our musicall accord and concent consisteth of the positure of five tetrachords ranged orderly one after another to wit of Hypates Meses Synnemenae Diezeugmenae and Hyperboliaeae likewise The intervals likewise in song which we use be five in number Dresis Semitonion Tonus 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 So as it seemeth that nature taketh more pleasure in making all things according to the number of five than after a Sphaericall or round forme as Aristotle writeth But what is the cause will some one say that Plato hath reduced the number of five worldes to the five primitive figures of regular bodies saying that God in ordaining and describing the whole world used the Quinarie construction and yet afterwards having proposed the doubtfull question of the number of worldes to wit whether we should hold there was but one or rather that there were five in truth he sheweth plainely that his conjecture is grounded upon this very argument If therefore we ought to apply the probability to his minde and opinion then of necessity with the diversity of these figures and bodies there must ensue presently a difference also of motions according as he himselfe teacheth affirming Whatsoever is subtilized or thickned with the alteration of substance changeth withall the place For so if of the aire is ingendred fire namely when the Octaedron is dissolved and parted into Pyramides and contrariwise aire of fire being driven close and thrust together into the force of octaedron it is not possible that it should be in the place where it was afore but flie and runne into another as being forced and driven out of the former and so fight against whatsoever standeth in the way and maketh resistance And yet more fully and evidently declareth he the same by a similitude and example of such things as by fannes or such like instruments whereby corne is clensed shaken out or winowed and tried from the rest saying that even so the elements shaking the matter and likewise shaken by it went alwaies to bring like to like and some tooke up this place others that before the universall world was of them composed as now it is The generall matter therefore being in such estate then as by good likelihood All must needs be where god is away presently the first five qualities or rather the first five bodies having every one of them their proper inclinations and peculiar motions went apart not wholly and altogether nor severed sincerely asunder one from another for that when all was hudled pell-mell confusedly such as were surmounted and vanquished went evermore even against their nature with the mightier and those which conquered And therefore when some were haled one way and others caried another way it hapned that they made as many portions and distinctions in number just as there were divers kindes of those first bodies the one of fire and yet the same not pure but carying the forme of 〈◊〉 another of a celestial nature not sincere heaven indeed but standing much of the skie a third of earth and yet not simply and wholy earth but rather earthly But principally there was a communication of aire and water as we have said heeretofore for that these went their waies filled with many divers kindes For it was not God who separated and disposed the substance but having found it so rashly and confusedly dissipated of it selfe and ech part caried diversly in so great disorder he digested and arranged it by Symmetrie and competent proportion Then after he had set over every one Reason as a guardian and governesse he made as many worldes as there were kindes of those first bodies subsistent And thus let this discourse for Ammontus sake be dedicated as it were to the grace and favour of Plato For mine owne part I wil never stand so precisely upon this number of worlds mary of this minde I am rather that their opinion who hold that there be more worldes than one howbeit not infinit but determinate is not more absurd than either of the other but founded upon as much reason as they seeing as I doe that Matter of the owne nature is spred and diffused into many parts nor resting in one and yet not permitted by reason to runne in in finitum And therefore especially heere if else where putting our selves in minde of the Academie and the precepts thereof let us not be over credulous but as in a slippery place restraine our assent and beleefe onely in this point of infinity of worldes let us stand firme and see we fall not but keepe our selves upright When I had delivered these reasons abovesaid Beleeve me quoth Demetrius Lamprias giveth us a good and wise admonition For The gods for to deceive us men devise Right many meanes not of false Sophistries as Euripides faith but of their deeds works when we presume and dare pronounce of so high and great matters as if we knew them certainely But as the man himselfe said even now we must recall our speech unto the argument which was first proposed For that which heeretofore hath beene said namely that the Oracles are become mute and lie still without any validity because the Daemons which were wont to governe them be retired and gone like as instruments of
