speake of necessity either was not before the creation of the world at what time as those first bodies lay still unmoveable or stirred confusedly or else if he were before he either slept or watched or did neither the one nor the other but as the former of these we may not admit for that God is eternall so the latter we cannot 〈◊〉 for if God slept from all eternity and time out of minde he was no better than dead for what is eternal sleep other than death but surely God is not subject to death for the immortallity of God and this vicinity to death are much distant asunder and cannot stand both together but if wee say that God was awake all that while either he was defectuous in his blessed state of felicity or els he enjoyed the same complet but in the first condition God is not happy for whatsoever wanteth ought of felitity cannot be happy and verily in the second state he is not better for if he were defective in nothing before to what purpose busied he himselfe in such vaine enterprises moreover if there be a God and that by his prudent care mens affaires be governed how commeth it to passe that wicked men prosper in the world and finde fortune their 〈◊〉 mother but the good and honest suffer the contrary and feele her to be a curst stepdame for king Agamemnon as the poet faith Aprince right good and gracious A knight with all most 〈◊〉 was by an adulterer and adulteresse surprised and murdered trecherously and Hercules one of his race and kinred after he had ridde and purged the life of man from so many monsters that troubled his reposewas poisoned by Deianeira and so by indirect meanes lost his life THALES saith that God is the soule of the world ANAXIMANDER is of opinion that the starres be celestiall gods DEMOCRITUS is perswaded that God is a minde of a fierie nature and the soule of the world PYTHAGORAS affirmeth that of the two first principles Unitie was God and the soveraigne good which is the very nature of one and is Understanding it selfe but the indefinite binarie is the divell and evill about which is the multitude materiall and the visible world SOCRATES and PLATO doe hold that he is one and of a simple nature begotten and borne of himselfe alone truly good All which tearmes and attributes tend unto a Minde so that this minde is God a forme separate apart that is to say neither mingled with any matter nor entangled and joined with any thing passible whatsoever ARISTOTLE supposeth that this supreme God is an abstract forme setled upon the round sphaere of the universall world which is an heavenly and celestiall body and therefore tearmed by him the fifth body or quinta essentia which celestial body being divided into many sphaeres coherent by nature but separate and distinct by reason and understanding hee thinketh each of these sphaeres to be a kinde of animall composed of body and soule of which twaine the bodie is celestiall mooving circularly and the soule reason unmooveable in it selfe but the cause in effect of motion The Stoicks teach after a more generall manner and define God to be a working and artificiall fire proceeding methodically and in order to the generation of the world which comprehendeth in itselfe all the spermaticall proportions and reasons of seed according to which every thing by fatall destinie is produced and commeth foorth also to be a spirit piercing and spreading through the whole world howbeit changing his denomination throughout the whole matter as it passeth by transition from the one to the other Semblably that the world is God the starres likewise and the earth yea and the supreme minde above in heaven Finally Epicurus conceiveth thus of the gods that they all have the forme of man and yet be perceptable onely by reason and cogitation in regard of the subtile parts and fine nature of their imaginative figures he also affirmeth that those other foure natures in generall be incorruptible to wit the atomes vacuitie infinitie and resemblances which also be called semblable parcels and elements CHAP. VIII Of Daemons and demy-gods otherwise named Heroes TO this treatise of the gods meet it is to adjoine a discourse as touching the nature of Daemones and Heroes THALES PYTHAGORAS PLATO and the STOICKS hold that these Daemons be spirituall substances and the Heroes soule separate from their bodies of which sort there be good and bad the good Heroes are the good soules and the bad Heroes the bad soules but EPICURUS admitteth none of all this CHAP. IX Of Matter MAtter is the first and principall subject exposed to generation corruption and other mutations The Sectaries of THALES and PYTHAGORAS together with the Stoicks doe say that this Matter is variable mutable alterable and fluxible all wholly thorow the universall world The disciples and followers of DEMOCRITUS are of opinion that the first principles be impassible to wit the small indivisible bodie Atomos Voidnesse and Incorporall ARISTOTLE and PLATO doe holde that Matter is corporall without forme shape figure and qualitie in the owne nature and propertie but when it hath received formes once it becommeth as it were a nurse a molde pattern and a mother They who set downe for this Matter water earth fire or aire do not say that now it is without forme but that it is a very bodie but such as affirme that these Atomes and indivisible bodies be the said Matter make it altogether formelesse CHAP. X. Of Idea IDea is a bodilesse substance which of it selfe hath no subsistence but giveth figure and forme unto shapelesse matters and becommeth the very cause that bringeth them into shew and evidence SOCRATES and PLATO suppose that these Ideae bee substances separate and distinct from Matter howbeit subsisting in the thoughts and imaginations of God that is to say of Minde and Understanding ARISTOTLE admitteth verily these formes and Ideae howbeit not separate from matter as being the patterns of all that which God hath made The STOICKS such as were the scholars of Zeno have delivered that our thoughts and conceits were the Ideae CHAP. XI Of Causes A Cause is that whereupon dependeth or followeth an effect or by which any thing hapneth PLATO hath set downe three kinds of Causes and those are distinguished by these tearmes By which Of which and For which but he taketh the most principall to be that By which that is to say the efficient cause which is the minde or understanding PYTHAGORAS and ARISTOTLE do hold that the principall Causes be incorporall and as for other Causes either by participation or by accident they are of a corporal substance and so the world is a bodie But the STOICKS are of opinion that all Causes are corporall inasmuch as they be spirits CHAP. XII Of Bodies A Bodie is measurable and hath three dimensions length bredth and depth or thicknesse Or thus A Bodie is a masse that resisteth touching naturally of it selfe
what it will be is not some accident or passion of any motion but it is the cause the puissance and the principle of that proportion and order that conteineth and holdeth together all things according to which the nature of the world and this whole universality which also is animate doth move or rather the very same proportion it selfe and order which doth moove is the thing that we call time For walke it doth with silent pace In way where as no noise is made Conducting justly to their place All mortall things that passe and fade And verily according to the minde of auncient philosophers the substance of the soule was defined to be a number mooving it selfe which is the reason why Plato said That time and heaven were made together but motion was before heaven at what time as there was no heaven at all for why there was no order nor measure whatsoever no nor any distinction but an undeterminate motion like as the matter was rude without forme figure but after that nature once had cast this matter into a colour and had shaped it with forme and figure and then determined motion with periodicall revolutions she made withall both the world and time both at once which two are the very images of God to wit the world of his substance and time of his eternitie for God in that he mooveth is time and in that he hath being is the world This is the reason why he saith That both of them comming together shall likewise both be dissolved together in case that ever there will be any dissolution of them For that which had a beginning and generation cannot be without time no more than that which is intelligible without eternity in case the one is to continue for ever and the other being once made shall never perish and be dissolved Time then being so necessarily linked and interlaced with the heaven is not simply a motion but as we have said already a motion ordeined by order which hath a just measure set limits and bonds yea and certeine revolutions of all which the sunne being superintendent governour and directour for to dispose limit and digest all for to discover set out and shew the alterations and seasons the which bring foorth all things as 〈◊〉 saith confessed it must be that he is a workeman cooperant with that chiefe and sovetaigne God the prince of all not in petie base and frivolous things but in the greatest and most principall works that be 8 PLato in his books of common-wealth having excellently well compared the symphony of the three faculties powers of the soule to wit the reasonable the irascible concupiscible unto the musicall harmony of the notes Mese Hypate and Nete hath given occasion for a man to doubt whether hee set the irascible or reasonable part correspondent to the meane seeing that he shewed not his meaning in this present place for according to the situation of the parts of the body wherein these faculties are seated surely the couragious and irascible is placed in the middes and answered to the region of Mese the meane but the reasonable is ranged into the place of Hypate for that which is aloft first and principall our auncestours used to call Hypaton according to which sense Xenocrates calleth Jupiter or the aire that I meane which converseth above where all things continue the same and after one sort Hypatos like as that which is under the moone Neatos And before him Homer speaking of the soveraigne God and prince of princes saith thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say our soveraigne and supreme of all rulers And in trueth nature hath by very good right given unto the best part of the soule the highest place in lodging the discourse of reason as the governour of the rest within the head but hath remooved farre from thence to the base and inferior members the concupiscible for the low situation is called Neate according as appeereth by the denomination of the dead who are tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say inferior or infernall and for this cause some therebe who say that the winde which bloweth from beneath and out of places unseene that is to say from the pole Antarticke is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the south Since then it is so that there is the same proportion of contrariety betweene concupiscible and reasonable parts of the soule as there is betweene lowest and highest last and first it is not possible that reason should be the highest and principall and not withall correspondent to Hypate but to some other note in musicke for they who attribute unto her as unto the principall faculty and power Mese that is to say the meane see not ignorant as they be how they take from her that which is more principall to wit Hypate which cannot fit well either with ire or lust for both these the one and the other are made for to follow and be commanded by reason and not to command or goe before reason Moreover it should seeme by nature that anger ought to have the meane and middle place considering that naturally reason is to command and anger both to command and be commanded as being on the one side subject to the discourse of reason and on the other side commanding lust yea and punishing it when she is disobedient to reason And like as in grammar those letters which wee call semi-vowels be of a middle nature betweene mute consonants and vowels for that as they sound more than the one so they sound lesse than the other even so in the soule of man wrath is not simply a meere passion but hath many times an apparence of duty and honesty mixed with desire of revenge And Plato himselfe comparing the substance of the soule unto a couple of horses drawing a chariot and guided by a chariot man who driveth them and understandeth by the driver guide as every man well knowes the discourse of reason now of the two steeds that of lusts and pleasures is frampold skittish flinging winsing unruly altogether and unbroken stiffenecked deafe hardly caring either for whip or spurre where as the other of 〈◊〉 is for the most part tractable and obeisant to the bridle of reason yea and ready to joine with it in execution of good things And like as in a chariot with two horses the driver or chariot-man is not in vertue and puissance the middle but rather one of the horses which is woorse than the chariot man and better than his 〈◊〉 that draweth with him even so likewise hath not he given the middle place unto that part which doth rule and governe in the soule but unto that wherein there is lesse passion than in the first and more reason than in the third for this order and disposition observeth the proportion of the irascible to the reasonable part as is of 〈◊〉 to Hypate and to the
the auditorie are in heavinesse and doubtfull perplexitie untill at last they be driven of necessitie with greater shame to trouble those who have once already delivered their doctrine to runne I say unto them backe againe and moove questions anew And as for these ambitious bold and presumptuous persons they be forced to palliat cover and disguise their ignorance and blindnes which abideth with them for ever Therefore casting behinde us and rejecting all such stupiditie and vanitie let us take paines and endevour howsoever we do to learne and throughly to comprehend all profitable discourses that shall be taught unto us and for to effect this let us be content gently to beare the scoffes and derisions of others that thinke themselves quicker of conceit than our selves according to the example of Cleanthes and Xenocrates who being 〈◊〉 what more grosse and dull of capacitie than others their school-fellowes ran not therefore away from schoole nor were any whit discouraged but the first that scoffed and made sport with themselves saying they were like unto narrow mouthed vessels and brasen tables for that they hardly conceived any thing that was taught them but they retained and kept the same safe and surely when they had it once for not onely as Phocylides saith Who seekes in the'nd for goodnes and for praies Meane while must be deceived many wates but also to suffer himselfe to be mocked oftentimes and to endure much reproch to abide broad jests and skurrile skoffes expelling ignorance with all his might and maine yea and conquering the same Moreover we must be carefull to avoide one fault more which many commit on the contrarie side who for that they be somewhat slow of apprehension and idle withall are verie troublesome unto their teachers and importune them overmuch when they be apart by themselves they will not take any paines nor labour to understand that which they have heard but they put their masters to new travell who reade unto them asking and enquiring of them ever and anon concerning one and the same thing resembling herein yoong callow birds which are not yet fethered and fledg'd but alwaies gaping toward the bill of the damme and so by their good wils would have nothing given them but that which hath beene chewed and prepared already Now there be others yet who desirous beyond all reason to be counted quicke of wit and attentive hearers wearie their masters even as they are reading unto thē with much prittle prattle interrupting them everie foot in their lectures demaunding of them one thing or other that is needlesse and impertinent calling for proofs and demonstrations of things where no need is Thus they much paines for little take And of short way long journeies make According as Sophocles said making much worke not onely for themselves but also for others For staying their teacher thus as they doe everie foote with their vaine and superfluous questions as if they were walking together upon the way they hinder the course of the lecture being so often interrupted and broken off These fellowes then according to the saying of Hierom in this doing are much like to cowardly dastardly curre dogs which when they be at home within house will bite the hides and skinnes of wilde beasts and lie tugging at their shagged haire but they dare not touch them abroad in the field Furthermore I would give those others who are but soft spirited and slow withall this counsell that retaining the principall points of everie matter they supplie the rest apart by themselves exercising their memorie and as it were leading it by the hand to all that dependeth thereto to the end that when they have conceived in their spirit the words of others as it were the elementarie beginning and the verie seede they might nourish and augment the same For that the minde and understanding of man is not of the nature of a vessell that requireth to be filled up but it hath neede onely of some match if I may so say to kindle and set it on fire like as the matter standeth ever in need of the efficient cause which may ingender in it a certaine inventive motion and an affection to finde out the truth Well then like as if a man going to his neighbour for to fetch fire and finding there good store and the same burning light in the chimney should sit him downe by it and warme himselfe continually thereat and never make care to take some of it home with him you would take him to be unwise even so he that commeth to another for to learne and thinketh not that he ought to kindle his owne fire within and make light in his owne minde but taketh pleasure in hearing onely and there sitteth by his master still and joyeth onely in this contentment he may well get himselfe a kind of opinion by the words of another like a fresh and red colour by sitting by the fire side but as for the mosse or rust of his minde within he shall never skoure it out nor disperse the darkenes by the light of Philosophie Now if there be neede yet of one precept more to atchieve the dutie of a good auditour it is this That we ought to remember eftsoones that which now I have to say namely That we exercise our wit and understanding by our selves to invent something of our owne aswell as to comprehend that which we heare of others to the end that we may acquire within our selves a certaine habitude not sophisticall nor historicall that is to say apparant onely and able to recite barely that which we have beene taught by others but a more inwardly imprinted and philosophicall making this account that the verie beginning of a good life is to heare well and as we ought OF MORALL VERTVE The Summarie BEfore he entreth into the discourse of vertues and vices he treateth of Morall vertue in generall propounding in the first place the diversitie of opinions of Philosophers as touching this point the which he discusseth and examineth Wherein after that he had begun to dispute concerning the composition of the soule he adjoineth his owne opinion touching that propertie which Morall vertue hath particularly by it selfe as also wherein it differeth from contemplative Philosophie Then having defined the Mediocritie of this vertue and declared the difference betweene Continence and Temper ance he speaketh of the impression of reason in the soule And by this meanes addresseth himselfe against the Stoicks disputeth cōcerning the affections of the soule prooving the inequalitie therein with such a refutation of the contrarie objections that after he had taught how the reasonlesse part of the soule ought to be mannaged he discovereth by divers similitudes and reasons the absurdities of the said Stoicke Philosophers who insteed of well governing and ruling the soule of man have as much as liethin them extinguished and abolished the same OF MORALL VERTVE MY purpose is to treate of that vertue which is both called
springeth and groweth to be such semblably the matter void of forme and indeterminate having once bene shapen by the soule which was within received such a forme and disposition 4 What is the reason that whereas there be bodies and figures some consisting of right lines and others of circular he hath taken for the foundation and beginning of those which stand of right lines the triangle Isosceles with two equall sides and scalenum with three sides all unequall Of which the triangle with two even legs composed the cube or square bodie which is the element and principle of the earth and the triangle with three unequall legs made the pyramidall body as also octaedron with eight faces and cosaedron with twenty faces whereof the first is the element and seed of fire the second of aire and the third of water and yet he hath over passed quite all bodies and figures circular notwithstanding that he made mention of the sphaericall figure or round body when he said that every one of those figures above named is apt to divide a globe or sphaericall body into equall parts IS it as some doe imagine and suppose because he attributed the Dodecaedron that is to say the body with twelve faces unto the globe or round sphaere in saying that God made use of this forme and figure in the framing of the world for in regard of the multitude of elements and bluntnesse of angles it is farthest off from direct and right lines whereby it is flexible and by stretching foorth round in maner of a ball made of twelve pieces of leather it approcheth neerest unto roundnesse and in that regard is of greatest capacitie for it conteined twenty angles solid and every one of them is comprized and environed within three flatte obtuse or blunt angles considering that every of them is composed of one right and fift part moreover compact it is and composed of twelve pentagones that is to say bodies with five angles having their angles and sides equall of which every one of thirty principall triangles with three unequall legges by reason whereof it seemeth that he followed the degrees of the Zodiacke and the daies of the yeere together in that division of their parts so equal and just in number Or may not this be the reason that by nature the right goeth before the round or rather to speake more truely that a circular line seemeth to be some vicious passion or faulty qualitie of the right for we use ordinarily to say that the right line doth bow or bend and a circle is drawen and described by the center and the distance from it to the circumference which is the verie place of the right line by which it is measured out for the circumference is on every side equally distant from the center Moreover the Conus which is a round pyramys and the Cylindre which is as it were a round columne or pillar of equall compasse are both made of figures with direct lines the one to wit the Conus by a triangle whereof one side remaineth firme and the other with the base goeth round about it the Cylindre when the same befalleth to a parallell Moreover that which is lesse commeth neerest unto the beginning and resembleth it most but the least and simplest of all lines is the right for of the round line that part which is within doth crooke and curbe hollow the other without doth bumpe and bunch Over and besides numbers are before figures for unity is before a pricke seeing that a pricke is in position and situation an unity but an unity is triangular for that every number triangular eight times repeated or multiplied by addition of an unity becommeth quadrangular and the same also befalleth to unity and therefore a triangle is before a circle which being so the right line goeth before the circular Moreover an element is never divided into that which is composed of it but contrariwise every thing else is divided and resolved into the owne elements whereof it doth consist If then the triangle is not resolved into any thing circular but contrariwise two diametres crossing one another part a circle just into fower parts then we must needs inferre the figure consisting of right lines went before those which are circular now that the right line goeth first and the circular doth succeed and follow after Plato himselfe hath shewed by demonstration namely when hee saith that the earth is composed of many cubes or square solid bodies whereof every one is enclosed and conteined with right lined superfices in such maner disposed as yet the whole body and masse of the earth seemeth round like a globe so that we need not to make any proper element thereof round if it be so that bodies with right lines conjoined and set in some sort one to another bringeth forth this forme Over and besides the direct line be it little or be it great keepeth alwaies the same rectitude whereas contrariwise we see the circumferences of circles if they be small are more coping bending and contracted in their outward curvature conrrariwise if they be great they are more extent lax and spred insomuch as they that stand by the outward circumference of circles lying upon a flat superfices touch the same underneath partly by a pricke if they be smal and in part by a line if they be large so as a man may very well conjecture that many right lines joined one to another taile to taile by piece-meale produce the circumference of a circle But consider whether there be none of these our circular or sphaericall figures exquisitely and exactly perfect but in regard of the extentions and circumtentions of right lines or by reason of the exilitie and smalnesse of the parts there can be perceived no difference and thereupon there sheweth a circular and round figure And therefore it is that there is not a bodie heere that by by nature doth moove circularly but all according to the right line so that the round and sphericall figure is not the element of a sensible body but of the soule and understanding unto which he attributeth likewise the circular motion as belonging unto them naturally 5 In what sense and meaning delivered he this speech in his booke entituled Phaedrus that the nature of a wing where by that which is heavy and ponderous is caried up aloft of all other things that belong unto a body hath a certeine communion and participation with God IS it because he discourseth there of love and love is occupied about the beauty of the body and this beauty for the resemblance that it hath to divinity doth moove the minde and excite the reminiscence thereof Or rather are we to take it simply without curious searching farther into any mystery thereof namely that the soule being within the body hath many faculties powers whereof that which is the discourse of reason and understanding doth participate with the deitie which hee not unproperly and impertinently tearmeth a
