CHAPTER XXXII. OF THE YEAR, AND HOW MANY CIRCULATIONS MAKE UP THE GREAT

YEAR OF EVERY PLANET.

The year of Saturn is completed when he has had his circulation in the

space of thirty solar years; of Jupiter in twelve; of Mars in two, of

the sun in twelve months; in so many Mercury and Venus, the spaces of

their circulation being equal; of the moon in thirty days, in which

time her course from her prime to her conjunction is finished. As to

the great year, some make it to consist of eight years solar, some

of nineteen, others of fifty-nine. Heraclitus, of eighteen thousand.

Diogenes, of three hundred and sixty-five such years as Heraclitus

assigns. Others there are who lengthen it to seven thousand seven

hundred and seventy-seven years.

BOOK III.

In my two precedent treatises having in due order taken a compendious

view and given an account of the celestial bodies, and of the moon which

stands between them and the terrestrial, I must now convert my pen to

discourse in this third book of Meteors, which are beings above the

earth and below the moon, and are extended to the site and situation of

the earth, which is supposed to be the centre of the sphere of this

world; and from thence will I take my beginning.

CHAPTER I. OF THE GALAXY, OR THE MILKY WAY.

It is a cloudy circle, which continually appears in the air, and by

reason of the whiteness of its colors is called the galaxy, or the milky

way. Some of the Pythagoreans say that, when Phaeton set the world on

fire, a star falling from its own place in its circular passage through

the region caused an inflammation. Others say that originally it was

the first course of the sun; others, that it is an image as in a

looking-glass, occasioned by the sun's reflecting its beams towards the

heavens, and this appears in the clouds and in the rainbow. Metrodorus,

that it is merely the solar course, or the motion of the sun in its own

circle. Parmenides, that the mixture of a thick and thin substance gives

it a color which resembles milk. Anaxagoras, that the sun moving under

the earth and not being able to enlighten every place, the shadow of

the earth, being cast upon the part of the heavens, makes the galaxy.

Democritus, that it is the splendor which ariseth from the coalition

of many small bodies, which, being firmly united amongst themselves, do

mutually enlighten one another. Aristotle, that it is the inflammation

of dry, copious, and coherent vapor, by which the fiery mane, whose seat

is beneath the aether and the planets, is produced. Posidonius, that it

is a combination of fire, of finer substance than the stars, but denser

than light.

CHAPTER II. OF COMETS AND SHOOTING FIRES, AND THOSE WHICH RESEMBLE

BEAMS.

Some of the Pythagoreans say, that a comet is one of those stars which

do not always appear, but after they have run through their determined

course, they then rise and are visible to us. Others, that it is the

reflection of our sight upon the sun, which gives the resemblance of

comets much after the same manner as images are reflected in mirrors.

Anaxagoras and Democritus, that two or more stars being in conjunction

by their united light make a comet. Aristotle, that it is a fiery

coalition of dry exhalations. Strato, that it is the light of the star

darting through a thick cloud that hath invested it; this is seen in

light shining through lanterns. Heraclides, native of Pontus, that it is

a lofty cloud inflamed by a sublime fire. The like causes he assigns

to the bearded comet, to those circles that are seen about the sun or

stars, or those meteors which resemble pillars or beams, and all others

which are of this kind. This way unanimously go all the Peripatetics,

holding that these meteors, being formed by the clouds, do differ

according to their various configurations. Epigenes, that a comet arises

from a rising of spirit or wind, mixed with an earthy substance and set

on fire. Boethus, that it is a phantasy presented to us by fiery air.

Diogenes, that comets are stars. Anaxagoras, that those styled shooting

stars descend from the aether like sparks, and therefore are soon

extinguished. Metrodorus, that it is a forcible illapse of the sun upon

clouds which makes them to sparkle as fire. Xenophanes, that all such

fiery meteors are nothing else but the conglomeration of the enfired

clouds, and the flashing motions of them.

CHAPTER III. OF VIOLENT ERUPTION OF FIRE OUT OF THE CLOUDS. OF

LIGHTNING. OF THUNDER. OF HURRICANES. OF WHIRLWINDS. Anaximander affirms

that all these are produced by the wind after this manner: the wind

being enclosed by condensed clouds, on account of its minuteness and

lightness violently endeavors to make a passage; and in breaking

through the cloud gives noise; and the tearing the cloud, because of the

blackness of it, gives a resplendent flame. Metrodorus, that when the

wind falls upon a cloud whose densing firmly compacts it, by breaking

the cloud it causeth a great noise, and by striking and rending the

cloud it gives the flame; and in the swiftness of its motion, the sun

imparting heat to it, it throws out the bolt. The weak declining of the

thunderbolt ends in a violent tempest. Anaxagoras, that when heat and

cold meet and are mixed together (that is, ethereal parts with airy),

thereby a great noise of thunder is produced, and the color observed

against the blackness of the cloud occasions the flashing of fire; the

full and great splendor is lightning, the more enlarged and embodied

fire becomes a whirlwind, the cloudiness of it gives the hurricane. The

Stoics, that thunder is the clashing of clouds one upon another,

the flash of lightning is their fiery inflammation; their more

rapid splendor is the thunderbolt, the faint and weak the whirlwind.