facultie of seeing and power of hearing by reason and providence For in summe as I have said and doe still averre whereas all generation proceedeth of two causes the most ancient Theologians and Poets vouchsafed to set their minde upon the better onely and that which was more excellent chaunting evermore this common refraine and foot as it were of the song in all things and actions whatsoever Jove is the first the midst the last all things of him depend By him begin they and proceed in him they come to end After other necessary and naturall causes they never sought farther nor came neere unto them whereas the moderne Philosophers who succeeded after them and were named naturalists tooke a contrary course and turning cleane aside from that most excellent and divine principle ascribed al unto bodies unto passions also of bodies and I wot not what percussions mutations and temperatures And thus it is come to passe that as well the one sort as the other are in their opinions defective and come short of that which they should For as these either of ignorance know not or of negligence regard not to set downe the efficient principall cause whereby and from which so the other before leave out the materiall causes of which and the instrumentall meanes by which things are done But he who first manifestly touched both causes and coupled with the reason that freely worketh and moveth the matter which necessarily is subject and suffreth he I say for himselfe us answereth all calumniations and putteth by all surmizes and suspicions whatsoever For we bereave not divination either of God or of reason for as much as we graunt unto it for the subject matter the soule of man and for an instrument and plectre as it were to set it aworke we allow a spirit or winde and an exhalation enthusiasticke First and formost the earth it is that engendreth such exhalations then that which giveth unto the earth all power and vertue of this temperature and mutation is the Sunne who as we have learned by tradition from our fore fathers is a god After this we adjoine thereto the Daemons as superintendants overseers and keepers of this temperature as if it were some harmony and consonance who in due and convenient time let downe and slacke or else set up and stretch hard the vertue of this exhalation taking from it otherwhiles the over-active efficacy that it hath to torment the soule and transport it beside it selfe tempering therewith a motive vertue without working any paine or hurt and damage to them that are inspired and possessed therewith Wherein me thinkes we doe nothing that seemeth either absurd or impossible neither in killing sacrifices before we come to moove the Oracle and adorning them with coronets of flowers and powring upon them sacred liquors and libations doe we ought that is contrary to this discourse and opinion of ours For the priests and sacrificers and whosoever have the charge to kill the beast and to powre upon it the holy libations of wine or other liquors who also observe and consider the motion trembling and the whole demeanour thereof doe the same for no other end or cause but to have a signe that God giveth eare unto their demaund For necessary it is that the beast sacrificed unto the gods be pure sound entier immaculate and uncorrupt both in soule and bodie And verily for the body it is no hard matter to judge and know the markes as for the soule they make an experiment by setting before bulles meale by presenting unto swine cich-pease for if they will not fall to nor tast thereof it is a certaine token that they be not right For the goat cold water is the triall Now if the beast make no shew and semblance of being mooved or affected when as the said water is powred aloft on it be sure the soule thereof is not disposed as it ought to be by nature Now say it go for currant and be constantly beleeved that it is an undoubted and insallible signe that the God will give answer when the host or sacrifice thus drenched doth stire and contrariwise that he will not answer if the beast quetch not I see nothing herein repugnant unto that which we have before delivered For every natural power produceth the effect for which it is ordained better or worse according as the time and season is more or lesse convenient and probable it is that God giveth us certeine signes whereby we may know when the opportunity is past For mine owne part I am of this minde that the very exhalation it selfe which ariseth out of the earth is not alwaies of the same sort but at one time is slacke and feeble at another stretched out and strong And the argument which maketh me thus to judge I may easily confirme and verisie by the testimonie of many strangers and of all those ministers who serve in the temple For the chamber or roume wherein they are set and give attendance who come to demand the answer of the Oracle is filled thorow not often nor at certeine set times but as it falleth out after some space betweene with so fragrant an odour and pleasant