out of water having earth under it there ex haleth aire which aire comming to be subtilized the fire is produced and environeth it round about as for the stars they are set on fire out of these together with the sunne what is more contrary than to be set on fire and to be cooled what more opposite to subtilization and rarefaction than inspissation and condensation the one maketh water and earth of fire and aire the other turneth that which is moist and terrestriall into fire and aire And yet in one place he maketh kindling of fire and in another refrigeration to bee the cause of quickning and giving soule unto a thing for when the said firing and inflammation comes generall throughout then it liveth and is become an annimall creature but after it commeth to be quenched and thickned it turneth into water and earth and so into a corporall substance In the first booke of Providence he writeth thus For the world being throughout on fire presently it is with all the soule and governour of it selfe but when it is turned into moisture and the soule left within it and is after a sort converted into a soule and body so as it seemeth compounded of them both then the case is altered In which text he affirmeth plainly that the very inanimat parts of the world by exustion and inflammation turne and change into the soule thereof and contrariwise by extinction the soule is relaxed and moistned againe and so returneth into a corporall nature Heereupon I inferre that he is very absurd one while to make of senselesse things animat and living by way of refrigeration and another while to transmure the most part of the soule of the world into insensible and inanimat things But over and above all this the discourse which he maketh as touching the generation of the soule conteineth a proofe demonstration contrary to his owne opinion for he saith That the soule is engendred after that the infant is gone out of the mothers wombe for that the spirit then is transformed by refrigeration even as the temper is gotten of steele Now to prove that the soule is engendred and that after the birth of the infant hee bringeth this for a principall argument Because children become like unto their parents in behaviour and naturall inclination wherein the contrariety that he delivereth is so evident as that a man may see it by the very eie for it is not possible that the soule which is engendred after birth should be framed to the maners and disposition of the parents before nativity or else we must say and fall out it will that the soule before it was in esse was already like unto a soule which is all one as that it was by similitude and resemblance and yet was not because as yet it had not a reall substance Now if any one doe say that it ariseth from the temperature and complexion of the bodies that this similitude is imprinted in them howbeit when the soules are once engendred they become changed he shall overthrow the argument and proofe whereby it is shewed that the soule was engendred for heereupon it would follow that the soule although it were ingenerable when it entreth from without into the body is changed by the temperature of the like Chrysippus sometime saith that the aire is light that it mounteth upward on high and otherwhiles for it againe that it is neither heavy nor light To prove this see what he saith in his second booke of Motion namely that fire having in it no ponderosity at all ascendeth aloft semblably the aire and as the water is more conformable to the earth so the aire doth rather resemble the fire But in his booke entituled Naturall arts he bendeth to the contrary opinion to wit that the aire hath neither ponderosity nor lightnesse of it selfe He affirmeth that the aire by nature is darke and for that cause by consequence it is also the primitive cold and that tenebrosity or darknesse is directly opposite unto light and cleerenesse and the coldnesse thereof to the heat of fire Mooving this discourse in the first booke of his Naturall questions contrary to all this in his treatise of Habitudes he saith That these habitudes be nothing else but aires For that bodies quoth he be 〈◊〉 by them and the cause why every body conteined by any habitude is such as it is is the continent aire which in iron is called hardnesse in stone spissitude or thicknesse in silver whitenesse in which words there is great contrariety and as much false absurditie for if this aire remaine the same still as it is in the owne nature how commeth blacke in that which is not white to be called whitenesse softnesse in that which is not hard to be named hardnesse or rare in that which is not solide and massie to be called solidity But in case it be said that by mixture therein it is altered and so becommeth semblable how then can it be an habitude a faculty power or cause of these effects whereby it selfe is brought under and subdued for that were to suffer rather than to doe and this alteration is not of a nature conteining but of a languishing impotencie whereby it loseth all the properties and qualities of the owne and yet in every place they hold that matter of it selfe idle and without motion is subject and exposed to the receit of qualities which qualities are spirits and those powers of the aire which into what parts soever of the matter they get and insinuate themselves doe give a forme and imprint a figure into them But how can they mainteine this supposing as they do the aire to be such as they say it is for if it be an habitude and power it will conforme and shape unto it selfe every body so as it will make the same both blacke and soft but if by being mixed and contempered with them it take formes contrary unto those which it hath by nature it followeth then that it is the matter of matter and neither the habitude cause nor power thereof Chrysippus hath written often times that without the world there is an infinit voidnesse and that this infinitie hath neither beginning middle nor end And this is the principall reason whereby they resute that motion downward of the 〈◊〉 by themselves which Epicurus hath brought in for in that which is infinit there are no locall differences whereby a man may understand or specifie either high or low But in the fourth booke of Things possible he supposeth a certeine middle space and meane place betweene wherein he saith the world is founded The very text where he affirmeth this runneth in these words And therefore we must say of the world that it is corruptible and although it be very hard to proove it yet me thinks rather it should be so than otherwise Neverthelesse this maketh much to the inducing of us to beleeve that it hath a certeine incorruptibility if I may
image representing god as being the onely creature in the world which hath no tongue for as much as divine speech needeth neither voice nor tongue But through the paths of Justice walks with still and silent pace Directing right all mortall things in their due time and place And of all beasts living within the water the crocodile onely as men say hath over his eies a certeine thinne filme or transparent webbe to cover them which commeth downe from his forehead in such sort as that he can see and not be seene wherein he is conformable and like unto the sovereigne of all the gods Moreover looke in what place the female is discharged of her spawne there is the utmost marke and limit of the rising and inundation of Nylus for being not able to lay their egges in the water and affraid withall to sit far off they have a most perfect and exquisit foresight of that which will be insomuch as they make use of the rivers approch when they lay and whiles they sit and cove their egges be preserved drie and are never drenched with the water A hundred egges they lay in so many daies they hatch and as manie yeeres live they which are longest lived And this is the first and principall number that they use who treat of celestiall matters Moreover as touching those beasts which are honored for both causes we have spoken before of the dogge but the Ibis or blacke storke besides that it killeth those serpents whose pricke and sting is deadly she was the first that taught us the use of that evacuation or clensing the body by clistre which is so ordinarie in Physicke for perceived she is to purge clense and mundifie her-selfe in that sort whereupon the most religious priests and those who are of greatest experience when they would be purified take for their holy water to sprinckle themselves with the very same out of which the Ibis drinketh for she never drinks of empoisoned and infected water neither will she come neere unto it Moreover with her two legges standing at large one from the other and her bill together she maketh an absolute triangle with three even sides besides the varietie and speckled mixture of her plume consisting of white feathers and blacke representeth the Moone when she is past the full Now we must not marvell at the Aegyptians for pleasing and contenting themselves in such slight representations and similitudes for even the Grecks themselves as well in their pictures as other images of the gods melted and wrought to any mould used many times such resemblances for one statue in Creta they had of Jupiter without eares because it is not meant for him who is lord governour of all to have any instruction by the hearing of others Unto the image of Pallas Phidias the Imager set a dragon like as to that of Venus in the city of Elisa Tortoise giving us by this to understand that maidens had need of guidance and good custodie and that maried woman ought to keepe the house and be silent The three-forked mace of Neptune signifieth the third place which the sea and element of water holdeth under heaven and aire for which cause they called the sea Amphitrite and the petie sea gods Tritons Also the Pythagoreans have highly honored the numbers and figures Geometricall by the gods names for the triangle with three equal sides they called Pallas borne out of Jupiters braine and Tritogenia for that it is equally divided with three right lines from three angles drawen by the plumbe One or unitie they named Apollo As well for his perswasive grace as plaine simplicitie That doeth appeere in youthfull face and this is unitie Two they termed Contention and Boldnesse and three Justice For whereas to offend and be offended to doe and to suffer wrong come the one by excesse and the other by defect Just remaineth equally betweene in the middes That famous quaternarie of theirs named 〈◊〉 which consisteth of foure nines and amounteth to thirtie sixe was their greatest oth 〈◊〉 in every mans mouth they called it the World as being accomplished of the first foure even numbers and the first foure odde compounded into one together If then the most excellent and best renowmed Philosophers perceiving in things which have neither body nor soule some type and figure of deitie have not thought it good to neglect or despise any thing herein or passe it over without due honour I suppose we ought much lesse so to doe in those properties and qualities which are in natures sensitive having life and being capable of passions and affections according to their inclinations and conditions And therefore we must not content our selves and rest in the worshipping of these and such like beasts but by them adore the divinitie that shineth in them as in most cleere and bright mirrors according to nature reputing them alwaies as the instrument and artificiall workemanship of God who ruleth and governeth the universall world neither ought we to thinke that any thing void of life and destitute of sense can be more woorthy or excellent than that which is endued with life and senses no not although a man hung never so much gold or a number of rich emerauds about it for it is neither colours nor figures nor polished bodies that deitie doeth inhabite in but whatsoever doeth not participate life nor is by nature capable thereof is of a more base and abject condition than the very dead But that nature which liveth and seeth which also in it selfe hath the beginning of motion and knowledge of that which is proper and meet as also of that which is strange unto it the same I say hath drawen some influence and portion of that wise providence whereby the universall world is governed as Heraclitus saith And therefore the deitie is no lesse represented in such natures than in works made of brasse and stone which are likewise subject to corruption and alteration but over and besides they are naturally voide of all sense and understanding Thus much of that opinion as touching the worship of beasts which I approove for best Moreover the habilliments of Isis be of different tinctures and colours for her whole power consisteth and is emploied in matter which receiveth all formes and becommeth all maner of things to wit light darknesse day night fire water life death beginning and end But the robes of Osiris have neither shade nor varietie but are of one simple colour even that which is lightsome and bright For the first primitive cause is simple the principle or beginning is without all mixture as being spiritual intellegible Whereupon it is that they make shew but once for all of his habiliments which when they have done they lay them up againe and bestow them safe and keepe them so straightly that no man may see or handle them whereas contrariwise they use those of Isis many times For that sensible things be in usage and seeing they are
and likewise when they read in Homer how Achilles encouraged to battell both horse and man they doe marvell still and make doubt whether that part and facultie in us whereby we are angrie do lust joy or grieve be of that nature that it can well obey reason and be so affected and disposed thereby that it may give assent thereto considering especially that it is not seated or lodged without nor separated from us ne yet framed by any thing which is not in us no nor shapen by forcible meanes and constraint to wit by mold stroke of hammer or any such thing but as it is fitted and forged by nature so it keepeth to her is conversant with her and finally perfited and accomplished by custome and continuance Which is the reason that verie properly Manners be called in Greeke by the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to give us to understand that they are nothing else to speake plainely and after a grosse manner but a certaine qualitie imprinted by long continuance of time in that part of the soule which of it selfe is unreasonable and is named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that the said reasonlesse part framed by reason taketh this qualitie or difference call it whether you will by the meanes of long time and custom which they terme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For reason is not willing to roote out quite all passions which were neither possible nor expedient but onely it doth limit them within certaine bounds and setteth downe a kinde of order and thus aftera sort causeth Morall vertues not to be impassibilities but rather mediocrities and regularities or moderations of our affections and this it doth by the meanes of prudence and wisedome which reduceth the power of this sensuall and patheticall part unto a civill and honest habitude For these three things they say are in the soule of man to wit a naturall puissance or facultie a passion or motion and also an habitude Now the said facultie or power is the verie beginning and as a man would say the matter of passions to wit the power or aptnesse to be angrie to be ashamed or to be confident and bold The passion is the actuall mooving of the said power namely anger it selfe shame confidence or boldnes The habitude is a settled and confirmed strength established in the sensuall or unreasonable part by continuall use and custome which if the passions be ill governed by reason becommeth to be a vice and contrariwise a vertue in case the same be well ordered and directed thereby Moreover forasmuch as Philosophers do not hold and affirme that everie vertue is a mediocritie nor call it Morall to the end therefore that we may the better declare and shew the difference we had need to fetch the beginning of this discourse farther off Of all things then that be in the world some have their essence and being of themselves absolutely and simply others respectively and in relation to us Absolutely have their being the earth the heaven the stars and the sea Respectively and in regard of us Good evill profitable hurtfull pleasant and displeasant Now it being so that reason doth contemplate and behold the one sort aswell as the other the former ranke of those things which are sunply and absolutely so pertaine unto science and speculation as their proper objects the second kinde of those things which are understood by reference and regard unto us pertaine properly unto consultation and action And as the vertue of the former sort is called Sapience so the vertue of the other is named Prudence For a difference there is betweene Prudence and Sapience in this that Prudence consisteth in a certaine relation application of the contemplative facultie of the soule unto Action and unto the regiment of the sensuall part according to reason by which occasion Prudence had need of the assistance of Fortune whereas Sapience hath nothing to do with it no more than it hath need of consultation for to attaine and reach unto the ende it aymeth at For that indeed it concerneth such things as be ever one and alwaies of the same sort And like as the Geometrician never consulteth as touching a triangle to wit whether it hath three angles equall to twaine that be right or no Because he knoweth assuredly that it hath for all consultations are concerning things that varie and alter sometime after one sort and otherwhiles after another and never medleth with those that be firme stable and immutable even so the understanding and contemplative facultie of the minde exercising her functions in those first and principall things which be permanent and have evermore the same nature not capable of chaunge and mutation is sequestred and exempt altogether from consultation But Prudence which descendeth to things full of varietie error trouble and confusion must of necessitie eftsoones intermedle with casualties and use deliberation in things more doubtfull and uncertaine yea and after it hath consulted to proceed unto action calling and drawing unto it the reasonlesse part also to be assistant and present as drawen into the judgement of things to be executed For need those actions have of a certaine instinct and motion to set them forward which this Morall habitude doth make in each passion and the same instinct requireth likewise the assistance of reason to limit it that it may be moderate to the ende that it neither exceed the meane nor come short and be defective for that it cannot be chosen but this brutish and passible part hath motions in it some overvehement quicke and sudden others as slow againe and more slacke than is meet Which is the reason that our actions cannot be good but after one manner whereas they may be evill after divers sorts like as a man cannot hit the marke but one way marie he may misse sundrie waies either by overshooting or comming short The part and dutie then of that active facultie of reason according to nature is to cut off and take away all those excessive or defective passions and to reduce them unto a mediocritie For whereas the said instinct or motion either by infirmitie effeminate delicacie feare or slothfulnesse doth faile and come short of dutie and the end required there active reason is present ready to rouse excite and stirre up the same Againe on the other side when it runneth on end beyond all measure after a dissolute and disorderly manner there reason is prest to abridge that which is too much and to represse and stay the same thus ruling and restraining these patheticall motions it breedeth in man these Morall vertues whereof we speake imprinting them in that reasonlesse part of the mind and no other they are than a meane betweene excesse and defect Neither must we thinke That all vertues do consist in a mediocritie for Sapience or Wisedome which stand in no need at all of the brutish and unreasonable part and consist onely in the pure and sincere intelligence and discourse of understanding
so it repugneth with others and is obstinate and disobedient whereupon it is that themselves enforced thereto by the truth of the thing do affirme and pronounce that every judgement is not a passion but that onely which stirreth up and mooveth a strong and vehement appetite to a thing confessing thereby no doubt that one thing it is in us which judgeth and another thing that suffereth that is to say which receiveth passions like as that which moveth and that which is mooved be divers Certes even Chrysippus himselfe defininig in many places what is Patience and what is Continency doth avouch That they be habitudes apt and fit to obey and follow the choise of reason whereby he sheweth evidently that by the force of truth he was driven to confesse and avow That there is one thing in us which doth obey and yeeld and another which being obeied is yeelded unto and not obeied is resisted Furthermore as touching the Stoicks who hold That all sinnes and faults be equall neither wil this place nor the time now serve to argue against them whether in other points they swerve from the trueth howbeit thus much by the way I dare be bolde to say That in most things they will be found to repugne reason even against apparent and manifest evidence For according to their opinion euery passion or perturbation is a fault and whosoever grieve feare or lust do sinne but in those passions great difference there is seene according to more or lesse for who would ever be so grosse as to say that Dolons feare was equall to the feare of Ajax who as Homer writeth As he went out of field did turne and looke behinde full oft With knee before knee decently and so retired soft or compare the sorrow of King Alexander who would needs have killed himselfe for the death of Clytus to that of Plato for the death of Socrates For dolours and griefs encrease exceedingly when they grow upon occasion of that which hapneth besides all reason like as any accident which falleth out beyond our expectation is more grievous and breedeth greater anguish than that whereof areason may be rendered and which a man might suspect to follow As for example if he who ever expected to fee his sonne advanced to honour and living in great repuration among men should heare say that he were in prison and put to all maner of torture as Parmeno was advertised of his sonne Philotas And who will ever say that the anger of Nicocreon against Anaxarchus was to be compared with that of Magas against Philemon which arose upon the same occasion for that they both were spightfully reviled by them in reprochful termes for Nicocreon caused Anaxarchus to be braid in a morter with yron pestles whereas Magas commanded the Executioner to lay a sharpe naked sword upon the necke of Philémon and so to let him go without doing him any more harme And therefore it is that Plato named anger the sinewes of the soule giving us thereby to understand that they might be stretched by bitternesse and let slake by mildnesse But the Stoicks for to avoid and put backe these objections and such like denie that these stretchings and vehement fits of passions be according to judgement for that it may faile and erre many waies saying they be certaine pricks or stings contractions diffusions or dilatations which in proportion and according to reason may be greater or lesse Certes what variety there is in judgement it is plaine and evident For some there be that deeme povertie not to be ill others holde that it is very ill and there are againe who account it the worst thing in the world insomuch as to avoid it they could be content to throw themselves headlong from high rocks into the sea Also you shall have those who reckon death to be evill in that onely it depriveth us of the fruition of many good things others there be who thinke and say as much but it is in regard of the eternall torments horrible punishments that be under the ground in hell As for bodily health some love it no otherwise than a thing agreeable to nature and profitable withall others take it to be the soveraigne good in the world as without which they make no reckoning of riches of children Ne yet of crowne and regall dignitie Which men do match even with divinitie Nay they let not in the end to thinke and say That vertue it serveth in no stead and availeth nought unlesse it be accompanied with good health whereby it appeareth that as touching judgement some erre more some lesse But my meaning is not now to dispute against this evasion of theirs Thus much onely I purpose to take for mine advantage out of their owne confession in that themselves do grant That the brutish and sensuall part according to which they say that passions be greater and more violent is different from iudgement and howsoever they may seeme to contest and cavill about words and names they grant the substance and the thing it selfe in question joining with those who mainteine that the reasonlesse part of the soule which enterteineth passions is altogether different from that whcih is able to discourse reason and judge And verily Chrysppus in those books which he entituled Of Anomologie after he hed written and taught that angenis blinde and many times will not permit a man to see those things which be plaine and apparent and as often casteth a darke mist over that which he hath already perfectly learned and knowen proceedeth forward a little further For quoth he the passions which arise drive out and chase forth all discourse of reason and such things as were judged and determined otherwise against them urging it still by force unto contrary actions Then he useth the testimonie of Menander the Poet who in one place writeth thus by way of exclamation We worth the time wretch that I am How was my minde destraught In body mine where were my wits some folly sure me caught What time I fell to this For why thereof I made no choise Farre better things they were 〈◊〉 which had my former voice The same Chrysippus also going on still It being so quoth he that a reasonable creature is by nature borne and given to use reason in all things and to be governed thereby yet notwithstanding we reject and cast it behinde us being over-ruled by another more violent motion that carieth us away In which words what doth he else but confesse even that which hapneth upon the dissention betweene affection and reason For it were a meere ridiculous mockerie in deed as Plato saith to affirme that a man were better worse than himselfe or that he were able now to master himselfe anon ready to be mastered by himselfe and how were it possible that the same man should be better worse than himselfe and at once both master and servant unlesse every one were naturally in some sort double and had