Aristotle, that all these proceed from dry exhalations, which, if they

meet with moist vapors, forcing their passage, the breaking of them

gives the noise of thunder; they, being very dry, take fire and make

lightning; tempests and hurricanes arise from the plenitude of matter

which each draw to themselves, the hotter parts attracted make the

whirlwinds, the duller the tempests.

CHAPTER IV. OF CLOUDS, RAIN, SNOW, AND HAIL.

Anaximenes thinks that the air by being very much condensed clouds are

formed; this air being more compacted, rain is compressed through it;

when water in its falling down freezeth, then snow is generated; when it

is encompassed with a moist air, it is hail. Metrodorus, that a cloud is

composed of a watery exhalation carried into a higher place. Epicurus,

that they are made of vapors; and that hail and snow are formed in

a round figure, being in their long descent pressed upon by the

circumambient air.

CHAPTER V. OF THE RAINBOW.

Those things which affect the air in the superior places of it are of

two sorts. Some have a real subsistence, such are rain and hail; others

not. Those which enjoy not a proper subsistence are only in appearance;

of this sort is the rainbow. Thus the continent to us that sail seems to

be in motion.

Plato says, that men admiring it feigned that it took origination from

one Thaumas, which word signifies admiration. Homer sings:--

Jove paints the rainbow with a purple dye,

Alluring man to cast his wandering eye.

(Iliad, xvii. 547.)

Others therefore fabled that the bow hath a head like a bull, by which

it swallows up rivers.

But what is the cause of the rainbow? It is evident that what apparent

things we see come to our eyes in right or in crooked lines, or by

refraction: these are incorporeal and to sense obscure, but to reason

they are obvious. Those which are seen in right lines are those which we

see through the air or horn or transparent stones, for all the parts

of these things are very fine and tenuous; but those which appear in

crooked lines are in water, the thickness of the water presenting

them bended to our sight. This is the reason that oars in themselves

straight, when put into the sea, appear to us crooked. The third manner

of our seeing is by refraction, and this is perspicuous in mirrors.

After this third sort the rainbow is affected. We conceive it is a moist

exhalation converted into a cloud, and in a short space it is dissolved

into small and moist drops. The sun declining towards the west, it will

necessarily follow that the whole bow is seen opposite to the sun; for

the eye being directed to those drops receives a refraction, and by this

means the bow is formed. The eye doth not consider the figure and form,

but the color of these drops; the first of which colors is a shining

red, the second a purple, the third is blue and green. Let us consider

whether the reason of this red shining color be the splendor of the sun

falling upon these small drops, the whole body of light being refracted,

by which this bright red color is produced; the second part being

troubled and the light languishing in the drops, the color becomes

purple (for the purple is the faint red); but the third part, being more

and more troubled, is changed into the green color. And this is proved

by other effects of Nature; if any one shall put water in his mouth and

spit it out so opposite to the sun, that its rays may be refracted on

the drops, he shall see the resemblance of a rainbow; the same appears

to men that are blear-eyed, when they fix their watery eyes upon a

candle.

Anaximenes thinks the bow is thus formed; the sun casting its splendor

upon a thick, black, and gross cloud, and the rays not being in a

capacity to penetrate beyond the superficies. Anaxagoras, that, the

solar rays being reflected from a condensed cloud, the sun being placed

directly opposite to it forms the bow after the mode of the repercussion

of a mirror; after the same manner he assigns the natural cause of the

Parhelia or mock-suns, which are often seen in Pontus. Metrodorus, that

when the sun casts its splendor through a cloud, the cloud gives itself

a blue, and the light a red color.

CHAPTER VI. OF METEORS WHICH RESEMBLE RODS, OR OF RODS.

These rods and the mock-suns are constituted of a double nature, a real

subsistence, and a mere appearance;--of a real subsistence, because

the clouds are the object of our eyes; of a mere appearance, for their

proper color is not seen, but that which is adventitious. The like

affections, natural and adventitious, in all such things do happen.

CHAPTER VII. OF WINDS.

Anaximander believes that wind is a fluid air, the sun putting into

motion or melting the moist subtle parts of it. The Stoics, that all

winds are a flowing air, and from the diversity of the regions whence

they have their origin receive their denomination; as, from darkness and

the west the western wind; from the sun and its rising the eastern;

from the north the northern, and from the south the southern winds.

Metrodorus, that moist vapors heated by the sun are the cause of the

impetuousness of violent winds. The Etesian, or those winds which

annually commence about the rising of the Little Dog, the air about the

northern pole being more compacted, blow violently following the sun

when it returns from the summer solstice.

CHAPTER VIII. OF WINTER AND SUMMER.

Empedocles and the Stoics believe that winter is caused by the thickness

of the air prevailing and mounting upwards; and summer by fire, it

falling downwards.