breath as the most pretious ointments and sweetest perfumes in the world can yeeld no better And this ariseth from the sanctuarie and vault of the temple as out of some source and lively fountaine and very like it is that it is heat or at leastwise some other puissance that sendeth it forth Now if peradventure this may seeme unto you not probable nor to sound of trueth yet will ye at leastwise confesse unto me that the Prophetesse Pythia hath that part of the soule unto which this winde or propheticall spirit approacheth disposed some time in this sort and otherwhiles in that and keepeth not alwaies the same temperature as an harmonie immutable For many troubles and passions there be that possesse her body and enter likewise in her soule some apparent but more secret and unseene with which she finding herselfe seized and replenished better it were for her not to present and exhibit herselfe to this divine inspiration of the god being not altogether cleane and pure from all perturbations like unto an instrument of Musicke well set in tune and sounding sweetly but passionate and out of order For neither wine doth surprise the drunken man alwaies alike and as much at one time as at another nor the sound of the slute or shaulme affecteth after one and the same sort at al times him who naturally is given to be soone ravished with divine inspiration but the same persons are one time more and another while lesse transported beside themselves and drunken likewise more or lesse The reason is because in their bodies there is a divers temperature but principally the imaginative part of the soule and which receiveth the images and fantasies is possessed by the body and subject to change with it as appeareth evidently by dreames for sometimes there
appeare many visions and fansies of all sorts in our sleeps otherwhiles againe we are free from all such illusions and rest in great quietnesse and tranquillitie We our selves know this Cleon here of Daulia who all his life time and many yeeres he lived never as he said himselfe dreamed nor saw any vision in his sleepe and of those in former times we have heard as much reported of Thrasymedes the Hoereian The cause whereof was the temperature of the bodie whereas contrariwise it is seene that the complexion of melancholicke persons is apt to dreame much and subject to many illusions in the night although it seemeth their dreames and visions be more regular and fall out truer than others for that such persons touching their imaginative faculty with one fansie or other it can not chuse but they meet with the truth otherwhiles much like as when a man shoots many shafts it goeth hard if he hit not the marke with one When as therefore the imaginative part and the propheticall faculty is well disposed and sutable with the temperature of the exhalation as it were with some medicinable potion then of necessitie there must be engendred within the bodies of Prophets an Enthusiasme or divine furie contrariwise when there is no such proportionate disposition there can be no propheticall inspiration or if there be it is fanaticall unseasonable violent and troublesome as we know how of late it befel to that Pythias or Prophetesse who is newly departed For there being many pilgrims and strangers come from forren parts to consult with the Oracle it is said that the host or beast to be sacrificed did endure the first libaments and liquors that were powred upon it never stirring there at nor once quetching for the matter but after that the Priests and Sacrificers powred still and never gave over to cast liquor on beyond all measure at length after great laving and drenching of it hardly and with much adoe it yeelded and trembled a little But what hapned hereupon to the Prophetesse or Pythias aforesaid Went she did indeed downe into the cave or hole against her will as they said and with no alacrity at all but incontinently when she was come up againe at the very first words and answers that she pronounced it was well knowen by the horsenesse of her voice that she could not endure the violence of possession being replenished with a maligne and mute spirit much like unto a ship caried away under full sailes with a blustering gale of wind Insomuch as in the end being exceedingly troubled and with a fearefull and hideous crie making haste to get out she flung herselfe downe and fell upon the earth so that not onely the foresaid pilgrims fled for feare but Nicander also the High-priest and other Sacrificers and religious ministers that were present Who notwithstanding afterwards taking heart unto them and entring againe into the place tooke her up lying still in an extasie besides herselfe and in very trueth she lived not many daies after And therefore it is that the said Pythias keepeth her bodie pure and cleane from the company of man and forbidden she is to converse or have commerce al her life time with any stranger Also before they come to the Oracle they observe certeine signes for that they thinke it is knowen unto the God when her bodie is prepared and disposed to receive