to stand upon our guard so we have no lesse cause to consider how we should converse among our neighbours Now of all those vices andimperfections which defame mans life and cause the race course thereof to be difficult wondrous painfull to passe anger is one of those which are to be ranged in the first ranke in such sort that it booteth not to be provided of good friends if this furious humor get the mastery over us like as contrariwise flatterers such other pestilent plagues have not so easie entrance into us nor such ready meanes to be possessed of us so long as we be accōpanied with a certaine wise and prudent mildnesse In this discourse then our authour doing the part of an expers Physician laboureth to purge our mindes from all choler and would traine them to modestie and humanitie so farre foorth as Philosophie morall is able to performe And for to atraine unto so great a benefit he sheweth in the first place that we ought to procure our friends for to observe and marke our imperfections that by long continuance of time we may accustome our selves to holde in our judgement by the bit of reason After certaine proper similitudes serving for this purpose and a description of the mconventences and harmes that come by wrath he prooveth that it is an easie matter to restraine and represse the same to which purpose be setteth downe divers meanes upon which he discourseth after his usuall maner that is to say with reasons and inductions enriched with notable similitudes and examples afterwards having spoken of the time and maner of chastising and correcting those who are under our power and governance he proposeth aswell certaine remedies to cure choler as preservatives to keepe us from relapse into it againe Which done he representet hire lively as in a painted able to the end that those who suffer themselves to be surprised therewith may be abashed and ashamed of their unhappy state and therewith he giveth five not able advertisements for to attaine thereto which be as it were preservatives by meanes whereof we should not feele our selves attaint any more with this maladie OF MEEKENES OR HOW A man should refraine choler A TREATISE IN MANNER of a Dialogue SYLLA IT seemeth unto me ô Fundanus that painters doe verie well and wisely to view and consider their workes often and by times betweene before they thinke them finished and let them go out of their hands for that by setting them so out of their sight and then afterwards having recourse thither againe to judge thereof they make their eies as it were new judges to spie and discerne the least fault that is which continuall looking thereupon and the ordinarie view of one and the same thing doth cover and hide from them But forasmuch as it is not possible that a man should depart from himselfe for a time and after a certaine space returne againe not that he should breake interrupt and discontinue his understanding and sense within which is the cause that each man is a worse judge of himselfe than of others A second meanes and remedie therefore in this case would be used namely to review his friends sundrie times and eftsoones likewise to yeeld himselfe to be seene and beheld by them not so much to know thereby whether he aged apace and grow soone old or whether the constitution of his bodie be better or worse than it was before as to survey and consider his manners and behaviour to wit whether time hath added any good thing or taken away ought that is bad and naught For mine owne part this being now the second yeere since I came first to this citie of Rome and the fifth month of mine acquaintance with you I thinke it no great woonder that considering your towardnes and the dexteritie of your nature those good parts which were alreadie in you have gotten so great an addition and be so much increased as they are but when I see how that vehement inclination and ardent motion of yours to anger whereunto by nature you were given is by the guidance of reason become so milde so gentle and tractable it commeth into my minde to say thereunto that which I read in Homer O what a woondrous change is here Much milder are you than you were And verily this gentlenes and meekenes of yours is not turned into a certaine sloth and generall dissolution of your vigour but like as a peece of ground well tilled lieth light and even and besides more hollow than before which maketh much for the fertilitie thereof even so your nature hath gotten in stead of that violent disposition and sudden propension unto choler a certaine equalitie and profunditie serving greatly to the management of affaires whereby also it appeereth plainely that it is not long of the decaying strength of the bodie by reason of declining age neither yet of the owne accord that your hastinesse and cholericke passion is thus faded but rather by meanes of good reasons and instructions well cured And yet verily for unto you I will be bold to say the truth at the first I suspected and could not well beleeve Eros our familiar friend when he made this report of you unto me as doubting that he was readie to give this testimonie of you in regard of affection and good will bearing me in hand of those things which were not indeed in you but ought to be in good and honest men and yet as you know well ynough he is not such a man as for favour of any person and for to please can be easily perswaded and brought to say otherwise than he thinketh But now as he is freed and acquit from the crime of bearing false witnesse so you since this journey and travell upon the way affoordeth you good leasure will I doubt not at my request declare and recount unto us the order how you did this cure upon your selfe and namely what medicines and remedies you used to make that cholericke nature of yours so gentle so tractable so soft and supple so obeisant I say and subject wholy to the rule of reason FUNDANUS But why do you not your selfe ô Sylla my deerest and most affectionate friend take heed that for the amitie and good will which you beare unto me you be not deceived and see one thing in me for another As for Eros who for his owne part hath not alwaies his anger stedfastly staied with the cable and anchor of Homers Peisa that is obedient and abiding firme in one place but otherwhiles much mooved and out of quiet for the hatred that he hath of vice and vicious men it may verie wel be and like it is that unto him I seeme more milde and gentle than before like as we see in changing and altering the notes of prick-song or the Gam-ut in musicke certaine Netae or notes which are the base in one 8. being compared which other Netae morelow and base become Hypatae that is
and discommodities of our life And Plutarch entring into this matter sheweth first in generallity That men learne as it were in the schoole of brute beasts with what affection they should beget nourish and bring up their children afterward he doth particularise thereof and enrich the same argument by divers examples But for that he would not have us thinke that he extolled dumbe beasts above man and woman he observeth and setteth downe verie well the difference that is of amities discoursing in good and modest tearmes as touching the generation and nouriture of children and briefly by the way representeth unto us the miserable entrance of man into this race upon earth where he is to runne his course Which done he proveth that the nourishing of infants hath no other cause and reason but the love of fathers and mothers he discovereth the source of this affection and for a conclusion sheweth that what defect and fault soever may come betweene and be medled among yet it can not altogether abolish the same OF THE NATURALL LOVE OR KINDNES OF PARENTS to their children THat which mooved the Greeks at first to put over the decision of their controversies to forraine judges and to bring into their countrey strangers to be their Umpires was the distrust and diffidence that they had one in another as if they confessed thereby that justice was indeed a thing necessarie for mans lite but it grew not among them And is not the case even so as touching certaine questions disputable in Philosophie for the determining whereof Philosophers by reason of the sundry and divers opinions which are among them have appealed to the nature of brute beasts as it were into a strange city and remitted the deciding thereof to their properties and affections according to kinde as being neither subject to partiall favour nor yet corrupt depraved and polluted Now surely a common reproch this must needs be to mans naughtie nature and leawd behaviour That when we are in doubtfull question concerning the greatest and most necessary points perteining to this present life of ours we should goe and search into the nature of horses dogs and birds for resolution namely how we ought to make our marriages how to get children and how to reare and nourish them after they be borne and as if there were no signe in maner or token of nature imprinted in our selves we must be faine to alledge the passions properties and affections of brute beasts and to produce them for witnesses to argue and prove how much in our life we transgresse and go aside from the rule of nature when at our first beginning and entrance into this world we finde such trouble disorder and confusion for in those dumbe beasts beforesaid nature doth retaine and keepe that which is her owne and proper simple entire without corruption or alteration by any strange mixture wheras contrariwise it seemeth that the nature of man by discourse of their reason and custome together is mingled and confused with so many extravagant opinions and judgements fet from all parts abroad much like unto oile that commeth into perfumers hands that thereby it is become manifolde variable and in every one severall and particular and doeth not retaine that which the owne indeed proper and peculiar to it selfe neither ought we to thinke it a strange matter and a woonderfull that brute beasts void of reason should come neerer unto nature and follow her steps better than men endued with the gift of reason for surely the verie senselesse plants heerein surpasse those beasts beforesaid and observe better the instinct of nature for considering that they neither conceive any thing by imagination nor have any motion affection or inclination at all so verily their appetite such as it is varieth not nor stirreth to and fro out of the compasse of nature by meanes whereof they continue and abide as if they were kept in and bound within close-prison holding on still in one and the same course and not stepping once out of that way wherein nature doth leade and conduct them as for beasts they have not any such great portion of reason to temper and mollifie their naturall properties neither any great subtiltie of sense and conceit nor much desire of libertie but having many instincts inclinations and appetites not ruled by reason they breake out by the meanes thereof other-whiles wandering astray and running up and downe to and fro howbeit for the most part not very farre out of order but they take sure holde of nature much like a ship which lieth in the rode at anchor well may she daunce and be rocked up and downe but she is not caried away into the deepe at the pleasure of windes and waves or much after the maner of an asse or hackney travelling with bit and bridle which go not out of the right streight way wherein the master or rider guideth them whereas in man even reason herselfe the mistresse that ruleth and commandeth all findeth out new cuts as it were and by-waies making many starts and excursions at her pleasure to and fro now heere now there whereupon it is that she leaveth no plaine and apparant print of natures tracts and footing Consider I pray you in the first place the mariages if I may so terme them of dumbe beasts and reasonlesse creatures and namely how therein they folow precisely the rule and direction of nature To begin withall they stand not upon those lawes that provide against such as marrie not but lead a single life neither make they reckoning of the acts which lay a penaltie upon those that be late ere they enter into wedlocke like as the citizens under Lycurgus and Solon who stood in awe of the said statutes they feare not to incurre the infamie which followed those persons that were barren and never had children neither doe they regard and seeke after the honours and prerogatives which they atteined who were fathers of three children like as many of the Romains do at this day who enter into the state of matrimonie wedde wives 〈◊〉 beget children not to the end that they might have heires to inherit their lands and goods 〈◊〉 that they might themselves be inheritors capable of dignities immunities But to proceed unto more particulars the male afterwards doth deale with the female in the act of generation not at all times for that the end of their conjunction and going together is not grosse pleasure so much as the engendring of young and the propagation of their kinde and therefore at a certeine season of the yeare to wit the very prime of the spring when as the pleasant winds so apt for generation do gently blow and the temperature of the aire is friendly unto breeders commeth the female full lovingly and kindly toward her fellow the male even of her owne accord and motion as it were trained by the hand of that secret instinct and desire in nature and for her owne part she doth what
no insolencie some delight or disport profitable and procure laughter not accompanied with wanton reproofe and scornefull reproch but such as carieth a grace and pleasure with it for this is it wherein most part of feasts suffer shipwracke namely when they are misgoverned or not ordered as they ought to be But the part it is of a wise and prudent man to know how to avoid enmity and anger in the market-place gotten by avarice in the publicke halles of bodily exercises by contention and emulation in bearing offices and suing for them by ambition and vain-glory and last of all in feasts and banquets by such plaies and pastimes THE FIFTH QUESTION What is meant by this common proverbe Love teacheth musicke and poetrie THe question was mooved one day in Sossius Sesnerius house after certeine verses of Sappho were chanted how this saying of Euripides should be understood Love teacheth musicke marke when you will Tough one before thereof had no skill considering that the poet Philoxenus reporteth how Cyclops Polyphemus the giant cured his love by the sweet tongued muses Whereupon it was alledged that Love is of great power to moove a man for to be bold hardy and adventurous yea and ministreth a readinesse to attempt all novelties according as Plato named it the enterpriser of all things for it maketh him talkative and full of words who before was silent it causeth the bashfull and modest person to court it and put himselfe forward in all maner of service it is the meanes that an idle carelesse lubber and a negligent becommeth diligent and industrious and that which a man would most marvell at a miching hard-head and mechanicall penifather if he fall once to love doth relent and waxe soft as iron in the fire and so prooveth more liberall courteous and kinde than ever before so that this pleasant and merry proverbe seemeth not to be altogether ridiculous impertinent namely that Loves purse is tied knit up with a leeke or porret blade Moreover it was there spoken That Love resembled drunkennesse for that the one aswell as the other doth set folke in a heat it maketh them cheerfull merry and jocund and when as men be come once to that they fall soone to sing to rime and make verses And it is said that the poet Aeschylus composed his tragedies when he had well drunken and was heat with wine I had a grandfather also my selfe named Lamprias who seemed alwaies more learned witty and fuller of inventions yea and to surpasse himselfe in that kinde when he had taken his cups liberally and he was wont to say That at such a time he was like unto incense which being set on fire rendereth the sweet odour that it hath Moreover they that take exceeding great pleasure to see their loves are no lesse affected with joy when they do praise them than in looking upon them for love as it is in every thing a great pratler and full of words so especially and most of all in praises insomuch as lovers would willingly perswade others to that wherein they are themselves perswaded first namely that they love nothing but that which is perfect in goodnesse and beautie and others they would have to be witnesses with them of it This was it that induced the Lydian king Candaules to draw and traine Giges into his bed-chamber for to see the beautie of his wife naked for why such are willing to have the restimonie of others Loe what the reason is that if they write the praises of that which they love they embelish and adorne the same with verses songs and meeter like as images with golde to the end that the said praises might be heard more willingly and remembred better by more people for if they bestow a fighting-cocke an horse or any other thing whatsoever upon those whom they love their minde is principally that this their present should be faire and beautifull in it selfe afterwards that it be most gallantly and in best maner set out but above all in case they be disposed to flatter them in words or writings their chiefe care is that the same run roundly and pleasantly that they be also glorious and beautified with fine figures such as is ordinarily the stile of poets Then Sossius approving well of these reasons said moreover That it were well if some would take in hand to draw and gather arguments out of that which Theophrastus left in writing as touching musicke For long it is not quoth he since I read over that booke wherein he delivereth thus much after a divine maner That three principall causes or roots there be of musicke to wit paine or griefe pleasure or joy and the ravishment of the spirit of which three every one doth bend and turne the voice a little out of the ordinary tune for griefs and sorrowes usually bring with them moanes and plaints which quickly run into song which is the reason that we see oratours in the perorations or conclusions of their speeches the actours also in tragedies when they come to make their dolefull lamentations bring their voices downe gently to a kinde of melodie and by little and little tune them as it were thereto Also the great and vehement joies of the minde do lift up all the body of them especially who are any thing lightsome by nature yea and provoke the same to leape skip and clappe their hands observing a kinde of motion according to number and measure if they can not dance And otherwise in furious sort Like frantike folke they do disport They shake they wag they set out throat And send out many a foolish note according as Pindarus saith But in case they be somewhat more grave and staied than others when they finde themselves moved with such a passion of joy they let their voice onely go at liberty speaking aloud and singing sonnets But above all the ravishment of the spirit or that divine inspiration which is called Enthusiasmus casteth bodie mind voice and all far beyond the ordinary habit which is the cause that the furious and raging priests of Bacchus called Bacchae use rime meeter those also who by a propheticall spirit give answeres by oracle deliver the same in verse and few persons shall a man see starke mad but among their raving speeches they sing and say some verses This being so if you would now display love and view it well being unfolded and laied open abroad hardly shall you meet with another passion which hath either sharper dolours or joies more violent or greater exstasies and ravishments of the spirit lying as it were in a trance so that a man may discover in amorous persons a soule much like unto that city which Sophocles describeth Full of songs and incense sweet Of sighs and groanes in every street No marvell is it therefore nor a strange thing if love conteining comprehending in it selfe all those primitive causes of musicke to wit dolour joy and ravishment of spirit be
a little troubled at this chalenge but after he had paused and thought upon the matter a while in the end he spake to this effect It is an ordinary thing quoth he with Plato to play with us many times merrily by certeine devised names that hee useth but whensoever hee inserteth some fable in any treatise of the soule he doth it right soberly and hath a deepe meaning and profound sense therein for the intelligent nature of heaven he calleth a Chariot volant to wit the harmonicall motion and revolution of the world and heere in this place whereof we are now in question to wit in the end of the tenth booke of his Common-wealth he bringeth in a messenger from hell to relate newes of that which he had there himselfe seene and calleth him by the name of Era a Pamphylian borne and the sonne of Armonius giving us covertly by an aenigmaticall conveiance thus much to understand That our soules are engendred by harmonie and so joined to our bodies but when they be disjoined and separate from them they runne together all into aire from every side and so returne againe from thence unto second generations what should hinder then but this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was put downe by him not to shew a truth whereof he spake but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a probable speech and conjecturall fiction or else a thing spoken as it should seeme to a dead bodie and so uttered vainly and at a venture in the aire for Plato alwaies toucheth three causes as being the philosopher who either first knew or principally understood how fatall destiny is mingled with fortune and againe how our freewill is woont to bee joined with either of them or is complicate with both and now in this place before cited hee sheweth excellently well what power each of these causes hath in our humane affaires attributing the choice and election of our life unto free will for vertue and vice be free and at the commaund of no lord and tying to the necessitie of fatall destinie a religious life to God-ward in them who have made a good choise and contrariwise in those who have made a choise of the woorst but the cadences or chaunces of lots which being cast at a venture and lighting heere and there without order befall to every one of us bring in fortune and preoccupate or prevent much of that which is ours by the sundry educations or governments of common-weale wherein it hapneth each of us to live for this I would have every one of you to consider whether it bee not meere folly and without all reason to seeke for a cause of that which is done by fortune and casually for if lot should seeme to come by reason there were to be imputed no more to fortune or adventure but all to some fatall destinie or providence Whiles Lamprias delivered this speech Marcus the Grammarian seemed to count and number I wot not what upon his fingers to himselfe apart but when he had made an end the said Marcus named aloud all those soules or spirits which are called out in Homers Necya Among which quoth he the ghost onely of Elpenor wandering still in the middle confines is not reckoned with those beneath in another world for that his bodie as yet is not interred and committed to the earth as for the soule of Tiresias also it seemeth not to bee numbred with the rest To whom now dead Proserpina above the rest did give This gift alone right wise to be although he did not live as also the power to speake with the living and to understand their state and affaires even before he had drunke the bloud of sacrificed beasts If then quoth hee ô Lamprias you subtract these two and count the rest you shall finde that the soule of Ajax was just the twentieth of those which presented themselves to Ulysses and heereto alluded Plato as it should seeme by way of mirth joining his fable together with that evocation of spirits otherwise called Necyra in Homers Odyssea THE SIXTH QUESTION What is covertly meant by the fable wherein Neptune is feigned to have beene vanquished as also why the Athenians take out the second day of the moneth August NOw when the whole company were growen to a certeine uprore Menephyllus a Peripateticke philosopher calling unto Hylas by name You see quoth he now that this question was not propounded by way of mockerie and contumelious flouting but you my good friend leaving this froward and mal-contented Ajax whose name as Sophocles saith is ominous and of ill presage betake your selfe unto Neptune and side with him a while who is wont to recount unto us himselfe how he hath beene oftentimes overcome to wit in this city by Minerva at Delphi by Apollo in Argos by Juno in Aegina by Jupiter and in Naxus by Bacchus and yet in all his repulses disfavors and infortunities he bare himselfe alwaies mild and gentle carying no ranckor or malice in his heart for proofe heereof there is even in this city a temple common to him and Minerva in which there standeth also an altar dedicated to Oblivion Then Hylas who seemed by this time more pleasantly disposed But you have forgotten quoth he ô Menephyllus that we have abolished the second day of the moneth August not in regard of the moone but because it was thought to be the day upon which Neptune and Minerva pleaded for the scignorie of this territorie of Attica Now I assure you quoth Lamprias Neptune was every way much more civill and reasonable than Thrasibulus in case being not a winner as the other but a loser he could forget all grudge and malice A great breach and defect there is in the Greeke originall wherein wanteth the farther handling of this question as also 5. questions entier following and a part of the 6. to wit 7 Why the accords in musicke are devided into three 8 Wherein differ the intervals or spaces melodious from those that be accordant 9 What cause is it that maketh accord and what is the reason that when one toucheth two strings accordant together the melody is ascribed to the base 10 What is the cause that the eclipticke revolutions of sunne and moone being in number equall yet we see the moone oftner ecclipsed than the sunne 11 That we continue not alwaies one and the same in regard of the daily deflux of our substance 12 Whether of the twaine is more probable that the number of starres is even or odde Of this twelfth question thus much remaineth as followeth Lysander was wont to say That children are to be deceived with cockall bones but men with othes Then Glaucias I have heard quoth he that this speech was used against Polycrates the tyrant but it may be that it was spoken also to others But whereby do you demaund this of me Because verily quoth Sospis I see that children snatch at such bones the Academiques catch at words for it
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
most strictly happen many of them to encounter one another and meet together in which regard they differ in figures and magnitudes now when they are thus gathered and heaped up together in one the greater sort of them and such as were most ponderous settled altogether downeward as many of them as were small round even smooth and slipperie those being beaten upon by the encounter of these weightie bodies were repulsed driven backe and forced upward but when that force which drave them aloft began to faile and gave over once to send them up higher not being able to fall downward againe for that they were empeached they were of necessitie enforced to retire into those places which were able to receive them to wit such as were round about them unto which a mightie number of bodies being wound together in an heape and by meanes of the repercussion enterlaced one within another they engendred and brought forth the heaven and afterwards others of the same nature yet of divers formes as hath been said before being likewise driven up aloft accomplished the nature of Stars Moreover the multitude of those bodies yeelding a vapour and exhalation did beat forward and drive the aire which by stirring and motion being converted into wind and comprising therewith the Starres turned them about with it and so maintaine unto this day that revolution which they have aloft Of those bodies then which setled below was made the earth and of such as mounted on high the heaven the fire and the aire but round about the earth by occasion that there was much matter yet left and the same incrassate and thickned by the forcible driving of the winds and the breathing of the starres all that part thereof which was more subtile and of a thinner forme and consistance gathered round together and engendred the element of water which being of a liquid and flowing nature ran downward to holow places lying low which were able to receive and hold them or else the water of it selfe where it staied and rested made concavities and hollow places underneath Thus you see after what manner the principall parts of the world were first engendred and made CHAP. V. Whether All be one THe STOIKE Philosophers held opinion that the world was one which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say All and the same of corporall substance EMPEDOCLES affirmed that the world indeed was one but All and the world were not both one for the world quoth he is but a small portion of All and as for the rest beside it is but an idle and dull matter PLATO proveth his opinion that the world is but one by conjecture and guesseth All to be one by three presumptions or probable arguments First for that otherwise the world were not perfect and accomplished if it comprised not All within it selfe Secondly it should not be like unto the pattern if it were not one and uniforme Thirdly it would not be incorruptible in case there were any thing without it But wee are to answere Plato and say against him that the world is perfect although it comprehend not all things for man is perfect enough and yet all things be not comprised in him Moreover there be many examples drawn from one pattern as we may see in statues houses and pictures and how is it perfect if any thing may turne without it Finally incorruptible neither is it nor can it be considering it had a beginning and a kind of Nativitie METRODORUS saith That as it were an absurd and impertinent speech to say that in a great field there grew but one eare of corne so it were as strange a matter that in this infinitie there should be but one world and that there be in number infinite it appeareth by this that there be causes infinite for if the world were finite and all the causes infinite whereof it is made it cannot chuse but of necessitie there should be likewise infinite for where all the causes be there must needs the effects follow now the causes of the world be either these Atomes or the Elements CHAP. VI. From whence it came that Men had the notion of God THe Stoicke Philosophers define the Essence of God in this wise namely To be a spirit full of intelligence and of a fiery nature having no forme but transforming himselfe into whatsoever he will and resembling all things The notion and apprehension men had of him first by conceiving the beautic of those things which are object to their eies for no beautifull thing hath beene made by chaunce and at adventure but composed framed by some ingenious and operative Art now that the heaven is beautifull it appeareth by the forme colour and bignesse thereof by the varietie also of the starres disposed therein moreover the world is round in manner of a Ball which figure of all other is principall and most perfect for it alone resembleth all the parts for being round it selfe it hath the parts likewise round For this cause Plato said That our mind and reason the most divine part of man is lodged and seated in the head which commeth neere unto a round figure as for the colour it is faire and lovely for it standeth upon the azure or blew which being more darke than purple hath notwithstanding a bright and resplendent qualitie in such sort as by the exceeding strength of that lightsome hew it cutteth and pierceth thorow so great an intervall and spaciousnesse of the aire as it may be evidently seene in so mightie a distance in regard also of the greatnesse thereof it is right beautifull for of all things that be of one and the same kinde that which invironeth and conteineth the rest is ever fairest as we may see in a living creature and a tree besides to consummate and accomplish the beautie of the world there be the celestiall signes which appeare unto our eie for the oblique circle of the Zodiake is embelished with twelve divers and sundry images Wherein the CRAB is to be seene the LION after it The VIRGIN and two forked CLEES the SCORPION with his bit The ARCHER and the CAPRICORNE upon which horned GOAT There follow with the WATER-MAN two FISHES all afloat And after these ensue in course the RAM and sturdy Bull But last of all the double TWINNES make up the douzen full Besides an innumerable sort of other configurations of starres which God hath made in the like arches and rotundities of the world whereupon Euripides wrote thus The starrie splendour of the skie which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some do call The woondrous worke of that most wise Creatour Lord of all Thus then we apprehended heereby the notion of God for the sunne the moone and other starres after they have performed the course of their revolutions under the earth come to rise againe all like in colour equall in bignesse and reteining alwaies still the same places and times whereupon they who deliver unto us the