This description being given by me of Meteors, or those things that are

above us, I must pass to those things which are terrestrial.

CHAPTER IX. OF THE EARTH, WHAT IS ITS NATURE AND MAGNITUDE.

Thales and his followers say that there is but one earth. Hicetes the

Pythagorean, that there are two earths, this and the Antichthon, or

the earth opposite to it. The Stoics, that this earth is one, and that

finite and limited. Xenophanes, that the earth, being compacted of

fire and air, in its lowest parts hath laid a foundation in an infinite

depth. Metrodorus, that the earth is mere sediment and dregs of water,

as the sun is of the air.

CHAPTER X. OF THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

Thales, the Stoics, and their followers say that the earth is globular.

Anaximander, that it resembles a smooth stony pillar. Anaximenes, that

it hath the shape of a table. Leucippus, of a drum. Democritus, that it

is like a quoit externally, and hollow in the middle.

CHAPTER XI. OF THE SITE AND POSITION OF THE EARTH.

The disciples of Thales say that the earth is the centre of the

universe. Xenophanes, that it is first, being rooted in the infinite

space. Philolaus the Pythagorean gives to fire the middle place,

and this is the source fire of the universe; the second place to the

Antichthon; the third to that earth which we inhabit, which is placed

in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite,--which is the reason

that those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us. Parmenides was

the first that confined the habitable world to the two solstitial (or

temperate) zones.

CHAPTER XII. OF THE INCLINATION OF THE EARTH.

Leucippus affirms that the earth vergeth towards the southern parts, by

reason of the thinness and fineness that is in the south; the northern

parts are more compacted, they being congealed by a rigorous cold, but

those parts of the world that are opposite are enfired. Democritus,

because, the southern parts of the air being the weaker, the earth as it

enlarges bends towards the south; the northern parts are of an unequal,

the southern of an equal temperament; and this is the reason that the

earth bends towards those parts where the earth is laden with fruits and

its own increase.

CHAPTER XIII. OF THE MOTION OF THE EARTH.

Most of the philosophers say that the earth remains fixed in the same

place. Philolaus the Pythagorean, that it is moved about the element of

fire, in an oblique circle, after the same manner of motion that the sun

and moon have. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean assign

a motion to the earth, but not progressive, but after the manner of a

wheel being carried on its own axis; thus the earth (they say) turns

itself upon its own centre from west to east. Democritus, that when the

earth was first formed it had a motion, the parts of it being small and

light; but in process of time the parts of it were condensed, so that by

its own weight it was poised and fixed.

CHAPTER XIV. INTO HOW MANY ZONES IS THE EARTH DIVIDED?

Pythagoras says that, as the celestial sphere is distributed into five

zones, into the same number is the terrestrial; which zones are the

arctic and antarctic, the summer and winter tropics (or temperate

zones), and the equinoctial; the middle of which zones equally divides

the earth and constitutes the torrid zone; but that portion which is in

between the summer and winter tropics is habitable, by reason the air is

there temperate.

CHAPTER XV. OF EARTHQUAKES.

Thales and Democritus assign the cause of earthquakes to water. The

Stoics say that it is a moist vapor contained in the earth, making an

irruption into the air, that causes the earthquake. Anaximenes, that the

dryness and rarity of the earth are the cause of earthquakes, the one of

which is produced by extreme drought, the other by immoderate showers.

Anaxagoras, that the air endeavoring to make a passage out of the earth,

meeting with a thick superficies, is not able to force its way, and so

shakes the circumambient earth with a trembling. Aristotle, that a cold

vapor encompassing every part of the earth prohibits the evacuation of

vapors; for those which are hot, being in themselves light, endeavor to

force a passage upwards, by which means the dry exhalations, being left

in the earth, use their utmost endeavor to make a passage out, and being

wedged in, they suffer various circumvolutions and shake the earth.

Metrodorus, that whatsoever is in its own place is incapable of motion,

except it be pressed upon or drawn by the operation of another body; the

earth being so seated cannot naturally be moved, yet divers parts

and places of the earth may move one upon another. Parmenides and

Democritus, that the earth being so equally poised hath no sufficient

ground why it should incline more to one side than to the other; so that

it may be shaken, but cannot be removed. Anaximenes, that the earth by

reason of its latitude is borne upon by the air which presseth upon it.

Others opine that the earth swims upon the waters, as boards and broad

planks, and by that reason is moved. Plato, that motion is by six manner

of ways, upwards, downwards, on the right hand and on the left, behind

and before; therefore it is not possible that the earth should be moved

in any of these modes, for it is altogether seated in the lowest place;

it therefore cannot receive a motion, since there is nothing about it so

peculiar as to cause it to incline any way; but some parts of it are

so rare and thin that they are capable of motion. Epicurus, that the

possibility of the earth's motion ariseth from a thick and aqueous

air under the earth, that may, by moving or pushing it, be capable of

quaking; or that being so compassed, and having many passages, it is

shaken by the wind which is dispersed through the hollow dens of it.