without danger of her person this Enthusiasme For the force and vertue of this exhalation doth not move and incite all sorts of persons nor the same alwaies after one maner nor yet as much at one time as at another but giveth onely a beginning and setteth to as it were a match to kindle it as we have said before even unto those onely who are prepared and framed aforehand to suffer and receive this alteration Now this exhalation without all question is divine and celestiall howbeit for all that not such as may not faile and cease not incorruptible not subject to age and decay nor able to last and endure for ever and under it all things suffer violence which are betweene the earth and the moone according to our doctrine however others there be who affirme that those things also which are above are not able to resist it but being wearied an eternall and infinite time are quickely changed and renewed as one would say by a second birth regeneration But of these matters quoth I advise you I would and my selfe also estsoones to call to minde and consider often this discourse for that they be points exposed to many reprehensions and sundry objections may be alledged against them All which the time will not suffer us now to prosecute at large and therefore let us put them off unto another opportunity together with the doubts and questions which Philippus moved as touching Apollo and the Sunne WHAT SIGNIFIETH THIS WORD EI ENGRAVEN OVER THE DORE OF APOLLOES TEMPLE IN THE CITIE OF DELPHI The Summarie AMong infinite testimonies of the fury of maligne spirits and evill angels who having beene created at first good kept not their originall but fell from the degree and state of happinesse wherein continue by the grace and favour of God the good angels who minister and attend upon those who shall receive the inheritance of salvation and everlasting life these may bereckoned for the chiefe and principall that such reprobate spirits and accursed fiends endevour practise by all meanes possible to make themselves to be adored by men and fame would they be set in the throne of him who having imprisoned and tied them fast in a deepe dungeon with the chaine of darknesse reserveth them to the judgement of that great day of doome And so farre proceeded they in pride and presumption as to cause themselves to be stiled by the name of God yea and to be adorned with those titles which are due and apperteine unto the Aeternall their soveraigne judge Their devices and artificiall meanes to bring this about be woonderfull and of exceeding variety according as the infinit numbers of idols warming in all parts and so many strange and uncouth superstitions wherewith the world hath beene diffamed unto this present day doe testifie and give evident proofe But if there be any place in the whole earth wherein Satanhath actually hewed his furious rage against God and man it is Greece and above all in that renowmed temple of Delphi which was the common seat upon which this cursed enemy hath received the homages of an infinit number of people of all sorts and qualities under the colour and pretence of resolving their doubtfull questions Heere then especially presumed he and was so bold as to take upon him the name of God and for to reach thereto hath set out and garnished his Oracles with ambiguous speeches short and sententious intermingling some trueths among lies even as it pleased the just judge of the world to let the reines loose unto this notorious seducer and to give him
cleaped her Olympias For the like faults and errours are committed at dauncing in the foresaid shewes if they carry not a probable likelihood and a grace with them and the same accompanied with decencie and an unaffected simplicitie in one word we may fitly transferre the Apophthegme of Simonides from painting unto dauncing and say thus That a daunce is a mute poesie and poesie a speaking daunce insomuch quoth hee as neither painting dependeth upon poesie nor poesie of painting as having no need at all one of the other whereas betweene dauncing and poetrie all things are common are participating one with another in every thing and representing both of them one and the same thing especially in those songs to daunce which they call Hyporchemata wherein is performed the most effectuall and lively resemblance of the one by gesture and of the other by words and names so that poëmes seeme aptly to be compared unto the lines and pourfling in a picture by which the formes of visages are drawen insomuch as hee who hath proceeded well in those Hyporchemata and is become excellent in that feat sheweth plainly that these two arts necessarily have need the one of the other for he who chaunteth out this song 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is to say I play the horse of Thessaly Or els the hound of Amycly following and pursuing with his foot the measures and expressing the winding and turning sound of the voice or this other song 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. declareth thereby that poëmes doe in maner provoke the disposition