but as to the necessary and natural causes, they concern not themselves
with them. Whereas their successors, who were for that reason called
natural philosophers, took a different course; for they, forsaking this
admirable and divine principle, ascribe all matter and the passions of
it to the motions, mutations, and mixtures of its parts. So that both
of these are defective in their methods, because they omit, through
ignorance or design, the one the efficient, the others the material
cause. Whereas he that first pointed at both causes, and manifestly
joined with the reason, which freely operateth and moveth, the matter,
which necessarily is obedient and passive, does defend both himself
and us from all calumny and censure. For we do not deprive divination
either of God or of reason; seeing we allow it for its subject the
soul of man, and for its instrument an enthusiastic exhalation. For
first, the earth, out of which exhalations are generated, and then the
sun, which in and upon the earth works all the infinite possibilities
of mixture and alteration, are, in the divinity of our forefathers,
esteemed Gods. And hereunto if we add the Daemons as superintendents
and guardians of this temperature, as of a harmony and consort, who in
due time slacken or stretch the virtue of this exhalation, sometimes
taking from it the too great activity which it has to torment the
soul and transport it beyond itself, and mingling with it a virtue of
moving, without causing pain to those that are possessed with it; in
all this it seems to me that we do nothing that can look strange or
impossible or unagreeable to reason.
49. And when we offer victims before we come to the oracle, and crown
them with garlands of flowers and pour wine on their heads, I see we do
not any thing in all this that is absurd or repugnant to this opinion
of ours. For the priests, who offer the sacrifices, and pour out the
holy wine thereon, and observe their motions and tremblings, do this
for no other reason besides that of learning whether they can receive
an answer from the oracle. For the animal which is offered to the Gods
must be pure, entire, and sound, both as to soul and body. Now it is
not very hard to discover the marks of the body; and as to the soul,
they make an experiment of it in setting meal before the bulls and
presenting pease to the boars; for if they will not taste them, it is
a certain sign they be not sound. As to goats, cold water is a trial
for them; for if the beast does not seem to be moved and affected when
the water is poured upon her, this is an evident sign that her soul is
not right according to Nature. And supposing it should be granted that
it is a certain and unquestionable sign that God will give an answer
when the sacrifice thus drenched stirs, and that when it is otherwise
he vouchsafes none, I do not see herein any thing that disagrees with
the account of oracles which I have given. For every natural virtue
produceth the effect to which it is ordained better or worse, according
as its season is more or less proper; and it is likely God gives us
signs whereby we may know whether the opportunity be gone or not.
50. As for my part, I believe the exhalation itself which comes out of
the ground is not always of the same kind, being at one time slack,
and at another strong and vigorous; and the truth of that experiment
which I use to prove it is attested by several strangers, and by all
those which serve in the temple. For the room where those do wait who
come for answers from the oracle is sometimes—though not often and
at certain stated times, but as it were by chance—filled with such a
fragrant odor and scent, that no perfumes in the world can exceed it,
and this arises, as it were, out of a spring, from the sanctuary of the
temple. And this proceeds very likely from its heat or some other power
or faculty which is in it; and if peradventure this seems to any body
an unlikely thing, such a one will, however, allow that the prophetess
Pythia hath that part of the soul unto which this wind and blast of
inspiration approacheth moved by variety of passions and affections,
sometimes after one sort and sometimes another, and that she is not
always in the same mood and temper, like a fixed and immutable harmony
which the least alteration or change of such and such proportions
destroys. For there are several vexations and passions, which agitate
bodies and slide into the soul, that she perceives, but more that she
does not, in which case it would be better that she should tarry away
and not present herself to this divine inspiration, as not being clean
and void of perturbations, like an instrument of music exquisitely
made, but at present in disorder and out of tune. For wine does not at
all times alike surprise the drunkard, neither does the sound of the
flute always affect in the same manner him who dances to it. For the
same persons are sometimes more and sometimes less transported beyond
themselves, and more or less inebriated, according to the present
disposition of their bodies. But especially the imaginative part of the
soul is subject to change and sympathize together with the body, as
is apparent from dreams; for sometimes we are mightily troubled with
many and confused visions in our dreams, and at other times there is
a perfect calm, undisturbed by any such images or ideas. We all know
Cleon, a native of Daulia, who used to say to himself that in the many
years in which he hath lived he never had any dream. And among the
ancients, the same is related of Thrasymedes of Heraea. The cause of
this lies in the complexion and constitution of bodies, as is seen by
melancholy people, who are much subject to dreams in the night, and
their dreams sometimes prove true. Inasmuch as such persons’ fancies
run sometimes on one thing and at other times on another, they must
thereby of necessity now and then light right, as they that shoot often
must hit sometimes.
51. When therefore the imaginative part of the soul and the prophetic
blast or exhalation have a sort of harmony and proportion with each
other, so as the one, as it were in the nature of a medicament, may
operate upon the other, then happens that enthusiasm or divine fury
which is discernible in prophets and inspired persons. And, on the
contrary, when the proportion is lost, there can be no prophetical
inspiration, or only such as is as good as none; for then it is a
forced fury, not a natural one, but violent and turbulent, such as
we have seen to have happened in the prophetess Pythia who is lately
deceased. For certain pilgrims being come for an answer from the
oracle, it is said the sacrifice endured the first effusion without
stirring or moving a jot, which made the priests, out of an excess of
zeal, to continue to pour on more, till the beast was almost drowned
with cold water; but what happened hereupon to the prophetess Pythia?
She went down into the hole against her will; but at the first words
which she uttered, she plainly showed by the hoarseness of her voice
that she was not able to bear up against so strong an inspiration (like
a ship under sail, oppressed with too much wind), but was possessed
with a dumb and evil spirit. Finally, being horribly disordered and
running with dreadful screeches towards the door to get out, she threw
herself violently on the ground, so that not only the pilgrims fled
for fear, but also the high priest Nicander and the other priests and
religious which were there present; who entering within a while took
her up, being out of her senses; and indeed she lived but few days
after. For these reasons it is that Pythia is obliged to keep her
body pure and clean from the company of men, there being no stranger
permitted to converse with her. And before she goes to the oracle,
they are used by certain marks to examine whether she be fit or no,
believing that the God certainly knows when her body is disposed and
fit to receive, without endangering her person, this enthusiastical
inspiration. For the force and virtue of this exhalation does not
move all sorts of persons, nor the same persons in like manner, nor
as much at one time as at another; but it only gives beginning, and,
as it were, kindles those spirits which are prepared and fitted to
receive its influence. Now this exhalation is certainly divine and
celestial, but yet not incorruptible and immortal, nor proof against
the eternity of time, which subdues all things below the moon, as our
doctrine teaches,—and, as some say, all things above it, which, weary
and in despair as regards eternity and infinity, are apt to be suddenly
renewed and changed.
52. But these things, said I, I must advise you and myself often
and seriously to consider of, they being liable to many disputes
and objections, which our leisure will not suffer to particularize;
and therefore we must remit them, together with the questions which
Philippus proposes touching Apollo and the sun, to another opportunity.