CHAPTER XVI. OF THE SEA, AND HOW IT IS COMPOSED, AND HOW IT BECOMES TO

THE TASTE BITTER.

Anaximander affirms that the sea is the remainder of the primogenial

humidity, the greatest part of which being dried up by the fire, the

influence of the great heat altered its quality. Anaxagoras that in the

beginning water did not flow, but was as a standing pool; and that it

was burnt by the movement of the sun about it, by which the oily part of

the water being exhaled, the residue became salt. Empedocles, that the

sea is the sweat of the earth heated by the sun. Antiphon, that the

sweat of that which was hot was separated from the rest which were

moist; these by seething and boiling became bitter, as happens in all

sweats. Metrodorus, that the sea was strained through the earth, and

retained some part of its density; the same is observed in all those

things which are strained through ashes. The schools of Plato, that the

element of water being compacted by the rigor of the air became sweet,

but that part which was expired from the earth, being enfired, became of

a brackish taste.

CHAPTER XVII. OF TIDES, OR OF THE EBBING AND FLOWING OF THE SEA.

Aristotle and Heraclides say, they proceed from the sun, which moves

and whirls about the winds; and these falling with a violence upon

the Atlantic, it is pressed and swells by them, by which means the sea

flows; and their impression ceasing, the sea retracts, hence they ebb.

Pytheas the Massilian, that the fulness of the moon gives the flow, the

wane the ebb. Plato attributes it all to a certain balance of the sea,

which by means of a mouth or orifice causes the tide; and by this means

the seas do rise and flow alternately. Timaeus believes that those

rivers which fall from the mountains of the Celtic Gaul into the

Atlantic produce a tide. For upon their entering upon that sea, they

violently press upon it, and so cause the flow; but they disemboguing

themselves, there is a cessation of the impetuousness, by which means

the ebb is produced. Seleucus the mathematician attributes a motion to

the earth; and thus he pronounceth that the moon in its circumlation

meets and repels the earth in its motion; between these two, the earth

and the moon, there is a vehement wind raised and intercepted, which

rushes upon the Atlantic Ocean, and gives us a probable argument that it

is the cause the sea is troubled and moved.

CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE AUREA, OR A CIRCLE ABOUT A STAR.

The aurea or circle is thus formed. A thick and dark air intervening

between the moon or any other star and our eye, by which means our sight

is dilated and reflected, when now our sight falls upon the outward

circumference of the orb of that star, there presently seems a circle

to appear. This circle thus appearing is called the [Greek omitted]

or halo; and there is constantly such a circle seen by us, when such a

density of sight happens.

BOOK IV.

Having taken a survey of the general parts of the world, I will

take a view of the particular members of it.

CHAPTER I. OF THE OVERFLOWING OF THE NILE.

Thales conjectures that the Etesian or anniversary northern winds

blowing strongly against Egypt heighten the swelling of the Nile, the

mouth of that river being obstructed by the force of the sea rushing

into it. Euthymenes the Massilian concludes that the Nile is filled

by the ocean and that sea which is outward from it, the last being

naturally sweet. Anaxagoras, that the snow in Ethiopia which is

frozen in winter is melted in summer, and this makes the inundation.

Democritus, that the snows which are in the northern climates when the

sun enters the summer solstice are dissolved and diffused; from those

vapors clouds are compacted, and these are forcibly driven by the

Etesian winds into the southern parts and into Egypt, from whence

violent showers are poured; and by this means the fens of Egypt are

filled with water, and the river Nile hath its inundation. Herodotus the

historian, that the waters of the Nile receive from their fountain an

equal portion of water in winter and in summer; but in winter the water

appears less, because the sun, making its approach nearer to Egypt,

draws up the rivers of that country into exhalation. Ephorus the

historiographer, that in summer all Egypt seems to be melted and sweats

itself into water, to which the thin and sandy soils of Arabia and Lybia

contribute. Eudoxus relates that the Egyptian priests affirm that, when

it is summer to us who dwell under the northern tropic, it is winter

with them that inhabit under the southern tropic; by this means there is

a various contrariety and opposition of the seasons in the year, which

cause such showers to fall as make the water to overflow the banks of

the Nile and diffuse itself throughout all Egypt.

CHAPTER II. OF THE SOUL.

Thales first pronounced that the soul is that being which is in a

perpetual motion, or that whose motion proceeds from itself. Pythagoras,

that it is a number moving itself; he takes a number to be the same

thing with a mind. Plato, that it is an intellectual substance moving

itself, and that motion is in a numerical harmony. Aristotle, that it is

the first actuality [Greek ommitted] of a natural organical body which

has life potentially; and this actuality must be understood to be the

same thing with energy or operation. Dicaearchus, that it is the

harmony of the four elements. Asclepiades the physician, that it is the

concurrent exercitation of the senses.

CHAPTER III. WHETHER THE SOUL BE A BODY, AND WHAT IS THE NATURE AND

ESSENCE OF IT.