and gesture of dauncing drawing with the sound of verses as it were with certeine cords both hands feet or the whole bodie rather stretching out every member thereof in such sort as when they be pronounced and chanted forth there is not one of them that can rest in quiet by occasion whereof the partie who singeth such songs is not abashed to praise himselfe no lesse for his sufficiencie in the art of dauncing than his accomplished skill in poesie and as if he were rapt with some divine instinct breaketh out into this note How olde soever that I be I can yet foot it merrily And this maner of dauncing to the measures they call the Candiot daunce howbeit now a daies there is nothing so ill taught so badly practised and so much depraved and corrupted as is this feat of dauncing and therefore that is befallen unto it which 〈◊〉 the poet fearing wrote of himselfe in these verses For honour lost among the gods I 〈◊〉 With men alone I shall be honoured For having associated her selfe to I wot not what trivial and vulgar poesie being fallen from that which was ancient divine and heavenly she ruleth and beareth sway onely in foolish and amased theaters where like a tyrannesse she hath in subjection a small deale of musicke God wot good enough to please and content the vulgar sort but among wise men and divine indeed it hath to say a trueth lost all honour and reputation These were in maner the last philosophicall discourses Ô 〈◊〉 Senecio which were held at that time in good 〈◊〉 his house during the festivall solemnitie of the Muses THE OPINIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS The Summarie FOrasmuch as in the Preface to the second tome conteining the Miscellanes or mixt works of Plutarch he spake of these gatherings out of naturall philosophie and of the fruit that may be reaped thereout by discerning true opinions from false we will not rehearse againe here that which was delivered in that place but propose onely to the eies of the reader the bare titles of every chapter thorowout these five books which the authour hath joined together for to shew the opinions of the ancient philosophers as touching the exposition of the principall points of naturall philosophie Chapters of the first Booke 1 What is Nature 2 What difference there is betweene a principle and an element 3 As touching Principles what they be 4 How the world was composed 5 Whether All be One. 6 How it commeth that men have a notion of God 7 What is God 8 Of heavenly intelligences or powers called Daemons and of Demi-gods 9 Of the first Matter 10 Of the Forme called Idea 11 Of Causes 12 Of Bodies 13 Of the least indivisible bodies or Atomes 14 Of Figures 15 Of Colours 16 Of the section of bodies 17 Of Mixture and Temperature 18 Of Voidnesse 19 Of Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 20 Of Space 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 21 Of Time 22 Of the essence of Time 23 Of Motion 24 Of Generation and Corruption 25 Of Necessitie 26 Of the essence of Necessitie 27 Of 〈◊〉 28 Of the substance of Destinie 29 Of Fortune 30 Of 〈◊〉 Chapters of the second Booke 1 Of the world 2 Of the figure of the world 3 Whether the world be endued with soule and governed by providence 4 Whether the world be incorruptible 5 Whereof the world is nourished 6 With what element God began to frame the world 7 The order of the worlds fabricke 8 For what cause the world bendeth or copeth 9 Whether there be any voidnesse without the world 10 Which is the right side of the world and which is the left 11 Of heaven and what is the substance 〈◊〉 12 The division of heaven and how many 〈◊〉 it is divided into 13 What is the substance of the starres and how they be composed 14 The figure of the starres 15 The order and situation of the starres 16 The lation or motion of the starres 17 Whence the starres have their light 18 Of the starres called Dioscuri that is to say Castor and Pollux 19 The signifiance of starres how commeth winter and summer 20 The substance of the sunne 21 The greatnesse of the sunne 22 The forme of the sunne 23 The 〈◊〉 or sunne-steads or the conversions of the sunne 24 The ecclypse of the sunne 25 The substance of the moone 26 The bignesse of the moone 27 The forme of the moone 28 The illumination of the moone 29 The eclipse of the moone 30 The face or apparence of the moone and why she seemeth earthly 31 The distance that is betweene sunne and moone 32 Of the yeere and how much is the great 〈◊〉 the revolution of each planet Chapters of the third Booke 1 Of the circle Galaxia or the milke way 2 Of comets or blasing starres of starres that seeme to shoot or fall as also of the fire-lights or meteores called beames 3 Of thunders lightnings flashings of the 〈◊〉 winds called Presteres and Typhons 4 Of clouds raine snowe and haile 5 Of the rainbowe 6 Of rods or strakes in the skie 7 Of windes 8 Of winter and summer 9 Of the earth what is the substance thereof and how bigge it is 10 The forme of the earth 11 The positure or situation of the earth 12 The bending of the earth 13 The motion of the earth 14 The