say Goats rivers where there fell sometime a stonestarre in forme of fire EMPEDOCLES holdeth that the fixed Starres which wander not be fastned to the christall skie but the planets are loose and at liberty PLATO giveth out that for the most part they be of fire and yet neverthelesse they participate with other elements in maner of glue or soder XENOPHANES is of opinion that they consist of clouds inflamed which notwithstanding are quenched every day afterwards againe be fiered in the night in maner of coles as for the rising and setting of Starres they be nothing else but their catching fire and quenching HFRACLYDES and the PYTHAGOREANS hold that every Star is a world by it selfe conteining an earth an aire and a skie in an infinit celestiall nature and these opinions goe current in the verses of Orpheus for they make of every Starre a world EPICURUS reprooveth none of all this but holdeth still that old note of his It may so be CHAP. XIIII The forme and figure of Starres THe STOICKS say that the Starres be sphaericke or round like as the world the sunne and moone CLEANTHES holdeth them to bee pointed and pyramidall ANXIMENES saith they sticke fast in the christalline skie like a number of nailes Others imagine that they be fierie plates like unto 〈◊〉 pictures CHAP. XV. Of the order and situation of Starres XENOCRATES supposeth that the Starres moove upon one and the same superficies but other Stoicks affirme that there be some afore others in heigth and depth DEMOCRITUS raungeth the fixed Starres first next the planets and after them the sunne the moone and the day-starre 〈◊〉 PLATO after the situation of the fixed Starres setteth in the first place that which is called Phaenon to wit the Starre of Saturne in the second Phaethon which is the Starre of Jupiter in the third Pyroeis that is to say fierie or ardent and it is that of Mars in the fourth Phosphorus and that is Venus in the fifth Stilbon which is Mercurie in the sixth the Sunne and last in the seventh the Moone Of the Mathematicians some accord with Plato others place the Sunne in the middes of them all ANAXIMANDER METRODORUS the Chian and CRATES affirme that the Sunne is placed highest of all next to him the Moone and under him the fixed Starres and the Planets CHAP. XVI Of the lation and motion of the Starres ANAXAGORAS DEMOCRITUS and CLEANTHES doe hold that all Starres doe moove from east to west ALCMAEON and the Mathematicians say that the planets hold an opposite course to the fixed Starres and namely from the west to the east ANAXIMANDER saith they be caried by their sphaeres and circles upon which they are fastned ANAXIMENES is of opinion that they roll as well toward the earth as turne about the earth PLATO and the Mathematicians hold that the course of the Sunne of Venus and of Mercurie is the same and equall CHAP. XVII From whence the Starres have their illumination METRODORUS thinketh that all the fixed Starres have their light from the sunne HERACLYTUS and the Stoicks say that the Starres bee nourished by exhalations arising from the earth ARISTOTLE opineth that the celestiall bodies need no nouriture for that they are not corruptible but eternall PLATO and the Stoicks hold that all the world and the Starres likewise be nourished of themselves CHAP. XVIII Of the two Starres named Dioscuri to wit Castor and Pollux XENOPHANES doth mainteine that the lights like Starres which appeere otherwhiles upon ships are thinne and subtill clouds which after a kinde of motion doe shine METRODORUS saith they be certeine glittering sparkels glauncing and leaping out of their eies who behold them with feare and astonishment CHAP. XIX Of the fignification of Starres and how commeth winter and summer PLATO saith that the tokens significations both of Winter and Summer proceed from the rising and setting of Sunne Moone and other Starres as well fixed as wandring ANAXIMENES saith that none of all this is occasioned by the Moone but by the Sunne onely EUDOXUS and ARATUS affirme them to bee in common by meanes of all the Starres and ARATUS sheweth as much in these verses These radiant starres and lights so evident As signes God hath set in the firmament Distinct in great foresight throughout the yeere To shew how all the seasons ordered were CHAP. XX. Of the Sunnes substance 〈◊〉 affirmeth that the circle of the Sunne is eight and twentie times bigger than the earth having an hollow apsis about it like for all the world unto a chariot wheele and the same full of fire 〈◊〉 in one certeine place whereof there is a mouth at which the fire is seene as out of the hole of a flute or such like pipe and the same is the Sunne XENOPHANES holdeth that there is a certeine gathering of small fires which by occasion of moist exhalations meet together and they all being collected make the bodie of the Sun or els quoth he is a cloud set on fire The STOICKS say that the Sun is an inflamed body intellectuall or humour inflamed proceeding out of the sea PLATO imagineth it to consist of much 〈◊〉 ANAXAGORAS DEMOCRITUS and METRODORUS suppose it to be a masse of yron or a stone inflamed ARISTOTLE is of opinion that it is a sphaere out of the fifth body PHILOLAUS the Pythagorean is perswaded that it is in maner of a glasse receiving the reverberation of all the fire in the world and transmitting the light thereof unto us as it were thorow a tannise or streiner in such sort as that fierie light in heaven resembleth the Sun then that which proceedeth from it is in forme of a mirrour and thirdly there is a splendour which by way of reflexion from that mirrour is spread upon us and this call we the Sun as it were the image of an image EMPEDOCLES is of this minde that there be two Sunnes the one an originall and primitive fire which is in the other hemisphaere of the world and the same filling this hemisphaere of ours as being alwaies situate full opposit to the reflexion of the resplendent light thereof as for this that we see it is the light in that other hemisphaere replenished with aire mixed with heat the same is occasioned by refraxion from the earth that is more round entring into the Sun which is of a Crystalline nature and yet is trained and caried away together with the motion of that fire But to speake more plainly and succinctly in fewer words this is as much to say as the Sunne is nothing els but the reflexion of that light of the fire which is about the earth EPICURUS imagineth the Sun to be a terrestriall spissitude or thicknesse yet spungeous as it were and hollow in maner of a pumish stone and in those holes lightned by fire CHAP. XXI Of the Sunnes magnitude ANAXIMANDER is of opinion that the Sunne is equall in bignesse to the earth but the circle from which he hath his respiration
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
which begin three tragoedies of Euripides 1 King Danaus who fiftie daughters had 2 Pelops the sonne of Tantalus when he to Pisa came 3 Cadmus whilom the citie Sidon left He lived 98 yeeres or as some say a full hundred could not endure for to see Greece fower times brought into servitude the yeere before he died or as some write fower yeeres before he wrote his Panathenaick oration as for his Panegyrik oration he was in penning it tenne yeeres and by the report of some fifteene which he is thought to have translated and borrowed out of Gorgias the Leontine and Lysias and the oration concerning the counterchange of goods he wrote when he was fourescore yeeres old twaine but his Philippike oration he set downe a little before his death when he was farre stepped in yeeres he adopted for his sonne Aphareus the yoongest of the three children of Plathane his wife the daughter of Hippias the oratour and professed Rhetorician He was of good wealth as well for that he called duely for money of his scholars as also because he received of Nicocles king of Cypres who was the sonne of Euagoras the summe of twenty talents of silver for one oration which hee dedicated unto him by occasion of this riches he became envied and was thrice chosen and enjoined to be the captaine of a galley and to defray the charges thereof for the two first times he feigning himselfe to be sicke was excused by the meanes of his sonne but at the third time he rose up and tooke the charge wherein he spent no small summe of money There was a father who talking with him about his sonne whom he kept at schoole said That he sent with him no other to be his guide and governour but a slave of his owne unto whom Isocrates answered Goe your waies then for one slave you shall have twaine Hee entred into contention for the prize at the solemne games which queene Artemisia exhibited at the funerals and tombe of her husband Mausolus but this enchomiasticall oration of his which he made in the praise of him is not extant another oration he penned in the praise of Helena as also a third in the commendation of the counsell Areopagus Some write that he died by absteining nine daies together from all meat others report but fower even at the time that the publike obsequies were solemnized for them who lost their lives in the battell at Chaeronea His adopted sonne Aphareus composed likewise certeine orations enterred hee was together with all his linage and those of his bloud neere unto a place called Cynosarges upon a banke or knap of a little hill on the left hand where were bestowed the sonne and father Theodorus their mother also and her sister Anaco aunt unto the oratour his adopted sonne likewise Aphareus together with his cousen germain Socrates sonne to the a foresaid aunt Anaco Isocrates mothers sister his brother Theodorus who bare the name of his father his nephewes or children of his adopted sonne Aphareus and his naturall Theodorus moreover his wife Plathane mother to his adopted sonne Aphareus upon all these bodies there were six tables or tombs erected of stone which are not to be seene as this day but there stood upon the tombe of Isocrates himselfe a mightie great ramme engraven to the height of thirtie cubits upon which there was a syren or mere-maid seven cubits high to signifie under a figure his milde nature and eloquent stile there was besides neere unto him a table conteining certaine poets and his owne schole-masters among whom was Gorgias looking upon an astrologicall sphaere and Isocrates himselfe standing close unto him furthermore there is erected a brasen image of his in Eleusin before the entrie of the gallery Stoa which Timotheus the sonne of Caron caused to be made bearing this epi gram or inscription Timotheus upon a loving minde And for to honour mutuall kindnesses This image of Isocrates his friende Erected hath unto the goddesses This statue was the handi-worke of Leochares There goe under his name threescore orations of which five and twentie are his indeed according to the judgement of Dionysius but as Cecilius saith eight and twentie all the rest are falsly attributed unto him So farre was he off from ostentation and so little regard had hee to put foorth himselfe and shew his sufficiencie that when upon a time there came three unto him of purpose to heare him declame and discourse he kept two of them with him and the third he sent away willing him to returne the next morrow For now quoth he I have a full theater in mine auditorie He was wont to say also unto his scholars and familiars That himselfe taught his art for ten pounds of silver but hee would give unto him that could put into him audacity and teach him good utterance ten thousand When one demanded of him it was possible that he should make other men sufficient orators seeing himselfe was nothing eloquent Why not quoth he seeing that whet-stones which can not cut at all make iron and steele sharpe enough and able to cut Some say that he composed certeine books as touching the art of rhetorick but others are of opinion that it was not by any method but exercise onely that he made his scholars good oratours this is certeine that he never demanded any mony of naturall citizens borne for their teaching His maner was to bid his scholars to be present at the great assemblies of the citie and to relate unto him what they heard there spoken and delivered He was wonderfull heavy and sorrowfull out of measure for the death of Socrates so as the morrow after he mourned put on blacke for him Againe unto one who asked him what was Rhetorick he answered It is the art of making great matters of small small things of great Being invited one day to Nicocreon the tyrant of Cypres as he sat at the table those that were present requested him to discourse of some theame but he answered thus For such matters wherein I have skill the time will not now serve and in those things that sit the time I am nothing skilfull Seeing upon a time Sophocles the tragicall poet following wantonly and hunting with his eie a yoong faire boy he said O Sophocles an honest man ought to conteine not his hands onely but his eies also When Ephorus of Cunes went from his schoole non proficiens and able to doe nothing by reason whereof his father Demophilus sent him againe with a second salary or minervall Isocrates smiled thereat and merily called him Diphoros that is to say bringing his money twice so hee tooke great paines with the man and would himselfe prompt him and give him matter and invention for his declamatorie exercise Inclined he was and naturally given unto the pleasures of wanton love in regard whereof he used to lie upon a thinne and hard short mattresse and to have the pillow and bolster under his
hurt their flesh nor put them to any paine whatsoever The goats of Candy when they be shotte into the body with arrowes or darts fall to eat the herbe Dictamus thereby thrust them out and make them fal off with facility by this meanes they have taught women with child that this herbe hath a propertie to cause abortive birth and the child in their wombe to miscarrie for the said goats are no sooner wounded but they runne presently to this herbe and never seeke after any other remedy Woonderfull these things are no doubt howbeit lesle miraculous when we consider the natures of beasts how they be capable of arithmeticke and have the knowledge of numbring and keeping account as the kine and oxen about Susa for appointed they be there to water the kings gardens drawing up water in buckets with a device of wheels that they turne about in maner of a windles and everie one of them for their part must draw up an hundred buckets in a day so many they will do just but more you shal not get of them neither by faire meanes nor foule for no sooner have they performed their task but presently they give over impossible it is to force them any farther then their account notwithstanding triall hath bene made so justly and exactly they both know and also keepe the reckoning as Ctesians the Guidian hath left in writing As for the Lybians they mocke the Aegyptians for reporting this of their beast called Oryx as a great singularitie that hee setteth up a certaine crie that verie day and houre when as the star named by them Sothe and by us the Dog or 〈◊〉 doth arise for they give out that with them all their goats together at the verie instant when the said starre mounteth up within their horizon with the sunne will bee sure to turne and looke into the east and this they hold to be an infallible signe of the revolution of that starre agreeing just with the rules and observations of the Mathematicians But to close up and conclude at length this discourse that it may come to an end let us as it were take in hand the sacred anchor and for a finall conclusion knit up all with a briefe speech of their divinitie and propheticall nature For certaine it is that one of the greatest most noble and ancient parts of divination or soothsaying is that which being drawen from the flight and singing of birds they call Augurie and in truth the nature of these birds being so quicke so active so spirituall and in regard of that agilitie nimblenesse verie pliable and obsequent to all visions fantasies presented offereth it selfe unto God as a proper instrument to be used turned which way he wil one while to motion another while into certaine voices laies tunes yea into divers sundrie gestures now to stop and stay anon to drive and put forward in manner of the winds by meanes whereof he impeacheth and holdeth backe some actions and affections but directeth others unto their end accomplishment And this no doubt is the reason that Euripides tearmeth al birds in generall the heraulds and messengers of the gods and particularly Socrates said that he was become a fellow servitor with the swans semblably among the kings Pyrrhus was well pleased when as men called him the Eagle and Antiochus tooke as great pleasure to be called the Sacre or the Hauke Whereas contrariwise when we are disposed to mocke to flout or to reproch those that be dull indocible and blockish wee call them fishes To bee short an hundred thousand things there be that God doth shew foretell and prognosticate unto us by the meanes of beasts as well those of the land beneath as the fowles of the aire above But who that shall plead in the behalfe of fishes or water-creatures will not be able to alledge so much as one for deafe they be all and dombe blind also for any fore-sight or providence that they have as being cast into a balefull place and bottomlesse gulfe where impious Atheists rebellious Titans or giants against God are bestowed where they have no sight of God no more than in hell where damned soules are where the reasonable and intellectuall part of the soule is utterly extinct and the rest that remaineth drenched or rather drowned as a man would say in the most base and vile sensuall part so as they seeme rather to pant then to live HERACLEON Plucke up your browes good Phaedimus open your eies awake your spirits and bestirre your selfe in the defense of us poore Ilanders and maritime inhabitants for here we have heard not a discourse iwis merrily devised to passe away the time but a serious plea premeditate and laboured before hand a verie Rhetoricall declamation which might beseeme well to bee pronounced at the barre in judiciall court or delivered from a pulpit and tribunall before a publicke audience PHAEDIMUS Now verily good sir Heracleon this is a meere surprise and a manifest ambush laid craftily of set purpose for this brave oratour as you see being yet fasting and sober himselfe and having studied his oration all night long hath set upon us at the disvantage and altogether unprovided as being still heavy in the head and drenched with the wine that we drunke yesterday Howbeit we ought not now to draw backe and recule for all this for being as I am an affectionate lover of the poet Pindarus I would not for any good in the world heare this sentence of his justly alledged against me When games of prise and combats once are set Who shrinketh backe and doth pretend some let In darknesse hides and obscuritie His fame of vertue and activitie for at great leasure we are all and not the dances onely be at repose but also dogs and horses castnets drags and all manner of nets besides yea and this day there is a generall cessation given to all creatures as wel on land as in sea for to give eare unto this disputation And as for you my masters here have no doubt nor be you affraid for I will use my libertie in a meane and not draw out an Apologie or counterplea in length by alledging the opinions of philosophers the fables of the Aegyptians the headlesse tales of the Indians or Libyans without proofe of any testimonies but quickly come to the point and looke what examples be most manifest and evident to the eie and such as shall bee testified and verified by all those marriners or travellers that are acquainted with the seas some few of them I will produce And yet verily in the proofes and arguments drawen from creatures above the ground there is nothing to empeach the sight the view of them being so apparant and daily presented unto our eie whereas the sea affoordeth us the sight of a few effects within it those hardly and with much adoe as it were by a glaunce and glimmering light hiding from us the most part
of the breeding and feeding of fishes the meanes also that they use either to assaile one another or to defend themselves wherein I assure you there be actions of prudence memory societie and equity not a few which because they are not knowen it cannot chuse but our discourse as touching this argument will be lesse enriched and enlarged with examples and so by consequence the cause more hardly defended and mainteined Over and besides this advantage have land beasts that by reason of their affinity as it were and daily conversation with men they get a tincture as it were from them of their maners and fashions and consequently enjoy a kinde of nurture teaching discipline and apprentising by imitation which is able to dulce allay and mittigate all the bitternesse and austerity of their nature no lesse than fresh water mingled with the sea maketh it more sweet and potable likewise all the unsociable wildenesse and heavy unweldinesse therein it stirreth up when the same is once mooved and set on foot by the motions that it learneth by conversing with men whereas on the otherside the life of sea-creatures being farre remote and devided by long and large confines from the frequentation of men as having no helpe of any thing without nor any thing to be taught it by use and custome is altogether solitarie and by it selfe as nature brought it soorth so it continueth and goeth not abroad neither mingled nor mixed with forren fashions and all by reason of the place which they inhabit and not occasioned by the quality of their owne nature for surely their nature conceiving and reteining within it selfe as much discipline and knowledge as it is possible for to atteine unto and apprehend exhibiteth unto us many tame and familiar eeles which they call sacred that use to come to hand such as are among the rest of those in the fountaine Arethusa besides many other fishes imdivers places which are very obeisant and obsequious when they be called by their names as is reported of Marcus Crassus his lamprey for which he wept when it was dead and when Domitus upon a time reproched him for it by way of mockerie in this wise Were not you the man who wept for your lamprey when it was dead he came upon him presently in this maner And were not you the kinde and sweet husband who having buried three wives never shed teare for the matter the crocodiles not only know the voice of the preists when they call unto them and endure to be handled and stroked by them but also yawne and offer there teeth unto them to be picked and clensed with there hands yea and to be skowred and rubbed all over with linen clothes It is not long since that Philinus a right good man and well reputed after his returne from his voiage out of Aegypt where he had bin to see the countrey recounted unto us that in the city of Anteus he had seene an olde woman ly a sleepe on a little pallet together with a crocodile who very decently and modestly couched close along by her side And it is found in old records that when one of the kings called Ptolomaei called unto the sacred crocodile it would not come nor obey the voice of the priests notwithstanding they gently praied and intreated her a signe thought to be a prognosticke and presage of his death which soone after ensued whereby it is plaine that the kind and generation of these water beasts is neither incapable nor deprived of that sacred and highly esteemed science of divination and foretelling future things considering that even in the countrey of Lycia betweene the cities of Phellos and Myrz that is a village called Sura where I heare say the inhabitants use to sit and behold the fishes swimming in the water like as in other places they observe birds flying in the aire marking their lying in wait and ambush their scudding away and pursute after them whereby according to a certeine skill that is among them they can foretell future things to come But this may suffice to shew and declare that their nature is not altogether estranged from us nor unsociable As touching their proper wit and naturall prudence wherein there is no mixture at all borrowed from other this is ingenerall a great argument thereof that there is no creature that swimmeth or liveth in the waters except those which sticke to stones and cleave to rocks that is so easie to be caught by man or otherwise to be taken without trouble as asses are by wolves bees by the birds Meropes grashoppers by swallowes or serpents by stagges who are so easily caught up by them in Greeke they tooke the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of lightnesse but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of drawing up serpent out of his hole The sheepe calleth as it were the woolfe by the foote like as by report the leopard allureth unto him the most part of beasts who are willing to approch him for the pleasure they take in his smell and above all others the ape But sea creatures generally all have a certeine inbred sagacity a wary perceivance before hand which maketh them to be suspicious and circumspect yea and to stand upon their guard against all fore-laying so that the arte of hunting and catching them is not a small piece of worke and a simple cunning but that which requireth a great number of engins of all sorts and asketh woonderfull devices and subtill sleights to compasse and goe beyond them and this appeereth by the experience of such things as we have daily in our hands For first and formost the cane or reed of which the angle rodde is made fishers would not have to bee bigge and thicke and yet they had need of such an one as is tough and strong for to plucke up and hold the fishes which commonly doe mightily fling and struggle when they be caught but they chuse rather that which is small and slender for feare lest if it cast abroad shadow it might moove the doubt and suspicion that is naturally in fishes moreover the line they make not with many water-knots but desire to have it as plaine and even as possibly may be without any roughnesse for that this giveth as it were some denuntiation unto them of fraud and deceit they take order likewise that the haires which reach to the hooke should seeme as white as possibly they can devise for the whiter they be the lesse are they seene in the water for the conformity and likenesse in colour to it as for that which the poet Homer saith Downe right to bottome of the sea like plumbe of leade she went That peiseth downe the fishers hooke and holdes the line extent Which passing through transparent horne that rurall oxes head bare To greedy fishes secretly brings death ere they be ware Some misunderstanding these verses would infer therupon that men in old