All those named by me do affirm that the soul itself is incorporeal, and

by its own nature is in a motion, and in its own self is an intelligent

substance, and the living actuality of a natural organical body. The

followers of Anaxagoras, that it is airy and a body. The Stoics, that

it is a hot exhalation. Democritus, that it is a fiery composition of

things which are perceptible by reason alone, the same having their

forms spherical and without an inflaming faculty; and it is a body.

Epicurus, that it is constituted of four qualities, of a fiery quality,

of an aerial quality, a pneumatical, and of a fourth quality which hath

no name, but it contains the virtue of the sense. Heraclitus, that the

soul of the world is the exhalation which proceeds from the moist

parts of it; but the soul of animals, arising from exhalations that are

exterior and from those that are within them, is homogeneous to it.

CHAPTER IV. OF THE PARTS OF THE SOUL.

Plato and Pythagoras, according to their first account, distribute the

soul into two parts, the rational and irrational. By a more accurate and

strict account the soul is branched into three parts; they divide the

unreasonable part into the concupiscible and the irascible. The Stoics

say the soul is constituted of eight parts; five of which are the

senses, hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, the sixth is

the faculty of speaking, the seventh of generating, the eighth of

commanding; this is the principal of all, by which all the other are

guided and ordered in their proper organs, as we see the eight arms of a

polypus aptly disposed. Democritus and Epicurus divide the soul into two

parts, the one rational, which bath its residence in the breast, and the

irrational, which is diffused through the whole structure of the body.

Democritus, that the quality of the soul is communicated to everything,

yea, to the dead corpses; for they are partakers of heat and some sense,

when the most of both is expired out of them.

CHAPTER V. WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL PART OF THE SOUL, AND IN WHAT PART OF

THE BODY IT RESIDES.

Plato and Democritus place its residence in the whole head. Strato,

in that part of the forehead where the eyebrows are separated.

Erasiatratus, in the Epikranis, or membrane which involves the brain.

Herophilus, in that sinus of the brain which is the basis of it.

Parmenides, in the breast; which opinion is embraced by Epicurus. The

Stoics are generally of this opinion, that the seat of the soul is

throughout the heart, or in the spirit about it. Diogenes, in the

arterial ventricle of the heart, which is also full of vital spirit.

Empedocles, in the mass of the blood. There are that say it is in the

neck of the heart, others in the pericardium, others in the midriff.

Certain of the Neoterics, that the seat of the soul is extended from

the head to the diaphragm. Pythagoras, that the animal part of the soul

resides in the heart, the intellectual in the head.

CHAPTER VI. OF THE MOTION OF THE SOUL.

Plato believes that the soul is in perpetual motion, but that it is

immovable as regards motion from place to place. Aristotle, that the

soul is not naturally moved, but its motion is accidental, resembling

that which is in the forms of bodies.

CHAPTER VII. OF THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY.

Plato and Pythagoras say that the soul is immortal; when it departs out

of the body, it retreats to the soul of the world, which is a being of

the same nature with it. The Stoics, when the souls leave the bodies,

they are carried to divers places; the souls of the unlearned and

ignorant descend to the coagmentation of earthly things, but the learned

and vigorous last till the general fire. Epicurus and Democritus, the

soul is mortal, and it perisheth with the body. Plato and Pythagoras,

that part of the soul of man which is rational is eternal; for though it

be not God, yet it is the product of an eternal deity; but that part of

the soul which is divested of reason dies.

CHAPTER VIII. OF THE SENSES, AND OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE OBJECTS OF

THE SENSES,

The Stoics give this definition of sense: Sense is the Apprehension or

comprehension of an object by means of an organ of sensation. There

are several ways of expressing what sense is; it is either a habit, a

faculty, an operation, or an imagination which apprehends by means of

an organ of sense,--and also the eighth principal thing, from whence the

senses originate. The instruments of sense are intelligent exhalations,

which from the said commanding part extend unto all the organs of the

body. Epicurus, that sense is a faculty, and that which is perceived

by the sense is the product of it; so that sense hath a double

acceptation,--sense which is the faculty, and the thing received by the

sense, which is the effect. Plato, that sense is that commerce which

the soul and body have with those things that are exterior to them; the

power of which is from the soul, the organ by which is from the body;

but both of them apprehend external objects by means of the imagination.

Leucippus and Democritus, that sense and intelligence arise from

external images; so neither of them can operate without the assistance

of image falling upon us.

CHAPTER IX. WHETHER WHAT APPEARS TO OUR SENSES AND IMAGINATIONS BE TRUE

OR NOT.

The Stoics say that what the senses represent is true; what the

imagination, is partly false, partly true. Epicurus that every

impression of the sense or imagination is true, but of those things that

fall under the head of opinion, some are true, some false: sense gives

us a false presentation of those things only which are the objects of

our understanding; but the imagination gives us a double error, both of

things sensible and things intellectual. Empedocles and Heraclides,

that the senses act by a just accommodation of the pores in every case;

everything that is perceived by the sense being congruously adapted to

its proper organ.

