WORLD.
The natural philosophers pronounce that the forming of this world took
its original from the earth, it being its centre, for the centre is the
principal part of the globe. Pythagoras, from the fire and the fifth
element. Empedocles determines, that the first and principal element
distinct from the rest was the aether, then fire, after that the
earth, which earth being strongly compacted by the force of a potent
revolution, water springs from it, the exhalations of which water
produce the air; the heaven took its origin from the aether, and fire
gave a being to the sun; those things nearest to the earth are condensed
from the remainders. Plato, that the visible world was framed after the
exemplar of the intellectual world; the soul of the visible world was
first produced, then the corporeal figure, first that which proceeded
from fire and earth, then that which came from air and water.
Pythagoras, that the world was formed of five solid figures which are
called mathematical; the earth was produced by the cube, the fire by the
pyramid, the air by the octahedron, the water by the icosahedron, and
the globe of the universe by the dodecahedron. In all these Plato hath
the same sentiments with Pythagoras.