or that particular coast to wit either of Bizantine or of Cyzicum but generally all in what seas soever namely how against a tempest and storme when they see that the sea will bee very much troubled they charge and ballast themselves with little stones for feare of being overturned or driven to and fro for their lightnesse by the billowes and waves of the sea and thus by the meanes of this weight they remaine firme and fast upon the little rocks whereto they are setled As for the cranes who change their maner of flying according to the winde I say this is a skilfull quality not proper and peculiar to one kinde of fishes but common unto them all namely to swimme evermore against the waves the current yea and very warie they be that the winde blow not their tailes and raise their skales and so hurt and offend their bodies laid bare and naked yea and made rugged by that meanes Heereupon they carie their snouts and muzzels alwaies into the winde and so direct their course and thus the sea being cut afront at their head keepeth downe their finnes and gliding smoothly over their body laieth their scales even so as none of them stand staring up This is a thing as I have said cōmon unto al fishes except the Elops whose nature is to swimme downe the winde and the water neither feareth he that the winde will drive up his scales in so swimming because they doe not lie toward his taile but contrary to other fishes to ward his head Moreover the tuny is so skilfull in the solstices and equinoxes that he hath taught men to observe them without need of any astrologicall rules for looke in what place or coast of the sea the winter tropicke or solstice finds him there resteth he and stirreth not untill the equinox in the spring But a woonderfull wisedome quoth he there is in the crane to hold a stone in his foot that by the fall thereof he may quickly awaken How much wiser then my good friend Aristotimus is the dolphin who may not abide to lie still and cease stirring for that by nature he is in continuall motion and endeth his mooving and living together but when he hath need of sleepe he springeth up with his body to the toppe of the water and turneth him upon his backe with the belly upward and so suffreth it partly to flote and hull and in part to be caried through the deepe waving to and fro as it were in a hanging bedde with the agitation of the sea sleeping all the while untill he settle downe to the bottom of the sea and touch the ground then wakeneth he and mounting up with a jerke a second time suffreth himselfe to bee caried untill he be setled downe againe and thus hath he devised to have his repose and rest intermingled with a kinde of motion And it is said that the tunies doe the like and upon the same cause And now forasmuch as we have shewed already the mathematicall and astrologicall foreknowledge that fishes have in the revolution and conversion of the sunne which is confirmed likewise by the testimonie of Aristotle listen what skill they have in arithmeticke but first beleeve me of the perspective science whereof as it should seeme the poet Aeschylus was not ignorant for thus he saith in one place Like tuny fish he seemes to spie He doth so looke with his left eie For tunies in the other eie are thought to have a dimme and feeble sight and therefore when they enter Mer major into the sea of Pontus they coast along the land on the right side but contrariwise when they come foorth wherein they doe very wisely and circumspectly to commit the custody of the body alwaies to the better eie Now for that they have need of arithmeticke by reason of their societie as it may be thought and mutuall love wherein they delight they are come to that height and perfection in this arte that because they take a woondrous pleasure to feed together and to keepe one with another in sculles troupes they alwaies cast their company into a cubicke forme in maner of a battailon solid and square every way close and environed with six equall sides or faces and arranged in this ordinance as it were of a quadrat battell doe they swim as large before as behind of the one side as of the other in such sort as he that lieth in espiall to hunt these tunies if he can but take the just number how many there be of that side or front that appeereth next unto him may presently tell what the number is of the whole troupe being assured that the depth is equall to the bredth and the bredth even with the length The fish called in Greeke Hamiae tooke that name it may be thought for their conversing in companies al together and so I suppose came the Pelamydes by their name As for other fishes that be sociable love to live are seene to converse in great companies together no man is able to nūber thē they be so many Come we rather therfore to some particular societies inseparable fellowships that some have in living together amōg which is that Pinnotheres which cost the philosopher Chrysippus so much inke in his descriptiō for in al his books as wel of morall as naturall philosophie he is ranged formost As for the Spongetheres I suppose he never knew for otherwise he would not have left it out Well this Pinnotheres is a little fish as they say of the crabs kind which goeth commeth evermore with the Nacre a big shel fish keeping still by it and sits as it were a porter at his shell side which he letteth continually to stand wide open untill he spie some small fishes gotten within it such as they are woont to take for their food then doth he enter likewise into the Nacres shell and seemeth to bite the fleshy substance thereof whereupon presently the Nacre shutteth the shell hard and then they two together feed upon the bootie which they have gotten prisoners within this enclosure As touching the spongotheres a little creature it is not like unto the crabbe fish as the other but rather resembling a spider it seemeth to rule and governe the spunge which is altogether without life without bloud and sense but as many other living creatures within the sea cleaveth indeed heard to the rocks and hath a peculiar motion of the owne namely to stretch out and draw in it selfe but for to do this need she hath of the direction and advertisement of another for being of a rare hollow and soft constitution otherwise and full of many concavities void so dull of sense besides idle withal that it perceiveth not when there is any substance of good meat gotten within the said void and emptie holes this little animall at such a time giveth a kind of warning and with it she gathereth in her body
because the aire is not able to pierce and enter so low but as much as it can take holde of with the colde either in touching or approching neere unto it so much it frizeth and congealeth And this is the reason that Barbarians when they are to passe great rivers frozen over with ice send out foxes before the for if the ice be not thicke but superficiall the foxes hearing the noise of the water running underneath returne backe againe Some also that are disposed to fish do thaw and open the ice with casting hot water upon it and so let downe their lines at the hole for then will the fishes come to the bait and bite Thus it appeareth that the bottome of the river is not frozen although the upper face thereof stand all over with an ice and that so strong that the water thereby drawen and driven in so hard is able to crush and breake the boats and vessels within it according as they make credible relation unto us who now doe winter upon the river Donow with the emperour And yet without all these farre-fet examples the very experiments that we finde in our owne bodies doe testifie no lesse for after much bathing or sweating alwaies we are more colde and chill for that our bodies being then open and resolved we receive at the pores cold together with aire in more abundance The same befalleth unto water it selfe which both sooner cooleth and groweth also colder after it hath beene once made hot for then more subject it is to the injurie of the aire considering also that even they who fling and cast up scalding water into the aire do it for no other purpose but to mingle it with much aire The opinion then of him ô Phavorinus who assigneth the first cause of cold unto aire is founded upon such reasons and probabilities as these As for him who ascribeth it unto water he laieth his ground likewise upon such principles for in this maner writeth Empedocles Beholde the Sunne how bright alwaies and hot he is beside But 〈◊〉 is ever blacke and darke and colde on every side For in opposing cold to heat as blacknesse unto brightnesse he giveth us occasion to collect and inferre that as heat and brightnesse belong to one and the same substance even so cold and blacknesse to another Now that the blacke hew proceedeth not from aire but from water the very experience of our outward senses is able to proove for nothing waxeth blacke in the aire but every thing in the water Do but cast into the water and drench therein a locke of wooll or peece of cloth be it never so white you shal when you take it foorth againe see it looke blackish and so will it continue untill by heat the moisture be fully sucked up and dried or that by the presse or some waights it be squeized out Marke the earth when there falleth a showre of raine how every place whereupon the drops fall seemes blacke and all the rest beside retaineth the same colour that it had before And even water it selfe the deeper that it is the blacker hew it hath because there is morequantity of it but contrariwise what part soever thereof is neere unto aire the same by and by is lightsome and cheerefull to the eie Consider among other liquid substances how oile is most transparent as wherein there is most aire for proofe wherof see how light it is and this is it which causeth it to swim above all other liquors as being carried aloft by the meanes of aire And that which more is it maketh a calme in the sea when it is flung and sprinkled upon the waves not in regard of the slipery smoothnesse whereby the windes do glide over it and will take no hold according as Aristotle saith but for that the waves being beaten with any humor whatsoever will spred themselves and ly even and principally by the meanes of oile which hath this speciall and peculiar property above all other liquors that it maketh clere and giveth meanes to see in the bottome of the waters for that humidity openeth and cleaveth when aire comes in place and not onely yeeldeth a cleere light within the sea to Divers who fish-ebb in the night for spunges and plucke them from the rocks whereto they cleave but also in the deepest holes thereof when they spurt it out of their mouths the aire then is no blacker than the water but lesse colde for triall heerof looke but upon oile which of all liquors having most aire in it is nothing cold at all and if it frize at all it is but gently by reason that the aire incorporate within it will not suffer it to gather and congeale hard marke worke-men also and artisanes how they doe not dippe and keepe their needles buckles and claspes or other such things made of iron in water but in oile for feare left the excessive colde of the water would marre and spoile them quite I stand the more heereupon because I thinke it more meet to debate this disputation by such proofes rather than by the colours considering that snowe haile and ice are exceeding white and cleere and withall most colde contrariwise pitch is hotter than hony and yet you see it is more darke and duskish And heere I cannot chuse but woonder at those who would needs have the aire to be colde because forsooth it is darke as also that they consider not how others take and judge it hot because it is light for tenebrositie and darknesse be not so familiar and neere cousens unto colde as ponderositie and unweldinesse be proper thereto for many things there be altogether void of heat which notwithstanding are bright and cleere but there is no colde thing light and nimble or mounting upward for clouds the more they stand upon the nature of the aire the higher they are caried and flie aloft but no sooner resolve they into a liquid nature and substance but incontinently they fall and loose their lightnesse and agilitie no lesse than their heat when colde is engendred in them contrariwise when heat commeth in place they change their motion againe to the contrary and their substance mounteth upward so soone as it is converted into aire Neither is that supposition true as touching corruption for every thing that perisheth is not transmuted into the contrary but the trueth is all things are killed and die by their contrary for so fire being quenched by fire turneth into aire And to this purpose Aeschylus the poet said truely although tragically when hee called water the punishment of fire for these be his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The water stay which fire doth stay And Homer in a certaine battell opposed Vulcane to the river and with Neptune matched Apollo not so much by way of fabulous fiction as by physicall and naturall reason and as for 〈◊〉 a wicked woman who meant cleane contrary to that which she said and shewed wrote elegantly in this wise The
be so that the trueth may be knowen and that there be but one truth he who learned it of him that found it not out hath no lesse than the inventer himselfe yea better receiveth it he who is not perswaded that he hath it nay he receiveth that which is simply best of all much like as hee who having no naturall children of his owne body begotten taketh the best that he can chuse for to make his adopted childe But consider heere with me whether other kinds of learning deserve not haply to have much study imploied in them as namely Poetry Mathematicks the art of Eloquence and the opinions of Sophisters and great clerks Therefore God of that divine power whatsoever forbad Socrates to engender them but as touching that which Socrates esteemed to be the onely wisedome to wit the knowledge of God and spirituall things which hee himselfe calleth the amorous science there be no men that beget or invent it but call the same onely to remembrance whereupon Socrates himsele never taught any thing but proposing onely unto yoong men certeine beginning of difficulties and doubts as it were the fore throwes of child-birth stirred up awakened and drew foorth their owne naturall wits and inbred intelligences and this was it that he called the midwives art which brought nothing into them from without as others would make them beleeve who conferred with them that they infused reason and understanding but shewed onely and taught them that they had already within themselves a minde and understanding of their owne and the same sufficient to nourish though it were confused and unperfect 2 What is the reason that in some places he called the soveraigne God father and maker of all things WAs it for that he is in trueth the father of gods such as were ingendred and also of men as Homer calleth him like as the maker of those creatures which have neither reason nor soule for according as Chryisppus saith we use not to cal him the father of the secondine wherein the infant is inwrapped within the wombe who conserred genetall seed although the said secondine be made of the seed Or useth he not a metaphor as his maner is when figuratively he tearmeth him Father of the world who is the efficient cause according to his usuall maner of speaking as namely in the Dialogue entituled Symposium where he maketh Phaedrus the father of amatorious discourses for that he it was who proposed and set abroad the same like as he named Callipedas in a dialogue bearing his name The father of philosophicall discourses for that there passed many beautifull speeches in philosophy whereof he ministred the occasion and beginning Or rather was it not because there is a difference betweene father and maker as also betweene generation and creation for whatsoever is ingendred is made but not è conversò whatsoever is made is likewise ingendred semblably who hath begotten hath also made for generation is the making of a living creature but if we consider a workeman to wit either a mason or carpenter a weaver a lute maker or imager certes the worke is distinct and separate from the maker whereas the mooving principle and the puissance of him who begetteth is infused into that which is begotten it conteineth his nature being as it were a parcell distracted from the very substance of him who ingendred it Forasmuch then as the world doth not resemble a conjunction of many pieces set joined fastened and glued together but hath in it a great portion of the animall life yea and of divinity which God hath infused and mingled in the matter as derived from his owne nature and substance good reason it is therefore that he should be surnamed both the father and maker of the world being a living creature as it is These points being very conformable and proportionate to the opinion of Plato consider withall a little if this also which I shall deliver be not likewise accordant thereunto namely that the world being composed of two parts to wit of body and of soule the one which is the body God hath not ingendred but having the matter thereof exhibited unto him he hath formed shaped and fitted it binding and limiting it according to the infinitie thereof with termes bounds and figures proper thereto but the soule having a portion of understanding discourse of reason order and harmonie is not onely the worke but also a part of God not by him but even of him and issuing from his owne proper substance In his booke therefore of Politiques or Common wealth having divided the whole world as it were a line into two segments or sections unequall he subdivideth either section into other twaine after the same proportion for two generall kinds he maketh of all things the one sensible and visible the other intelligible unto the intelligible kinde he attributeth in the first degree the primitive formes and Ideae in the second degree the Mathematicks and as for the sensible kinde he attributeth thereto in the first ranke all solide bodies and in the second place the images and figures of them Also to every one of these foure members of his said division he giveth his owne proper judge to the first of Idaees understanding to the Mathematicks imagination to the solide bodies faith and beleefe to the images and figures conjecture To what end then and upon what intention hath he divided the whole world into two sections and the same unequall and of those two sections whether is the greater that of sensible objects or that of intelligible As for himselfe he hath not shewed and declared it but presently it wil appeare that the portion of sensible things is the greater for the indivisible substance is of things intellectuall being evermore of one sort and resting upon the same subject in one state and reduced to very short and narrow roome and the same pure and neat whereas the other being spread and wandering upon bodies is that section of sensible things Moreover the propertie of that which is incorporall is to be definite and determinate And a bodie as touching the matter thereof is indefinite and undeterminate becomming sensible when by participation of the intelligible it is made finite and limitable Over and besides like as every sensible thing hath many images many shadowes and many figures and generally out of one onely patterne there may be drawen many copies and examples imitated as well by art as by nature so it can not chuse but the things that here be sensible should be more in nūber than they above which are intelligible according to the opinion of Plato supposing this that things sensible be as it were the images and examples of the originall patterns to wit the intelligible Ideae Furthermore the intelligence of these Idaees and formes by substraction deduction and division of bodies is ranged answerable to the order of the Mathematicks arising frō Arithmeticke which is the science of Numbers into Geometry to
wing because it lifteth up the soule from things base and mortall unto the consideration of heavenly and celestiall matters 6 How is it that Plato in some places saith the Anteperistasis of motion that is to say the circumstant contrariety debarring a body to moove in regard that there is no voidnesse or vaculty in nature is the cause of those effects which we see in physicians ventoses and cupping glasses of swallowing downe our viands of throwing of 〈◊〉 waights of the course and conveiance of waters of the fall of lightenings of the attraction that amber maketh of the drawing of the lodestone and of the accord and consonance of voices For it seemeth against all reason to yeeld one onely cause for so many effects so divers and so different in kinde First as touching the respiration in living creatures by the anteperistasis of the aire he hath elsewhere sufficiently declared but of the other effects which seeme as he saith to be miracles and woonders in nature and are nothing for that they be nought else but bodies reciprocally and by alternative course driving one another out of place round about and mutually succeeding in their roomes he hath left for to be discussed by us how each of them particularly is done FIrst and formost for ventoses and cupping glasses thus it is The aire that is contained within the ventose stricking as it doth into the flesh being inflamed with heat and being now more fine and subtil than the holes of the brasse box or glasse whereof the ventose is made getteth forth not into a void place for that is impossible but into that other aire which is round about the said ventose without forth and driveth the same from it and that forceth other before it and thus as it were from hand to hand whiles the one giveth place and the other driveth continually and so entreth into the vacant place which the first left it commeth at length to fall upon the flesh which the ventose sticketh fast unto and by heating and inchasing it expresseth the humor that is within into the ventose or cupping vessell The swallowing of our victuals is after the same maner for the cavities as well of the mouth as of the stomacke be alwaies full of aire when as then the meat is driven within the passage or gullet of the throat partly by the tongue and partly by the glandulous parts or kernelles called tonsells and the muscles which now are stretched the aire being pressed and strained by the said meat followeth it hard as it giveth place and sticking close it is a meanes to helpe for to drive it downeward Semblably the waighty things that be flung as bigge stones and such like cut the aire and divide it by reason that they were sent out and levelled with a violent force then the aire all about behind according to the nature thereof which is to follow where a place is lest vacant and to fill it up pursueth the masle or waight aforesaid that is lanced or discharged forcibly and setteth forward the motion thereof The shooting and ejaculation of lightening is much what after the maner of these waights throwen in maner aforesaid for being enflamed and set on a light fire it flasheth out of a cloud by the violence of a stroke into the aire which being once open and broken givith place unto it and then closing up together above it driveth it downe forcibly against the owne nature As for amber we must not thinke that it draweth any thing to it of that which is presented before it no more than doth the lode stone neither that any thing comming nere to the one or the other leapeth thereupon But first as touching the said stone it sendeth from it I wot not what strong and flatuous fluxions by which the aire next adjoining giving backe driveth that which is before it and the same turning round and reentring againe into the void place doth 〈◊〉 from it and withall carry with it the yron to the stone And for amber it hath likewise a certeine flagrant and flatulent spirit which when the out-side thereof is rubbed it putteth forth by reason that the pores thereof are by that meanes opened And verily that which issueth out of it worketh in some measure the like effect that the Magnet or lode-stone did and drawen there are unto it such matters neere at hand as be most light and dry by reason that the substance comming thereof is but slender and weake neither is it selfe strong nor hath sufficient waight and force for to chase and drive before it a great deale of aire by means whereof it might overcome greater things as the lode-stone doth But how is it that this aire driveth and sendeth before it neither wood nor stone but yron onely and so bringeth it to the Magnet This is a doubt and dificulty that much troubleth all those who suppose that this meeting and cleaving of two bodies together is either by the attraction of the stone or by the naturall motion of the yron Yron is neither so hollow and spungeous as is wood nor so fast and close as is gold or stone but it hath small holes passages and rough aspecties which in regard of the unequality are well proportionate and fortable to the aire in such wise as it runneth not easily through but hath certaine staies by the way to catch hold of so as it may stand steady and take such sure footing as to be able to force and drive before it the yron untill it have brought it to kisse the lode-stone And thus much for the causes and reasons that may be rendred of these effects As considering the running of water above ground by what maner of compression and coarctation roud about it should be performed it is not so easy either to be perceived or declared But thus much we are to learne that for waters of lakes which stirre not but continue alwaies in one place it is because the aire spred all about and keeping them in on every side mooveth not nor leaveth unto them any vacant place For even so the upper face of the water as well in lakes as in the sea riseth up into waves and billowes according to the agitation of the aire for the water still followeth the motion of the aire and floweth or is troubled with it by reason of the inequalities For the stroke of the aire downeward maketh the hollow dent of the wave but as the same is driven upward it causeth the swelling and surging tumor of the wave untill such time as all the place above containing the water be setled and laied for then the waves also doe cease and the water likewise is still and quiet But now for the course of waters which glide and run continually above the face of the ground the cause thereof is because they alwaies follow hard after the aire that giveth way and yet are chased by those behinde by compression and driving forward and so