CHAPTER X. HOW MANY SENSES ARE THERE?

The Stoics say that there are five senses properly so called, seeing,

hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Aristotle indeed doth not add

a sixth sense; but he assigns a common sense, which is the judge of

all compounded species; into this each sense casts its proper

representation, in which is discovered a transition of one thing into

another, like as we see in figure and motion where there is a change of

one into another. Democritus, that there are divers species of senses,

which appertain to beings destitute of reason, to the gods, and to wise

men.

CHAPTER XI. HOW THE ACTIONS OF THE SENSES, THE CONCEPTIONS OF OUR MINDS,

AND THE HABIT OF OUR REASON ARE FORMED.

The Stoics affirm that every man, as soon as he is born, has a principal

and commanding part of his soul, which is in him like a sheet of

writing-paper, to which he commits all his notions. The first manner of

his inscribing is by denoting those notions which flow from the senses.

Suppose it be of a thing that is white; when the present sense of it is

vanished, there is yet retained the remembrance; when many memorative

notions of the same similitude do concur, then he is said to have an

experience; for experience is nothing more than the abundance of notions

that are of the same form met together. Some of these notions are

naturally begotten according to the aforesaid manner, without the

assistance of art; the others are produced by discipline, learning,

and industry; these only are justly called notions, the others are

prenotions. But reason, which gives us the denomination of rational, is

completed by prenotions in the first seven years. The conception of

the mind is the vision that the intelligence of a rational animal hath

received; when that vision falls upon the rational soul, then it is

called the conception of the mind, for it hath derived its name from the

mind [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted]. Therefore these visions are

not to be found in any other animals; they only are appropriated to gods

and to us men. If these we consider generally, they are phantasms; if

specifically, they are notions. As pence or staters, if you consider

them according to their own value, are simply pence and staters; but if

you give them as a price for a naval voyage, they are called not merely

pence, etc., but your freight.

CHAPTER XII. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IMAGINATION [GREEK OMITTED],

THE IMAGINABLE [GREEK OMITTED], FANCY [GREEK OMITTED], AND PHANTOM

[GREEK OMITTED]?

Chrysippus affirms, these four are different one from another.

Imagination is that passion raised in the soul which discovers itself

and that which was the efficient of it; to use example, after the eye

hath looked upon a thing that is white, the sight of which produceth in

the mind a certain impression, this gives us reason to conclude that the

object of this impression is white, which affecteth us. So with touching

and smelling Phantasy or imagination is denominated from [Greek omitted]

which denotes light; for as light discovers itself and all other things

which it illuminates, so this imagination discovers itself and that

which is the cause of it. The imaginable is the efficient cause of

imagination; as anything that is white, or anything that is cold, or

everything that may make an impression upon the imagination. Fancy is

a vain impulse upon the mind of man, proceeding from nothing which is

really conceivable; this is experienced in those that whirl about their

idle hand and fight with shadows; for to the imagination there is always

some real imaginable thing presented, which is the efficient cause of

it; but to the fancy nothing. A phantom is that to which we are brought

by such a fanciful and vain attraction; this is to be seen in melancholy

and distracted persons. Of this sort was Orestes in the tragedy,

pronouncing these words:

Mother, these maids with horror me affright;

Oh bring them not, I pray, into my sight!

They're smeared with blood, and cruel, dragon-like,

Skipping about with deadly fury strike.

These rave as frantic persons, they see nothing, and yet imagine they

see. Thence Electra thus returns to him:

O wretched man, securely sleep in bed;

Nothing thou seest, thy fancy's vainly led.

(Euripides, "Orestes", 255.)

After the same manner Theoclymenus in Homer.

CHAPTER XIII. OF OUR SIGHT, AND BY WHAT MEANS WE SEE.

Democritus and Epicurus suppose that sight is caused by the insertion

of little images into the visive organ, and by the reception of certain

rays which return to the eye after meeting the object. Empedocles

supposes that images are mixed with the rays of the eye; these he styles

the rays of images. Hipparchus, that the visual rays extend from

both the eyes to the superficies of bodies, and give to the sight the

apprehension of those same bodies, after the same manner in which the

hand touching the extremity of bodies gives the sense of feeling. Plato,

that the sight is the splendor of united rays; there is a light which

reaches some distance from the eyes into a cognate air, and there is

likewise a light shed from bodies, which meets and joins with the fiery

visual light in the intermediate air (which is liquid and mutable);

and the union of these rays gives the sense of seeing. This is Plato's

corradiancy, or splendor of united rays.

CHAPTER XIV. OF THOSE IMAGES WHICH ARE PRESENTED TO OUR EYES IN MIRRORS.

Empedocles says that these images are caused by certain effluxes which,

meeting together and resting upon the superficies of the mirror, are

perfected by that fiery element emitted by the said mirror, which

transforms withal the air that surrounds it. Democritus and Epicurus,

that the specular appearances are made by the subsistence of the images

which flow from our eyes; these fall upon the mirror and remain, while

the light returns to the eye. The followers of Pythagoras explain it by

the reflection of the sight; for our sight being extended (as it were)

to the brass, and meeting with the smooth dense surface thereof it is

forced back, and caused to return upon itself: the same takes place in

the hand, when it is stretched out and then brought back again to the

shoulder. Any one may use these instances to explain the manner of

seeing.