none And if we will bring evill into the world without a precedent cause principle to beget it we shall run and fall into the difficult perplexities of the Stoicks for of those two principles which are it cannot be that either the good or that which is altogether without forme and quality whatsoever should give being or beginning to that which is naught Neither hath Plato done as some that came after him who for want of seeing and understanding a third principle and cause betweene God and matter have runne on end and tumbled into the most absurd and falsest reasons that is devising forsooth I wot not how that the nature of evill should come without forth casually and by accident or rather of the owne accord forasmuch as they will not graunt unto Epicurus that the least atome that is should turne never so little or decline a side saying that he bringeth in a rash and inconsiderate motion without any cause precedent whereas they themselves the meane-while affirme that sin vice wickednesse and ten thousand other deformities and imperfections of the body come by consequence without any cause efficient in the principles But Plato saith not so for he ridding matter from al different quality and remooving farre from God all cause of evill thus hath hee written as touching the world in his Politiques The world quoth he received al good things from the first author who created it but what evill thing soever there is what wickednesse what injustice in heaven the same it selfe hath from the exterior habitude which was before and the same it doth transmit give to the creatures beneath And a little after he proceedeth thus In tract of time quoth he as oblivion tooke holde and set sure footing the passion and imperfection of the old disorder came in place and got the upper hand more and more and great danger there is least growing to dissolution it be plunged againe into the vast gulfe and bottomlesse pit of confused dissimilitude But dissimilitude there can be none in matter by reason that it is without qualitie and void of all difference whereof Eudemus among others being ignorant mocked Plato for not putting that to be the cause source and first originall of evill things which in many places he calleth mother and nurse for Plato indeed tearmeth matter mother and nurse but he saith likewise That the cause of evill is the motive puissance resiant in the said matter which is in bodies become divisible to wit a reasonlesse and disorderly motion howbeit for all that not without soule which plainly and expresly in his books of lawes he tearmeth a soule contrary and repugnant to that which is the cause of all good for that the soule may well be the cause and principle of motion but understanding is the cause of order and harmony in motion for God made not the matter idle but hath kept it from being any any more 〈◊〉 troubled with a foolish and rash cause neither hath he given unto nature the beginnings and principles of mutations and passions but being as it was enwrapped and enfolded with all sorts of passions and inordinate mutations hee cleered it of all enormities disorders and errors whatsoever using as proper instruments to bring about all this numbers measures and proportions the effect whereof is not to give unto things by mooving and mutation the passions and differences of the other and of diversitie but rather to make them infallible firme and stable yea and like unto those things which are alwaies of one sort and evermore resemble themselves This is in my judgement the minde and sentence of Plato whereof my principall proofe and argument is this that by this interpretation is salved that contrariety which men say and seemeth indeed to be in his writings for a man would not attribute unto a drunken sophister much lesse than unto Plato so great unconstance and repugnance of words as to affirme one and the same nature to be created and uncreated and namely in his booke entituled Phaedrus that the soule is eternall and uncreated but in Timaeus that it was created and engendied Now as touching those words of his in the treatise Phaedrus they are well neere in every mans mouth verie rife whereby he prooveth that the soule can not perish because it was never engendred and semblably he prooveth that generation it had none because it mooveth it selfe Againe in the booke entituled Timaeus God quoth he hath not made the soule to be yoonger than the body according as now in this place we purpose to say that it commeth after it for never would he have permitted that the elder being coupled and linked with the yoonger should be commaunded by it But we standing much I wot not how upon inconsiderate rashnesse and vanity use to speake in some sort accordingly for certaine it is that God hath with the bodie joined the soule as precedent both in creation and also in power and vertue like as the dame or mistresse with her subject for to rule and commaund Againe when he had said that the soule being turned upon her selfe began to live a wise and eternall life The body of the heaven quoth he was made visible but the soule invisible participating the discourse of reason and of harmony engendred by the best of things intellectuall and eternall being likewise it selfe the best of things engendred and temporall Where it is to be noted that in this place expresly calling God the best of all eternall things and the soule the best of things created and temporall by this most evident antithesis and contrariety he taketh from the soule that eternity which is without beginning and procreation And what other solution or reconciliation is there of these contradictions but that which himself giveth to those who are willing to receive it for he pronounceth that soule to be ingenerable and not procreated which mooved all things rashly and disorderly before the constitution of the world but contrariwise he calleth that procreated and engendred which Godframed and composed of the first and of a parmanent eternall and perfect good substance namely by creating it wise and well ordered and by putting and conferring even from himselfe unto sense understanding and order unto motion which when he had thus made he ordained and appointed it to be the governor and regent of the whole world And even after the same maner he pronounceth that the body of the world is in one sort eternall to wit not created nor engendred and after another sort both created and engendred For when he saith that whatsoever is visible was never at rest but mooved rashly and without all order and that God tooke the same disposed and ranged it in good order as also when he saith that the fowre generall elements fire water earth and aire before the whole world was of them framed and ordered decently made a woonderfull trouble trembling as it were in the matter and were mightily shaken by
changing their minde should determine to hurt afflict plague destroy and crush us quite they could not bring us to a woorse state and condition than wherein we are already according as Chrysippus saith That mans life can not be brought to a lower ebbe nor be in woorse plight and case than now it is insomuch as if it had a tongue and voice to speake it would pronounce these words of Hercules Of miseries to say I dare be bold So full I am that more I can not hold And what assertions or sentences may a man possibly finde more contrary and repugnant one against another than those of Chrysippus as touching both gods and men when he saith That the gods are most provident over men and carefull for their best and men notwithstanding are in as wofull state as they may be Certeine Pythagoreans there are who blame him much for that in his booke of Justice he hath written of dunghill cocks that they were made and created profitable for mans use For quoth he they awaken us out of our sleepe and raise us to our worke they hunt kill and devoure scorpions with their fighting they animate us to battell imprinting in our hearts an ardent desire to shew valour and yet eat them we must for feare that there grow upon us more pullaine than we know what otherwise to do withall And so farre foorth mocketh he and scorneth those who finde fault with him for delivering such sentences that he writeth thus in his third booke of the Gods as touching Jupiter the Saviour Creatour and Father of justice law equity and peace And like as cities quoth he and great townes when they be over full of people deduct and send from thence certeine colonies and begin to make warre upon some other nations even so God sendeth the causes that breed plague and mortalitie to which purpose he citeth the testimony of Euripides and other authours who write that the Trojan warre was raised by the gods for to discharge and disburden the world of so great a multitude of men wherewith it was replenished As for all other evident absurdities delivered in these speeches I let passe for my purpose is not to search into all that which they have said or written amisse but onely into their contradictions and contrarieties to themselves But consider I pray you how Chrysippus hath alwaics attributed unto the gods the goodliest names and most plausible termes that can be devised but contrariwise most savage cruell inhumane barbarous and Galatian deeds For such generall mortalities and carnages of men as the Trojan warre first brought and afterwards the Median and Peloponnesiacke warres are nothing like unto colonies that cities send forth to people and inhabit other places unlesse haply one would say That such multitudes of men that die by warre and pestilence know of some cities founded for them in hell and under the ground to be inhabited But Chrysippus maketh God like unto Deiotarus the king of Galatia who having many sonnes and minding to leave his realme and roiall estate unto one of them and no more made away killed all the rest besides him to the end that he being left alone might be great and mightie like as if one should prune and cut away all the branches of a vine that the maine stocke might thrive and prosper the better and yet the cutter of the vine disbrancheth it when the shoots be yoong small and tender and we also take away from a bitch many of her whelps when they be so yoong as that they can not yet see for to spare the damme whereas 〈◊〉 who hath not onely suffered and permitted men to grow unto their perfect age but 〈◊〉 given them himselfe their nativitie and growth punisheth them and plagueth them afterwards devising sundry meanes and preparing many occasions of their death and destruction when as indeed he should rather have not given unto them the causes and principles of their generation and birth Howbeit this is but a small matter in comparison and more grievous is that which I will now say for there are no warres bred among men but by occasion of some notable vice seeing the cause of one is fleshly pleasure of another avarice and of a third ambition and desire of rule And therefore if God be the authour of warres he is by consequence the cause of wickednesse and doth provoke excite and pervert men and yet himselfe in his treatise of judgement yea and his second booke of the Gods writeth that it stands to no sense and reason that God should be the cause of any wicked and dishonest things For like as the lawes are never the cause of breaking and violating the lawes no more are gods of impietie so that there is no likelihood at all that they should move and cause men to commit any foule and dishonest fact Now what can there be more dishonest than to procure and raise some to worke the ruine and perdition of others and yet Chrysippus saith that God ministreth the occasions and beginnings thereof Yea but he contrariwise will one say commendeth Euripides for saying thus If Gods do ought that lewd and filthy is They are no more accounted Gods iwis And againe Soone said that is Mens faults t' excuse Nothing more ready than Gods t' accuse as if forsooth we did any thing els now but compare his words and sentences together that be opposit and meere contrary one unto another And yet this sentence which now is heere commended to wit Soone said that is c. we may alledge against Chrysippus not once nor twice nor thrice but ten thousand times For first in his treatise of Nature having likened the eternity of motion to a drench or potion made confusedly of many herbs and spices troubling and turning all things that be engendred some after one sort and some after another thus he saith Seeing it is so that the government and administration of the universall world proceedeth in this sort necessary it is that according to it we be disposed in that maner as we are whether it be that we are diseased against our owne nature maimed or disinembred Grammarians or Musicians And againe soone after according to this reason we may say the like of our vertue or vice and generally of the knowledge or ignorance of arts as I have already said Also within a little after cutting off all doubt and ambiguity There is no particular thing not the very least that is which can otherwise happen than according to common nature and the reason thereof now that common nature and the reason of it is fatall destinie divine providence and Jupiter there is not one search even as farre as to the Antipodes but he knoweth for this sentence is very rife in their mouthes And as for this verse of Homer And as ech thing thus came to passe The will of Jove fulfilled was he saith that well and rightly he referred all to destiny and the universall nature of
the world whereby all things are governed How is it possible then that these two positions should subsist together namely that God is in no wise the cause of any dishonest thing and that there is nothing in the world be it never so little that is done but by common nature and according to the reason thereof For surely among all those things that are done necessarily there must be things dishonest and yet Epicurus turneth and windeth himselfe on every side imagining and devising all the subtill shifts that he can to unloose set free and deliver our voluntary free will from this motion eternall because he would not leave vice excuseable without just reprehension whereas in the meane while he openeth a wide window unto it and giveth it libertie to plead That committed it is not onely by the necessitie of destiny but also by the reason of God and according to the best nature that is And thus much also moreover is to be seene written word forword For considering that common nature reacheth unto al causes it cannot otherwise be but all that is done howsoever and in what part soever of the world must be according to this common nature and the reason thereof by a certeine stint of consequence without impeachment for that there is nothing without that can impeach the administration thereof neither mooveth any part or is disposed in habitude otherwise than according to that common nature But what habitudes and motions of the parts are these Certeine it is that the habitudes be the vices and maladies of the minds as covetousnesse lecherie ambition cowardise and injustice as for the motions they be the acts proceeding from thence as adulteries thefts treasons manslaughters murders and parricides Chrysippus now is of opinion That none of all these be they little or great is done without the reason of Jupiter or against law justice and providence insomuch as to breake law is not against law to wrong another is not against justice nor to commit sinne against providence And yet he affirmeth that God punisheth vice and doth many things for the punishment of the wicked As for example in the second booke of the gods Otherwhiles there happen quoth he unto good men grievous calamities not by way of punishment as to the wicked but by another kinde of oeconomy and disposition like as it falleth out usually unto cities Againe in these words First we are to understand evill things and calamities as we have said heeretofore then to thinke that distributed they are according to the reason and dispose of Jupiter either by way of punishment or else by some other oeconomie of the whole world Now surely this is a doctrine hard to bee digested namely that vice being wrought by the disposition and reason of God is also punished thereby howbeit this contradiction he doeth still aggravate and extend in the second booke of Nature writing thus But vice in regard of grievous accidents hath a certeine peculiar reason by it selfe for after a sort it is committed by the common reason of nature and as I may so say not unprofitably in respect of the universall world for otherwise than so there were no good things at all and then proceeding to reproove those who dispute pro contra and discourse indifferently on both parts he I meane who upon an ardent desire tobroch alwaies and in every matter some novelties exquisite singularities above all other saith It is not unprofitable to cut purses to play the sycophants or commit loose dissolute and mad parts no more than it is incommodious that there should be unprofitable members hurtfull and wretched persons which if it be so what maner of god is Jupiter I meane him of whom Chrysippus speaketh in case I say he punish a thing which neither commeth of it selfe nor unprofitably for vice according to the reason of Chrysippus were altogether irreprehensible and Jupiter to be blamed if either he caused vice as a thing unprofitable or punished it when he had made it not unprofitably Moreover in the first booke of Justice speaking of the gods that they oppose themselves against the iniquities of some But wholly quoth he to cut off all vice is neither possible nor expedient is it if it were possible to take away all injustice all transgression of lawes and all folly But how true this is it perteineth not to this present treatise for to enquire and discourse But himselfe taking away and rooting up all vice as much as lay in him by the meanes of philosophy which to extirpe was neither good nor expedient doeth heerein that which is repugnant both to reason and also to God Furthermore in saying that there be certeine sinnes and iniquities against which the gods doe oppose themselves he giveth covertly to understand that there is some oddes and inequality in sinnes Over and besides having written in many places that there is nothing in the world to be blamed nor that can be complained of for that all things are made and finished by a most singular and excellent nature there be contrariwise sundry places wherein hee leaveth and alloweth unto us certeine negligences reprooveable and those not in small and trifling matters That this is true it may appeere in his third book of Substance where having made mention that such like negligences might befal unto good honest men Commeth this to passe quoth he because there be some things where of there is no reckoning made like as in great houses there must needs be scattered and lost by the way some bran yea and some few graines of wheat although in generality the whole besides is well enough ruled and governed or is it because there be some evill and malignant spirits as superintendents over such things wherein certeinly such negligences are committted the same reprehensible and he saith moreover that there is much necessitie intermingled among But I meane not hereupon to stand nor to discourse at large but to let passe what vanity there was in him to compare the accidents which befell to some good and vertuous persons as for example the condemnation of Socrates the burning of Pythagoras quicke by the Cylonians the dolorous torments that Zeno endured under the tyrant Demylus or those which Antiphon suffred at the hands of Dionysius when they were by them put to death unto the brans that be spilt and lost in great mens houses But that there should bee such wicked spirits deputed by the divine providence to have the charge of such things must needs redound to the great reproach of God as if he were some unwise king who committed the government of his provinces unto evill captaines and rash headed lieutenants suffering them to abuse and wrong his best affected subjects and winking at their rechlesse negligence having no care or regard at all of them Againe if it be so that there is much necessity and constraint mingled among the affaires of this world then is not God the
so say namely the occupation or taking up of the middle place wherein it standeth because it is in the mids for if it were thought otherwise to be founded it were altogether necessarie that some corruption should take holde of it And againe a little after for even so in some sort hath that essence bene ordeined from all eternity to occupie the middle region being presently at the very first such as if not by another maner yet by attaining this place it is eternall and subject to no corruption These words conteine one manifest repugnance and visible contrariety considering that in them he admitteth and alloweth in that which is infinit a middle place But there is a second also which as it is more darke and obscure so it implieth also a more monstrous absurditie than the other for supposing that the world can not continue incorruptible if it were seated and founded in any other place of the infinitie than in the mids it appeareth manifestly that he feared if the parts of the substance did not moove and tend toward the mids there would ensue a dissolution corruption of the world But this would he never have feared if he had not thought that bodies naturally from all sides tend to the middes not of the substance but of the place that conteineth the substance where of he had spoken in many places that it was a thing impossible and against nature for that within voidnesse there is no difference by which bodies can be said to move more one way than another and that the construction of the world is cause of the motion to the center as also that all things from every side do bend to the mids But to see this more plainly it may suffice to alledge the very text in his second booke of Motion for when he had delivered thus much That the world is a perfect body and the parts of the world not perfect because they are respective to the whole and not of themselves Having also discoursed as touching the motion thereof for that it was apt and fitted by nature to moove it selfe in all parts for to conteine and preserve and not to breake dissolve and burne it selfe he saith afterwards But the universall world tending and mooving to the same point and the parts thereof having the same motion from the nature of the body like it is that this first motion is naturally proper to all bodies namely to encline toward the mids of the world considering that the world mooveth so in regard of it selfe and the parts likewise in that they be the parts of the whole How now my goodfriend may some one say what accident is befallen unto you that you should forget to pronounce these words withall That the world in case it had not fortuned for to settle in the mids must needs have bene subject to corruption and dissolution For if it be proper and naturall to the world to tend alwaies to the same middle as also to addresse the parts thereof from all sides thereto into what place soever of the voidnesse it be carried and transported certes thus 〈◊〉 and embracing as it were it selfe as it doth it must needs continue incorruptible immortall and past all danger of fracture or dissolution for to such things as be broken bruised dissipated and dissolved this is incident by the division and dissolution of their parts when ech one runneth and retireth into their proper and naturall place out of that which is against their owne nature But you sir supposing that if the world were seated in any other place of voidnesse but in the mids there would follow a totall ruine and corruption thereof giving out also as much and therefore imagining a middle in that where naturally there can be none to wit in that which is infinit have verily quit cleane and fled from these tensions cohaerences and inclinations as having in them no assured meanes for to mainteine and holde the world together and attributed all the cause of the eternall maintenance and preservation thereof unto the occupation of a place And yet as if you tooke pleasure to argue and convince yourselfe you adjoine to the premisses thus much In what sort every severall part moveth as it is cohaerent to the rest of the body it stands with good reason that after the same maner it should moove by it selfe alone yea if for disputation sake we imagine and suppose it to be in some void part of this world and like as being kept in and enclosed on every side it would move toward the mids so it would continue in this same motion although by way of disputation we should admit that all on a sudden there should appeare some vacuity and void place round about it And is it so indeed that every part what ever it be compassed about with voidnesse forgoeth not her naturall inclination to move tend to the mids and should the world it selfe unlesse some fortune blind chance had not prepared for it a place in the mids have lost that vigor power which conteineth and holdeth all together so some parts of the substance of it moove one way and some another Now surely heerein there be many other maine contrarieties repugnant even to natural reason but this particularly among the rest encountreth the doctrine of God divine providence to wit that in attributing unto them the least and smallest causes that be he taketh from them the most principall and greatest of all other For what greater power can there be than the maintenance and preservation of this universall world or to cause the substance united together in all parts to cohaere unto it selfe But this according to the opinion of Chrysippus hapneth by meere hazzard and chance for if the occupation of a place is the cause of worlds incorruption and eternity and the same chanced by fortune we must inferre there upon that the safety of all things dependeth upon hazzard and adventure and not upon fatall destiny and divine providence As for his doctrine disputation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of things possible which Chrysippus hath delivered directly agaisnt that of fatall destiny how can it chuse but be repugnant to it selfe for if that be not possible according to the opiniō of Diodorus which either is or shall be true but whatsoever is susceptible naturally of a power to be although the same never come into act or esse is to be counted possible there will be a number of things possible which never shal have being by destiny invincible inexpugnable surmoūting al things And therefore either this doctrine overthroweth al the force and puissance of destiny or if it be admitted as Chrysippus would have it that which potentially may be wil fal out oftentimes to be impossible whatsoever is true shall be also necessary as being comprised contained by the greatest and most powerfull necessity of all others and whatsoever is false impossible as
having the greatest and most puissant cause withstanding and impeaching it ever for being true For looke whose destiny it is to die in the sea how can it possible be that he should be 〈◊〉 of death upon the land And how is it possible that he who is at Megara should come to Athens being hindred and prohibited by fatall destiny Moreover his resolutions as touching fantasies and imaginations repugne mainely against fatall destiny For intending to proove that fantasie is not an entire and absolute cause of assent he saith that Sages and wise men will prejudice and hurt us much by imprinting in our mindes false imaginations if it be so that such fantasies doe absolutely cause assent For many times wise men use that which is false unto leawd and wicked persons representing unto them a fantasie that is but onely probable and yet the same is not the cause of assent for so also should it be the cause of false opinion and of deception If then a man would transferre this reason and argument from the said wise men unto fatall destiny saying that destiny is not the cause of assents for so he should confesse that by destiny were occasioned false assents opinions and deceptions yea and men should be endamaged by destiny certes the same doctrine and reason which exempteth a wise man from doing hurt at any time sheweth withall that destiny is not the cause of all things For if they neither opine nor receive detriment by destiny certeinly they doe no good they are not wise they be not firme and constant in opinion neither receive they any good and profit by destiny so that this conclusion which they hold for most assured falleth to the ground and commeth to nothing namely that fatall destiny is the cause of all things Now if paradventure one say unto me that Chrysippus doth not make destiny the entire and absolute cause of all things but only a procatarcticall and antecedent occasion here againe will he discover how he is contradictorie to himselfe whereas he praiseth Homer excessively for saying thus of Jupiter Take well in worth therefore what he to each of you shall send And whether good or bad it be doe not with him contend As also where he highly extolleth Euripides for these verses O Jupiter what cause have I to say That mortall wretches we should prudent be Depend we doe of thee and nothing may Bring to effect but that which pleaseth thee Himselfe also writeth many sentences accordant hereunto and finally concludeth that nothing doth rest and stay nothing stirre and moove be it never so little otherwise than by the counsell and minde of Jupiter whome he saith to be all one with fatall destiny Moreover the antecedent cause is more feeble and weake than that which is perfit and absolute neither attaineth it to any effect as being subdued kept down by others mightier than it selfe rising up making head against it And as for fatall destiny Chrysippus himselfe pronouncing it to be a cause invincible inflexible and that which cannot be impeached calleth it Atropos Adrastia as one would say a cause that cannot be averted avoided or undone Likewise necessity and Pepromene which is as much to say as setting downe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say an end and limit unto all things How then whether doe we not say that neither assents vertues vices nor well or ill doing lie in our free will and power if we affirme fatall destiny is to be maimed or unperfect and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a fatality determining all things to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say without power to finish and effect ought and so the motions and habitudes of Jupiters will to remaine imperfect and unaccomplished for of these conclusions the one will follow if we say that destiny is an absolute and perfect cause and the other in case we hold that it is onely a procatarcticall or antecedent occasion For being an absolute and all sufficient cause it overthroweth that which is in us to wit our free will and againe if we admit it to be only antecedent it is marred for being effectuall and without the danger of impeachment For not in one or two places onely but every where in maner throughout all his commentaries of naturall philosophy he hath written that in particular natures and motions there be many obstacles and impediments but in the motion of the universall world there is none at all And how is it possible that the motion of the universall world should not be hindred and disturbed reaching as it doth unto particulars in case it be so that they likewise be stopped and impeached For surely the nature in generall of the whole man is not at liberty and without impediment if neither that of the foot nor of the hand be void of obstacles no more can the motion or course of a ship be void of let and hinderance if there be some stay about the sailes oares or their works Over besides all this if the fantasies and imaginations are not imprinted in us by fatall destiny how be they the cause of assents Or if because it imprinteth fantasies that lead unto assent thereupon all assents are said to be by fatall destiny how is it possible that destiny should not be repugnant to it selfe considering that in matters of greatest importance it ministreth many times different fantasies and those which distract the minde into contrary opinions whereas they affirme that those who settle unto one of the said fantasies and hold not of their assent and approbation doe erre and sinne For if they yeeld say they unto uncertaine fantasies they stumble and fall if unto false they are deceived if to such as commonly are not conceived and understood they opine For of necessity it must be one of these three either that every fantasie is not the worke nor effect of destiny or that every receit assension of fantasie is not void of error or else that destiny it selfe is not irreprehensible Neither can I see how it should be blamelesse objecting such fansies imaginations as it doth which to withstand and resist were not blameable but rather to give place and follow them and verily in the disputations of the Stoicks against the Academicks the maine point about which both Chrysippus himselfe and Antipater also contended and stood upon was this That we doe nothing at all nor be enclined to any action without a precedent consent but that these be but vaine fictions and devised fables and suppositions that when any proper fantasie is presented incontinently we are disposed yea and incited thereto without yeelding or giving consent Againe Chrysippus saith That both God and the wise man doe imprint false imaginations not because they would have us to yeeld or give our consent unto them but that we should doe the thing onely and incite our selves to that which appeereth As for us if wee be evill by