CHAPTER XV. WHETHER DARKNESS CAN BE VISIBLE TO US.

The Stoics say that darkness is seen by us, for out of our eyes there

issues out some light into it; and our eyes do not impose upon us, for

they really perceive there is darkness. Chrysippus says that we see

darkness by the striking of the intermediate air; for the visual spirits

which proceed from the principal part of the soul and reach to the ball

of the eye pierce this air, which, after they have made those strokes

upon it, extend conically on the surrounding air, where this is

homogeneous in quality. For from the eyes those rays are poured forth

which are neither black nor cloudy. Upon this account darkness is

visible to us.

CHAPTER XVI. OF HEARING.

Empedocles says that hearing is formed by the insidency of the air upon

the cochlea, which it is said hangs within the ear as a bell, and is

beat upon by the air. Alcmaeon, that the vacuity that is within the

ear makes us to have the sense of hearing, for the air forcing a vacuum

gives the sound; every inanity affords a ringing. Diogenes the air which

exists in the head, being struck upon by the voice gives the hearing.

Plato and his followers, the air which exists in the head being struck

upon, is reflected to the principal part of the soul, and this causeth

the sense of hearing.

CHAPTER XVII. OF SMELLING.

Alcmaeon believes that the principal part of the soul, residing in the

brain, draws to itself odors by respiration. Empedocles, that scents

insert themselves into the breathing of the lungs; for, when there is a

great difficulty in breathing, odors are not perceived by reason of the

sharpness; and this we experience in those who have the defluxion of

rheum.

CHAPTER XVIII. OF TASTE.

Alcmaeon says that a moist warmth in the tongue, joined with the

softness of it, gives the difference of taste. Diogenes, that by the

softness and sponginess of the tongue, and because the veins of the

body are joined in it, tastes are diffused by the tongue; for they are

attracted from it to that sense and to the commanding part of the soul,

as from a sponge.

CHAPTER XIX. OF THE VOICE.

Plato thus defines a voice,--that it is a breath drawn by the mind

through the mouth, and a blow impressed on the air and through the ear,

brain, and blood transmitted to the soul. Voice is abusively attributed

to irrational and inanimate beings; thus we improperly call the neighing

of horses or any other sound by the name of voice. But properly a

voice [Greek omitted] is an articulate sound, which illustrates [Greek

omitted] the understanding of man. Epicurus says that it is an efflux

emitted from things that are vocal, or that give sounds or great

noises; this is broken into those fragments which are after the same

configuration. Like figures are round figures with round, and irregular

and triangular with those of the same kind. These falling upon the ears

produce the sense of hearing. This is seen in leaking vessels, and in

fullers when they fan or blow their cloths.

Democritus, that the air is broken into bodies of similar configuration,

and these are rolled up and down with the fragments of the voice; as it

is proverbially said, One daw lights with another, or, God always brings

like to like. Thus we see upon the seashore, that stones like to one

another are found in the same place, in one place the long-shaped, in

another the round are seen. So in sieves, things of the same form meet

together, but those that are different are divided; as pulse and beans

falling from the same sieve are separated one from another. To this it

may be objected: How can some fragments of air fill a theatre in which

there is an infinite company of persons. The Stoics, that the air is not

composed of small fragments, but is a continued body and nowhere admits

a vacuum; and being struck with the air, it is infinitely moved in waves

and in right circles, until it fill that air which surrounds it; as we

see in a fish-pool which we smite by a falling stone cast upon it; yet

the air is moved spherically, the water orbicularly. Anaxagoras says a

voice is then formed when upon a solid air the breath is incident, which

being repercussed is carried to the ears; after the same manner the echo

is produced.

CHAPTER XX. WHETHER THE VOICE IS INCORPOREAL. WHAT IS IT THAT THE GIVES

ECHO?

Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle declare that the voice is incorporeal;

for it is not the air that causes the voice, but the figure which

compasseth the air and its superficies having received a stroke, give

the voice. But every superficies of itself is incorporeal. It is true

that it move with the body but itself it hath no body; as we observe in

a staff that is bended, the matter only admits of an inflection, while

the superficies doth not. According to the Stoics a voice is corporeal

since everything that is an agent or operates is a body; a voice acts

and operates, for we hear it and are sensible of it; for it falls and

makes an impression on the ear, as a seal of a ring gives its similitude

upon the wax. Besides, everything that creates a delight or injury is

a body; harmonious music affects with delight, but discord is tiresome.

And everything that moved is a body; and the voice moves, and having its

illapse upon smooth places is reflected, as when a ball is cast against

a wall it rebounds. A voice spoken in the Egyptian pyramids is so

broken, that it gives four or five echoes.