to it but appetition immediatly presenteth it selfe which is nothing else but amotion and incitation of the minde Now for that there must be a sense as it were of these things and the same consisting of flesh and blood the same pleasure and delight likewise will appeare good And therefore it will semblably seeme good unto him who holdeth off his assent for surely he hath senses and is made of flesh blood and bone and so soone as he hath apprehended the imagination of good he hath an appetite and desire thereto doing all that ever he can not to misse it nor leese the fruition thereof but as much as is possible to cleave and adhere continually to that which is proper unto him as being driven and drawen thereto by Naturall and not Geometricall constraints For these goodly pleasant gentle and tickling motions of the flesh be of themselves without any other teacher attractive enough as they themselves forget not to say and are able to draw and traine him whosoever he be that will not confesse nor be knowen but stoutly denieth that he is made soft and pliable by them But paradventure you will aske me how it comes to passe that one of these that are so retentive and deinty of their assent climeth not up some hill but to the baine or hot house or when hee riseth and purposeth to goe into the market place why hee runneth not his head against a post or the wall but taketh his way directly to the dore And aske you me this question indeed you that holde all fenses to bee infallible the apprehensions also and imaginations to bee certaine and true Forsooth it is because the baine seemeth unto him a baine and not a mountaine the dore also appeareth to be a dore and not the wall And so is it to be said likewise of such otherthings everie one For the doctrine delivered as touching this cohibition of assent doth not pervert the sense nor worke in it by strange passions and motions any such change and alteration as may trouble the imaginative faculty Onely it taketh away and subverteth opinions but useth all other things according to their nature But impossible it is not to yeeld consent unto apparent evidences For to denie those things which wee are verily perswaded of and doe beleeve is more absurd than neither to deny nor affirme any thing at al. Who be they then that deny such things as they beleeve and goe against things evident even they who overthrow divination and denie that there is any government by divine providence they who say that neither the 〈◊〉 animall nor the moone which all men honour and adore to which they make their praiers and offer sacrifice As for you doe yee not anull that which is apparent to the whole world to wit that naturally infants yong ones are conteined within their mothers and dams and that betweene paine and pleasure there is no meane even against the sense and experience of all men saying that not to be in paine is to have pleasure and not to do is to suffer as also not to joy is to be sorowfull But to let passe all the rest what is more evident and so fully believed generally than this that those who have their braines troubled and their wits distracted or otherwise sicke of melancholicke diseases weene they see and heare those things which they neither heare nor see namely when their understanding comes to be in such sort affected and transported as to breake out into these speeches These women here in habit blacke yclad hold in their hands To dart at me and burne mine eies torches and firy brands Also Loe how she in her armes doth beare My mother deare who did me reare These verily and a number besides of other illusions more strange and tragicall than these resembling the prodigious monsters that Empedocles describeth like anticks which they make sport and laugh at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say With crooked shanks and winding seet resembling rammes in pace In bodie made like ox or cow like man before in face And all other sorts of monstrous shapes and strange natures mixed together all in one fetched from troublesome dreames and alienations of the minde But these men say that none of all this is any deception or errour of the sight or vaine apparition but be all true imaginations of bodies and figures which passe to and fro out of the inconstant aire about them Tell me now what thing is so impossible in nature that we need to doubt if it be possible to beleeve these For such things as never any conceited maske-maker or deviser of visards any inventive potter glasse-maker or curious painter and drawer of woonderfull shapes durst joine together either to deceive the beholders or to make them sport for their pastime these men supposing verily and in good earnest that they be really subsistent and that which more is affirming all firme and constant beliefe all certitude of judgement and of trueth to be quite gone for ever if such things have not their subsistence these men I say be they which involve all in obscuritie and darknesse who overthrow all apparence and bring into our judgement feare and terrour into our actions doubtfull suspition in case our ordinary and usuall actions and such affaires of ours which are dayly ready at hand be caried in the same imagination beleefe and perswasion that these enormious absurd and extravagant fansies for the equalitie which they suppose in all plucketh away more credit from things ordinary than it addeth unto such as be uncouth and unusuall which is the cause that we know Philosophers not a few more willing to avouch that no imagination is true than that all be true without exception and who distrust all men whom they had not conversed withall all things which they had not tried generally all speeches which they had not heard rather than beleeve so much as one of these imaginations and illusions which madde and franticke folke fanaticall persons possessed with a furious spirit or dreamers in their sleeps doe apprehend Seeing then some imaginations we may utterly abolish and others not lawfull it is to reteine our assent and doubt of things whether they be or no if there were no other cause els but this discordant which is sufficient to worke in us suspition of things as having nothing assured and certeine but all incertitude and perturbation As for the dissensions and differences about the infinite number of worlds the nature of the Atomes being indivisible bodies and their declinations to a side although they trouble and disquiet many men yet this comfort there is and consolation that in all this there is nothing neere at hand to touch us but rather every one of these questions be farre remote and beyond our senses wheras this distrust and diffidence this perturbation and ignorance about sensible things and imaginations presented to our eies our eares and
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
as also by the apparence of one and the same visage in divers and sundry mirours flat hollow curbed or embowed round outwardly which represent an infinit variety But there is neither mirror that sheweth and expresseth the face better nor instrument of nature more supple obsequent and pliable that is the Moone howbeit receiving form the Sunne a light and firy illumination she sendeth not the same backe unto us but mingled with somewhat of her owne whereby it changeth the colour and hath a power or facultie far different for no heat at all there is in it and as for the light so weake and feeble it is that it faileth before it commeth unto us And this I suppose to be the meaning of Heraclitus when he saith that the lord unot whom belongeth the oracle at Delphos doth neither speake nor conceale but signifie onely and give signe Adde now to this which is so well said and conceived and make this application that the god who is heere useth Pythia the prophetesse for sight and hearing like as the Sunne useth the Moone He sheweth future things by a mortall body and a soule which cannot rest and lie stil as being not able to shew her selfe immooveable and quiet to him who stirreth and mooveth her but is troubled still more and more by the motions agitations and passions of her owne and which are in her selfe for like as the turnings of bodies which together with a circular motion fall downward are not firme and strong but turning as they do round by force and tending downward by nature there is made of them both a certaine turbulent and irregular circumgiration Even so the ravishment of the spirit called Enthusiasmus is a mixture of two motions when the minde is moved in the one by inspiration and in the other naturally For considering that of bodies which have no soule and of themselves continue alwaies in one estate quiet a man cannot make use not moove them perforce otherwise than the quality of their nature will beare nor move a cylindre like a bal or in maner of a square cube nor a lute or harpe according as he doth a pipe no more than a trumpet after the order of a cithern or stringed instrument ne yet any thing else otherwise than either by art or nature each of them is sit to be used How is it possible then to handle and manage that which is animate which mooveth of it selfe is indued with will and inclination capable also of reason but according to the precedent habitude puissance and nature As for example to move one musically who is altogether ignorant and an enemie of musicke or grammatically him who skilleth not of grammer and knoweth not a letter of the booke or eloquently and thetorically one who hath neither skill nor practise at all in orations Certes I cannot see or say how And herein Homer also beareth witnesse with me who albeit he supposeth thus much that nothing to speake of in the whole world is performed and effected by any cause unlesse God be at one end thereof yet will not he make God to use all persons indifferently in every thing but each one according to the sufficiency that he hath by art or nature To prove this see you not quoth he my frend Diogenianus that when Minerva would perswade the Achaeans to any thing she calleth for Ulysses when she is minded to trouble and marre the treaty of peace she seeketh out Pandarus when she is disposed to discomfit and put to flight the Trojans she addresseth her selfe and goeth to Diomedes for of these three the last was a valiant man of person and a brave warrior the second a good archer but yet a foolish and brainsicke man the first right eloquent and wise withall for Homer was not of the same minde with Pandarus if so be it were Pandarus who made this verse If God so will in sea thou maist well saile Upon an hurdle or a wicker fraile But well he knew that powers and natures be destined to divers effects according as ech one hath different motions notwithstanding that which mooveth them all be but one Like as therefore that facultie which moveth a living creature naturally going on foot can not make it to flie nor him who stutteth and stammereth to speake readily ne yet him to crie bigge and aloud who hath a small and slender voice which was the reason as I take it that when Battus was come to Rome they sent him into Afrike there to plant a colonie and people a citie for howsoever he had a stutting and stammering tongue and was otherwise of a small voice yet a princely minde he caried a politike head he had of his owne and was a man of wisedome government even so impossible it is that Pythia should have the knowledge to speake here elegantly learnedly for notwithstanding that she were wel borne and legitimate as any other had lived honestly and discreetly yet being brought up in the house of poore husbandmen she descendeth into the place of the oracle bringing with her no art learned in schoole nor any experience whatsoever But as Xenophon thinketh that a yoong bride when she is brought to her husbands house ought to be such an one as hath not seene much and heard as little semblably Pythia being ignorant and unexpert in maner of all things and a very virgin indeed as touching her minde and soule commeth to converse with Apollo And we verily are of opinion that God for to signifie future things useth Herons Wrens Ravens Crowes and other birds speaking after their maner neither will we have soothsaiers and prophets being as they are the messengers and heralds of God to expound and declare their predictions in plaine and intelligible words but wee would that the voice and dialect of the prophetesse Pythia resembling the speech of a Chorus in a tragedie from a scaffold should pronounce her answers not in simple plaine and triviall termes without any grace to set them out but with Poeticall magnificence of high and stately verses disguised as it were with metaphors and figurative phrases yea and that which more is with found of flute and hautboies what answere make you then as touching the old oracles Surely not one alone but many First the ancient Pythiae as hath beene said already uttered and pronounced most of them in prose secondly that time affoorded those complexions and temperatures of bodie which had a propense and forward inclination to Poesie whereto there were joined incontinently the alacritie desires affections and dispositions of the soule in such sort a they were ever prest and ready neither wanted they ought but some little beginning from without to set them on worke and to stirre the imagination and conception whereby there might directly be drawen unto that which was meet and proper for them not onely Astrologers and Philosophers as Philinus saith but also such as were well soaked with wine and shaken with some
〈◊〉 that is to say of running even so both we and also the Aegyptians have called this goddesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Isis of intelligence and motion together Semblably Plato saith that in old time when they said Isia they meant Osia that is to say sacred like as Noesis also and Phronesis quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the stirring and motion of the understanding being caried and going forward and they imposed this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those who have found out and discovered goodnesse and vertue but contrariwise have by reprochfull names noted such things as impeach hinder and stay the course of natural things binding them so as they can not go forward to wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indigence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cowardise and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 griefe as if they kept them from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say free progresse and proceeding forward As for Osiris a word it is composed of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say holy and sacred for he is the common reason or Idea of things above in heaven and beneath of which our ancients were woont to call the one sort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say sacred and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say holy The reason also which sheweth celestiall things and such as move upward is called Anubis and otherwhiles Hermanubis as if the one name were meet for those above and the other for them beneath whereupon they sacrificed unto the former a white cocke and to the other a yellow or of saffron colour for that they thought those things above pure simple and shining but those beneath mixed of a medley colour Neither are we to marvell that these termes are disguised to the fashion of Greeke words for an infinit number of more there be which have beene transported out of Greece with those men who departed from thence in exile and there remaine untill this day as strangers without their native countrey whereof some there be which cause Poetry to be slandered for calling them into use as if it spake barbarously namely by those who terme such Poeticall and obscure words Glottas But in the books of Herimes or Mercurie so called there is written by report thus much concerning sacred names namely that the power ordeined over the circular motion and revolution of the Sunne the Aegyptians call Horus and the Greeks Apollo that which is over the wind some name Osiris others Sarapis some againe in the Aegyptian language Sothi which signifieth as much as conception or to be with childe and thereupon it is that by a little deflexion of the name in the Greeke tongue that Canicular or Dogge starre is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is thought appropriate unto Isis. Well I wote that we are not to strive as touching names yet would I rather give place unto the Aegyptians about the name Sarapis than Osiris for this is a meere Greeke word whereas the other is a stranger but as well the one as the other signifieth the same power of Divinity And heereto accordeth the Aegyptian language for many times they terme Isis by the name of Minerva which in their tongue signifieth as much as I am come of my selfe And Typhon as we have already said is named Seth Baebon and Smy which words betoken all a violent stay and impeachment a contrariety and a diversion or turning aside another way Moreover they call the loadstone or Sederitis the bone of Horus like as iron the bone of Typhon as Manethos is mine author for as the iron seemeth otherwhiles to follow the said loadstone and suffereth it selfe to be drawen by it and many times for it againe returneth backe and is repelled to the contrary even so the good and comfortable motion of the world endued with reason by perswasive speeches doeth convert draw into it and mollifie that hardnesse of Typhon but otherwhiles againe the same returneth backe into it selfe and is hidden in the depth of penurie and impossibility Over and besides Eudoxus saith that the Aegyptians devise of Jupiter this fiction that both his legs being so growen together in one that he could not goe at all for very shame he kept in a desert wildernesse but Isis by cutting and dividing the same parts of his body brought him to his sound and upright going againe Which fable giveth us covertly thus to understand that the understanding and reason of God in it selfe going invisibly and after an unseene maner proceedeth to generation by the meanes of motion And verily that brasen Timbrel which they sounded and 〈◊〉 at the sacrifices of Isis named Sistrum sheweth evidently that all things ought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say to bestirre and shake and never cease moving but to be awakened and raised as if otherwise they were drowsie lay asleepe and languished for it is said that they turne backe and repulse Typhon with their Timbrels aforesaid meaning thereby that whereas corruption doth bind and stay nature generation againe unbindeth and seteeth it a worke by the meanes of motion Now the said Sistrum being in the uppert part round the curvature and Absis thereof comprehendeth foure things that are stirred and mooved for that part of the world which is subject to generation and corruption is comprehended under the sphaere of the Moone within which all things move and alter by the meanes of the foure elements Fire Earth Water and Aire upon the Absis or rundle of the Sistrum toward the toppe they engrave the forme of a cat with a mans face but beneath under those things which are shaken one while they engrave the visage of Isis another while of Nephthys signifying by these two faces nativity and death for these be the motions and mutations of the elements By the cat they understand the Moone for the variety of the skin for the operation and worke in the night season and for the fruitfulnesse of this creature for it is said that at first she beareth one kitling at the second time two the third time three then foure afterwards five and so to seven so that in all she brings foorth 28 which are the daies of every Moone And howsoever this may seeme fabulous yet for certeine it is true that the appuls or sights of these cats are full and large when the Moone is at full but contrariwise draw in and become smaller as the Moone is in the wane As for the visage of a man which they attribute unto the cat they represent thereby the witty subtilty and reason about the mutations of the Moone But to knit up all this matter in few words reason would that wee should thinke neither the Sunne nor the water neither earth nor heaven to be Isis or Osiris no more than exceeding drouth extreame heat fire and sea is
and the same denomination like as we doe the sea also for all the parts of the earth are called earth and of the sea likewise but no part of the world is world for that it is composed of divers and different hatures For as touching that inconvenience which some especially feare who spend all matter within one world lest forsooth if there remained any thing without it should trouble the composition and frame thereof by the jurres and resistances that it would make furely there is no such cause why they should feare for when there be many worlds and ech of them particularly having one definit and determinate measure and limit of their substance and matter no part thereof will be without order and good disposition nothing will remaine superfluous as an excrement without to hinder or impeach for that the reason which belongeth to ech world being able to rule and governe the matter that is allotted thereto will not suffer any thing to goe out of course and order and wandring to and fro for to hit and run upon another world nor likewise that from another ought should come for to rush upon it because in nature there is nothing in quantity infinit inordinate nor in motion without reason order But say there should happly be some deflux or effluence that pasleth from one world to another the same is a brotherly sweet and amiable communication and such as very well agreeth to all much like unto the lights of starres and the influences of their temperatures which are the cause that they themselves doe joy in beholding one another with a kinde and favourable aspect yea and yeeld unto the gods which in every starre be many and those good meanes to intertaine and embrace one another most friendly For in all this verily there is nothing impossible nothing fabulous nor contrary unto reason unlesse paradventure some there be who will suspect and feare the reason and sentence of Aristotle as consonant unto nature For if as he saith every body hath a proper and naturall place of the owne by reason thereof necessarily it must be that the earth from all parts should tend toward the midst and the water afterwards upon it serving by meanes of their weight and ponderosity in stead of a foundation to other elements of a lighter substance And therefore quoth he if there were many worlds it would fall out oftentimes that the earth should be found situate above aire and fire and as often under them likewise the aire and fire sometime under otherwhiles in their naturall places and againe in others contrary to their nature Which being impossible as he thinketh it must follow of necessity that there be neither two nor more worlds but one alone to wit this which we visibly 〈◊〉 composed of all sorts of substance and disposed according to nature as is meet and convenient for diversity of bodies But in all this there is more apparent probability than verity indeed For the better proofe heereof consider I pray you my good friend Demetrius that when he saith among simple bodies some bend directly to the midst that is to say downward others from the midst that is to say upward and a third sort move round about the midst and circularly in what respect taketh he the midst Certaine it is not in regard of voidnesse for there is no such thing in nature even by his owne opinion againe according unto those that admit it middle can it have none no more than first or last For these be ends and extremities and that which is infinite must consequently be also without an end But suppose that some one of them should enforce us to admit a middle in that voidnesse impossible it is to conceive and imagine the difference in motions of bodies toward it because there is not in that voidnesse any puissance attractive of bodies nor yet within the same bodies any deliberation or inclination and affection to tend from all sides to this middle But no lesse impossible is it to apprehend that of bodies having no soule any should moove of themselves to an incorporall place and having no difference of situation than it is that the same should draw them or give them any motion or inclination to it It remaineth then that this middle ought to be understood not locally but corporally that is to say not in regard of place but of body For seeing this world is an union or masse compounded of many bodies different and unlike conjoigned together it must needs be that their diversities engender motions discrepant and 〈◊〉 one from the other which appeereth by this that every of these bodies changing substance change their place also withall For the subtilization and rarefaction distributeth round about the matter which ariseth from the midst and ascendeth on high contrariwise condensation and constipation depresseth and driveth it downeward to the middle But of this point we need not discourse any more in this place For what cause soever a man shall suppose to produce such passions and mutations the same shall containe in it a severall world for that each of them hath an earth and sea of the owne each one hath her owne proper middle as also passions and alterations of bodies together with a nature and power which preserveth and 〈◊〉 every one in their place and being For that which is without whether it have nothing at all or else an infinite voidnesse middle can it affoord none as we have said before but there being many worldes each of them hath a proper middle apart in such sort as in every one there shall be motions proper unto bodies some falling downe to the midst others mounting aloft from the midst others mooving round about the midst according as they themselves doe distinguish motions And he who would have that there being many middles weighty bodies from all parts should tend unto one alone may very well be compared unto him who would have the blood of many men to run from all parts into one vaine likewise that all their braines should be contained within one and the same membraine or pannicle supposing it a great inconvenience and absurdity if of naturall bodies all that are solide be not in one and the same place and the rare also in another Absurd is he that thus saith and no lesse foolish were the other who thinketh much and is offended if the whole should have all parts in their order range and situation naturall For it were a very grosse absurdity for a man to say there were a world which had the Moone in it so situate as if a man should carry his braine in his heeles and his heart in the temples of his head but there were no absurdity nor inconvenience if in setting downe many distinct worldes and those separate one from another a man should distinguish with all and separate their parts For in every of them the earth the sea and the skie shall be so placed and
peradventure it were better for a man to yeeld reasons of his owne opinion rather than of anothers To begin againe therefore I say that nature being parted and devided at the first in two parts the one sensible mutable subject to generation and corruption and varietie every way the other spirituall and intelligible and continuing evermore in one and the same state it were very strange and absurd my good friends first to say that the spirituall nature receiveth division and hath diversity and difference in it and then to thinke much and grow into heat of cholar and anger if a man allow not the passible and corporall nature wholly united and concorporate in it selfe without dividing or separating it into many parts For more meet it were yet and reasonable that natures parmanent and divine should cohere unto themselves inseparably and avoid as much as is possible all distraction and divulsion and yet this force and power of The Other medling also even with these causeth in spirituall and intellectuall things greater dissociations and dissimilitudes in forme and essentiall reason than are the locall distances in those corporall natures And therefore Plato confuting those who hold this position that all is one affirmeth these five grounds and principles of all to wit Essence or seeing The same The other and after all Motion and Station Admit these five no marvell is it if nature of those five bodily elements hath framed proper figures and representations for every one of them not simple and pure but so as every one of them is most participant of each of those properties and puissances For plaine and evident it is that the cube is most meet and sortable unto station and repose in regard of the stability and stedy firmitude of those broad and flat faces which it hath As for the Pyramis who seeth not and acknowledgeth not incontinently in it the nature of fire ever mooving in those long and slender sides and sharpe angles that it hath Also the nature of Dodecaedron apt to comprehend all other figures may seeme propetly to be the image representing Ens or That which is in respect of all corporall essence Of the other twaine Icosaedron resembleth The Other or Diverse but Octaedron hath a principall reference to the forme of The same And so by this reckoning the one of them produceth foorth Aire capable of all substance in one forme and the other exhibiteth unto us Water which by temperature may turne into all sorts of qualities Now if so be that nature requireth in all things and throughout all an equall and uniforme distribution very probable it is that there be also five worlds and neither more nor fewer than there be moulds or patterns to the end that ech example or patterne may hold the first place and principall puislance in ech world like as they have in the first constitution and composition of bodies And this may stand in some sort for an answer and to satisfie him who mervaileth how we devide that nature which is subject to generation and alteration into so many kinds but yet I beseech you consider and weigh with me more diligently this argument Certeine it is that of those two first and supreme principles I meane Unity and Binary or Duality this latter being the element and originall primative of all difformity disorder and confusion is called Infinity but contrariwise the nature of Unitie determining and limiting the void infinity which hath no proportion nor termination reduceth it into a good forme and maketh it in some sort capable and apt to receive a denomination which alwaies accompanieth sensible things And verily these two generall principles shew themselves first in number or rather indeed to speake generally no multitude is called number untill such time as unitie comming to be imprinted as the forme in matter cutteth off from indeterminate infinity that which is superfluous heere more and there lesse for then ech multitude becommeth and is made number when as it is once determined and limited by unitie but if a man take unitie away then the indesinite and indeterminate Dualitie comming againe in place to confound all maketh it to be without order without grace without number and without measure Now considering it is so that the forme is not the destruction of matter but rather the figure ornament and order thereof it must needs be that both these principles are within number from which proceedeth the chiefe dissimilitude and greatest difference For the indefinite and indeterminate principle to wit Duality is the author and cause of the even number but the better to wit Unitie is the father as one would say of the odde number so as the first even number is two and the first odde number three of which is compounded five by conjunction common to both but in the owne puissance odde For it behooved necessary it was in as much as that which is corporall sensible for composition sake is divided into many parts by the power and force of The Other that is to say of Diversitie that it should be neither the first even number nor yet the first uneven or odde but a third consisting of both to the end that it might be procreate of both principles to wit of that which engendreth the even number and of that which produceth the odde for it could not be that the one should be parted from the other because that both of them have the nature puissance of a principle These two principles then being conjoinct together the better being the mightier is opposed unto the indeterminate infinitie which divideth the corporal nature so the matter being divided the unitie interposing it selfe between impeacheth the universall nature that it was not divided and parted into two equall portions but there was a pluralitie of worlds caused by The Other that is to say by Diversitie and difference of that which is infinit and determinate but this 〈◊〉 was brought into an odde and uneven number by the vertue and puissance of The same and that which is finite because the better principle suffred not nature to extend farther than was expedient For if one had beene pure and simple without mixture the matter should have had no separation at all but in as much as it was mixed with Dualitie which is a divisive nature it hath received indeed and suffred by this meanes separation and division howbeit staied it hath in good time because the odde was the master and superior over the even This was the reason that our auncients in old time were wont to use the verbe Pempasesthai when they would signifie to number or to reckon And I thinke verily that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say All was derived of Pente that is to say Five not without good reason because that five is compounded of the two first numbers and when other numbers afterwards be multiplied by others they produce divers numbers whereas five if it be multiplied
Diatessaron is Epitritos or Sesquitertiall that is to say the whole and a third part over of Diapente Hemolios or Sesquialterall that is to say the whole and halfe as much more of Diapason duple of Diapason with Diapente together triple of Dis-diapason quadruple And as for that which the Musicians bring in over and above these to wit Diapason and Diatessaron for so they name it they are not worthy to be admitted and received as transcending all meane and measure to gratifie forsooth the unreasonable pleasure of the eare against all proportion and breaking as it were the ordinance of the law To let passe therefore the five positures of the Tetrachords as also the first five tones tropes changes notes or harmonies call them what you will for that they change and alter by setting up or letting downe the strings more or lesse or by streining or easing the voice all the rest are 〈◊〉 as bases and trebles For see you not that there being many or rather infinit intervals yet five there be onely used in song namely Diesis Hemitonium Tonos Trisemitonion and Ditonos Neither is there any space or intervall greater or lesse in voices distinguished by base and treble high and low that can be expressed in song But to passe by many other such things quoth I onely Plato I will alledge who affirmeth that there is indeed but one world mary if there were more in number and not the same one alone it must needs be that there are five in all and not one more But grant that there be no more in trueth than one as Aristotle holdeth yet so it is that the same seemeth to be composed and coagmented in some sort of five other worlds whereof one is that of earth another of water the third of fire the fourth of aire as for the fifth some call it heaven others light and some againe the skie and there be who name it a quint-essence unto which onely it is proper and naturall of all other bodies to turne round not by violent force nor otherwise by chance and aventure Plato therefore observing and knowing well enough that the most beautifull and perfect figures of regular bodies which be in the world within compasse of nature are five in number namely the Pyramis the Cube the Octaedron Icofaedron Dodecaedron hath very fitly appropriated and attributed ech of these noble figures unto one or other of those first bodies Others there be also who apply the faculties of the naturall senses which likewise be in number five unto the said primitive bodies to wit Touching which is firme solid and hard to Earth Tasting which judgeth of the qualities of savors by the meanes of moisture to Water Hearing to the Aire for that the aire being beaten upon is the voice and sound in the eares of the other twaine Smelling hath for the object Sent or odour which being in maner of a perfume is ingendred and elevated by heat and therfore holdeth of the Fire as for the Sight which is cleere and bright by a certeine affinitie and consanguinity which it hath with the heaven and with light hath a temperature and complexion mingled of the one and the other neither is there in any living creature other sense nor in the whole world any other nature and substance simple and uncompound but a marvellous distribution there is and congruity of five to five as it evidently appeareth When I had thus said and made a stop withall after a little pause betweene O what a fault quoth I ô Eustrophus had I like to have committed for I went within a little of passing over Homer altogether as if he had not beene the first that divided the world into five parts allotting three of them which are in the middes unto three gods and the other two which be the extremes namely heaven and earth whereof the one is the limit of things beneath the other the bound of things above in common and not distributed like the others But our speech must remember to returne againe as Euripides saith from whence it hath digressed For they who magnifie the quaternarie or number of foure teach not amisse nor beside the purpose that everie solide body hath taken the beginning and generation by reason of it For it being so that every solide consisteth in length and bredth having withall a depth before length there is to be supposed a positure and situation of a point or pricke answerable to unitie in numbers and longitude without bredth is called a line and the mooving of a line into bredth and the procreation of a superficies thereby consisteth of three afterwards when there is adjoined thereto profundity or depth the augmentation groweth by foure untill it become a perfect solidity So that every man seeth that the quaternary having brought nature to this point as to performe and accomplish a body in giving it a double magnitude or masse with firme soliditie apt to make resistance leaveth it afterwards destitute of the thing which is greatest and principall For that which is without a soule to speake plaine is in maner of an Orphan unperfect and good for nothing so long as it is without a soule to use and guide it but the motion or disposition which putteth in the soule ingenerated by meanes of the number of five is it that bringeth perfection and consummation unto nature Whereby it appeereth that there is an essence more excellent than the foure inasmuch as a living body endued with a soule is of a more noble nature than that which hath none but more than so the beauty and excellent power of this number five proceeding yet farther would not suffer a body animate to be extended into infinite kinds but hath given unto us five divers sorts of animate and living natures in al. For there be Gods Daemons or Angels Demi-gods or Heroës then after these a fourth kind of Men and last of all in the fift place is that of brute Beasts and unreasonable Furthermore if you come and divide the soule according to nature the first and obscurest part or puissance thereof is the vegetative or nutritive faculty the second is the sensitive then the appetitive after it the irascible wherein is engendred anger Now when it is once come unto that power which discourseth by reason and brought nature as it were to perfection there it resteth in the fift as in the very pitch top of all Since then this number hath so many and those so great puissances faculties the very generation thereof is beautiful to be considered I meane not that whereof we have already heeretofore discoursed when we said that composed it was of two and three but that which is made by the conjunction of the first principle with the first square and quadrate number And what is that principle or beginning of all numbers even one or Unitie and that first quadrat is Foure and of these twaine as a man would say of
just and neither more nor fewer you will be so good will you not as to yeeld us a reason for I suppose you are well studied in this point being as you are so well affected unto them and so much adorned by their graces And what great learning quoth Herodes againe should there be in that for every man hath in his mouth the number of nine and there is not a woman but singeth thereof and is able to say that as it is the first square arising from the first odde number so it is unevenly odde it selfe as being divided into three odde numbers equall one to the other Now surely quoth Ammontus and therewith smiled this is manfully done of you and stoutly remembred but why do you not adde thereto thus much more for a corollary and over-measure that it is a number composed of the two first cubes considering that it is made of an unitie and an octonaric and after another maner likewise of composition it standeth of two triangled numbers to wit a senarie and a ternarie where of both the one and the other is a perfect number but what is the reason that this novenarie or number of nine agreeth better unto the Muses than to any other gods or goddesses for nine Muses we have but not nine Cereses nor nine 〈◊〉 nor yet nine Dianaes you are not I trow perswaded that the cause hereof is because the name of their mother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conteineth just so many letters Herodes laughed heartily heereat and after some time of pause and silence Ammonius sollicited us to take the matter in hand and search the cause thereof With that my brother beganne and said Our ancients in olde time knew of no more than three Muses but to proove so much by way of demonstration before this company where there be so many wise men and learned clerks were a meere uncivill and rusticall part savouring of vanitie and ostentation but I assure you the reason of this number was not as some affirme the three kinds of musicke or melodie to wit Diatonique Chromatique and Harmonique nor by occasion of the three termes or bounds which make the intervals in an octave or eight of musicke harmonicall to wit Nete Mese and Hypate that is to say the Treble the Meane and the Base and yet verily the Delphians so called the Muses wherein they did amisse in my judgement to restraine that generall name of them all to one science or rather to one part of a science to wit the harmonie of musicke but our ancients knowing well that all arts and sciences which are practised performed by reason and speech are reduced to three principall kinds Philosophicall Rhetoricall and Mathematicall reputed them to be the gifts and beneficiall graces of three deities or divine powers which they called Muses 〈◊〉 afterwards and about the time wherein Hesiodus lived when the faculties of these generall sciences were better revealed and discovered they perceived that 〈◊〉 of them had three differences and so they subdivided them into three subalternall sorts namely the Mathematicks into Arithmaticke Musicke and Geometrie Philosophy into Logicke Ethicke or Morall and Physicke or Naturall as for Rhetoricke it had at the beginning for the first part Demonstrative which was imploied in praises for the second Deliberative occupied in consultations and for the third Judiciall used in pleas and judgements of all which faculties they thought there was not so much as one that was invented or could be learned without some gods or Muses that is to say without the conduct and favour of some superiour puissance and therefore they did not devise and make so many Muses but acknowledged and found that so many there were like as therefore the number of nine is divided into three ternaries and every one of them subdivided into as many unites even so the rectitude of reason in the precellent knowledge of the trueth is one puissance and the same common but ech of these three kinds is subdivided into three other and every of them hath their severall Muse for to dispose and adorne particularly one of these faculties for I doe not thinke that in this division poets and astrologers can of right complaine of us for leaving out their sciences knowing as they do aswell as we can tell them that Astrologie is contributed unto Geometrie Poetrie to Musicke Upon this speech Tryphon the physician brake out into these words But what meane you I pray you and how hath our poore art offended you that it is excluded thus out of the temple and societie of the Muses Then 〈◊〉 of Melitus added moreover and said Nay you have provoked many of us besides to complaine upon our discontentment in the same behalfe for we that are gardeners and husbandmen imploied in agriculture challenge a right and propertie in lady 〈◊〉 ascribing unto her the care and charge of plants and seeds that they may come up grow flower increase and be preserved But herein quoth I you doe the man manifest wrong for you have Ceres for your patronesse furnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for giving us so many gifts to wit the fruits of the earth yea and Bacchus may goe for a patron in this respect who as Pindar us saith Taking the charge of trees that grow Doth cause them for to bud and blow The verdure fresh and beautie pure Of lovely fruits he doth procure And we know besides that physicians have Aestulapius for their president and tutelar god who ordinarily also use Apollo as he is surnamed Paean that is to say the appeaser of all paines and maladies but never as he is Musegetes that is to say the prince and guide of the Muses True it is indeed that according to Homer All mortall men of gods have need That they in their affaires may speed Howbeit all men require not the helpe of all gods But I woonder much at this that Lamprias should either forget or be ignorant of that common saying of the Delphians who give out That among them the Mules beare not the name either of sounds and notes or of strings but whereas the whole world is divided into three principall parts or regions where of the first is of those natures which be fixed and not erraticall the second of such as are wandering and the third of bodies under the sphaere of the moone these are every one distinctly digested composed and ordered by harmonic all proportions and each of them as they say hath a Muse to their keeper and president to wit the first or highest region Hypate the last or lowest Nete as for Mese which is in the middle betweene she doth both comprehend and also turne about mortall things as much as it is possible considering they come after with divine and immortall yea and earthly natures with heavenly and celestiall according as Plato himselfe after a covert aenigmaticall maner hath given us to understand under the names of the three Destinies
calling one Atropos another Lachesis and a third Clotho for as touching the motions and revolutions of the eight heavenly Sphaeres hee hath attributed as presidents unto them so many Syrenes in number and not Muses Then Menephylus the Peripateticke comming in with his speech There is quoth hee some reason and probabilitie in the Delphians saying but surely the opinion of Plato is absurd in that unto those divine and eternall revolutions of the heavens he hath assigned in stead of Muses the Syrenes which are daemons or powers not verie kinde and good nor beneficiall either leaving out as he doth the Muses altogether or els calling them by the names of the Destinies and saying they be the daughters of Necessitie for surely Necessitie is a rude thing and violent whereas Perswasion is gentle and gracious by the meanes of Muses amiable taming what it will and in my minde Detesteth more the duritie And force of hard necessitie than doth that grace and Venus of Empedocles That is true indeed quoth Ammonius it abhorreth that violent and involuntarie cause which is in our selves enforcing us to doe against our evils but the necessitie which is among the gods is nothing intollerable nor violent nor hard to be obeied or perswaded but to the wicked no more than the law of a citie that unto good men is the best thing that is which they cannot pervert or transgresse not because it is impossible for them so to do but for that they are not willing to change the same Moreover as touching those Syrenes of Homer there is no reason that the fable of them should affright us for after an aenigmaticall and covert sort even he signifieth very well unto us that the power of their song and musicke is neither inhumane nor pernicious or mortall but such as imprinteth in the soules which depart from hence thither as also to such as wander in that other world after death a vehement affection to divine and celestiall things together with a certeine forgetfulnesse of those that be mortall and earthly deteining and enchanting them as it were with a pleasure that they give unto them in such sort as by reason of the joy which they receive from them they follow after and turne about with them now of this harmonie there is a little echo or obscure resonance commeth hither unto us by the meanes of certeine discourses which calleth unto our soule and putteth into her minde such things as then and there are whereof the greatest part is enclosed and stopped up with the abstructions of the flesh and passions that are not sincere howbeit our soule by reason of the generositie wherewith it is endued doth understand yea and remember the same being ravished with so vehement an affection thereof that her passion may be compared properly unto most ardent and furious fits of love whiles she still affecteth and desireth to enjoy but is not able for all that to loosen and free her-selfe from the bodie howbeit I doe not accord and hold with him altogether in these matters but it seemeth unto me that Plato as he hath somewhat strangely in this place called the axes and poles of the world and heavens by the names of spindels rocks and distaves yea tearmed the starres wherves so to the Muses also he hath given an extraordinarie denomination of Syrens as if they related and expounded unto the soules and ghosts beneath divine and celestiall things like as Ulysses in Sophocles saith that the Syrenes were come The daughters who of Phorcis were That doth of hell the lawes declare As for the Muses they be assigned unto the eight heavenly sphaeres and one hath for her portion the place and region next to the earth those then which have the presidences charge of the revolution of those eight sphaeres do keepe preserve and mainteine the harmony and consonance aswell betweene the wandering planets and fixed starres as also of themselves one to another and that one which hath the superintendence of that space betweene the moone and the earth and converseth with mortall and temporall thinges bringeth in and infuseth among them by the meanes of her speech and song so farre forth as they be capable by nature and apt to receive the same the perswasive facultie of the Graces of musicall measures and harmonie which facultie is very cooperative with civile policie and humane societie in dulsing and apeasing that which is turbulent extravagant and wandering in us reducing it gently into the right way from blind by-pathes and errors and there setleth it but according to Pyndarus Whom Iupiter from heaven above Vouchsafeth not his gracious love Amaz'd they be and flie for feare When they the voice of Muses heare Whereto when Ammonius had given acclamation alluding as his maner was unto the verse of Xenophanes in this wise These things doe cary good credence And to the trueth have reference and withall mooved us every one to opine and deliver his advice I my selfe after some little pause and silence began thus to say That as Plato himselfe by the etymologie of names as it were by traces thought to finde out the properties and powers of the gods even so let us likewise place in heaven over celestial things one of the Muses which seemeth of the heaven to to be called Urania Certes it standeth to great reason that these heavenly bodies require not much variety of governmēt for that they have but one simple cause which is nature but whereas there be many errors many enormities trespasses thither we must transfer those eight one for to correct one sort of faults and disorders and another for to amende reforme another and for that of our life one part is bestowed in serious grave affaires and another in sport game throughout the whole course thereof it hath need of a moderate temperature musicall consent that which in us is grave serious shall be ruled and conducted by Calliope Clio and Thalia being our guides in the skill and speculation as touching gods and goddesses as for the other Muses their office and charge is to support and hold up that which is inclined and prone to pleasure plaie and disport not to suffer it through weaknesse and imbecillity to runne headlong into loosnesse and bestiality but to keepe in represse and hold it in good and decent order with dauncing singing and playing such as hath their measures and is tempered with harmonie reason and proportion For mine owne part considering that Plato admitteth and setteth downe in every one two principles and causes of all our actions the one inbred and naturall to wit a desire and inclination to pleasures the other comming from without foorth to wit an opinion which covereth the best insomuch as the one he calleth sometime Reason and the other Passion and seeing that either of these againe admitteth distinct differences I see certainly that both of them require a great government and in verie