CHAPTER XXI. BY WHAT MEANS THE SOUL IS SENSIBLE, AND WHAT IS THE

PRINCIPAL AND COMMANDING PART OF IT.

The Stoics say that the highest part of the soul is the commanding part

of it: this is the cause of sense, fancy, consents, and desires; and

this we call the rational part. From this principal and commander there

are produced seven parts of the soul, which are spread through the body,

as the seven arms in a polypus. Of these seven parts, five are assigned

to the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Sight is a

spirit which is extended from the commanding part of the eyes; hearing

is that spirit which from the principle reacheth to the ears; smelling

a spirit drawn from the principal to the nostrils; tasting a spirit

extended from the principle to the tongue; touching is a spirit which

from the principal is drawn to the extremity of those bodies which

are obnoxious to a sensible touch. Of the rest, the one called the

spermatical is a spirit which reacheth from the principal to the

generating vessels; the other, which is the vocal and termed the voice,

is a spirit extended from the principal to the throat, tongue, and other

proper organs of speaking. And this principal part itself hath that

place in our spherical head which God hath in the world.

CHAPTER XXII. OF RESPIRATION OR BREATHING.

Empedocles thinks, that the first breath the first animal drew was when

the moisture in the embryo was separated, and by that means an entrance

was given to the external air into the gaping vessels, the moisture in

them being evacuated. After this the natural heat, in a violent force

pressing upon the external air for a passage, begets an expiration; but

this heat returning to the inward parts, and the air giving way to it,

causeth a respiration. The respiration that now is arises when the blood

is borne to the exterior surface, and by this movement drives the

airy substance through the nostrils; thus in its recess it causeth

expiration, but the air being again forced into those places which

are emptied of blood, it causeth an inspiration. To explain which, he

proposeth the instance of a water-clock, which gives the account of time

by the running of water.

Asclepiades supposeth the lungs to be in the manner of a funnel, and the

cause of breathing to be the fineness of the inward parts of the breast;

for thither the outward air which is more gross hastens, but is forced

backward, the breast not being capable either to receive or want it. But

there being always some of the more tenuous parts of the air left, so

that all of it is not exploded, to that which there remains the more

ponderous external air with equal violence is forced; and this he

compares to cupping-glasses. All spontaneous breathings are formed by

the contracting of the smaller pores of the lungs, and to the closing of

the pipe in the neck; for these are at our command.

Herophilus attributes a moving faculty to the nerves, arteries, and

muscles, but thinks that the lungs are affected only with a natural

desire of enlarging and contracting themselves. Farther, there is the

first operation of the lungs by attraction of the outward air, which

is drawn in because of the abundance of the external air. Next to this,

there is a second natural appetite of the lungs; the breast, pouring in

upon itself the breath, and being filled, is no longer able to make an

attraction, and throws the superfluity of it upon the lungs, whereby

it is then sent forth in expiration; the parts of the body mutually

concurring to this function by the alternate participation of fulness

and emptiness. So that to lungs pertain four motions--first, when the

lungs receive the outward air; secondly, when the outward air thus

entertained is transmitted to the breast; thirdly, when the lungs again

receive that air which they imparted to the breast; fourthly, when this

air then received from the breast is thrown outwards. Of these four

processes two are dilatations, one when the lungs attract the air,

another when the breast dischargeth itself of it upon the lungs; two are

contractions, one when the breast draws into itself the air, the second

when it expels this which was insinuated into it. The breast admits only

of two motions--of dilatation, when it draws from the lungs the breath,

and of contraction, when it returns what it did receive.

CHAPTER XXIII. OF THE PASSIONS OF THE BODY, AND WHETHER THE SOUL HATH A

SYMPATHETICAL CONDOLENCY WITH IT.

The Stoics say that all the passions are seated in those parts of

the body which are affected, the senses have their residence in the

commanding part of the soul. Epicurus, that all the passions and all the

senses are in those parts which are affected, but the commanding part is

subject to no passion. Strato, that all the passions and senses of the

soul are in the rational or commanding part of it, and are not fixed in

those places which are affected; for in this place patience takes its

residence, and this is apparent in terrible and dolorous things, as also

in timorous and valiant individuals.

BOOK V

CHAPTER I. OF DIVINATION.

Plato and the Stoics introduce divination as a godlike enthusiasm, the

soul itself being of a divine constitution, and this prophetic faculty

being inspiration, or an illapse of the divine knowledge into man; and

so likewise they account for interpretation by dreams. And these same

allow many divisions of the art of divination. Xenophanes and Epicurus

utterly refuse any such art of foretelling future contingencies.

Pythagoras rejects all manner of divination which is by sacrifices.

Aristotle and Dicaearchus admit only these two kinds of it, a fury by a

divine inspiration, and dreams; they deny the immortality of the soul,

yet they affirm that the mind of man hath a participation of something

that is divine.

CHAPTER II. WHENCE DREAMS DO ARISE.

Democritus says that dreams are formed by the illapse of adventitious

representations. Strato, that the irrational part of the soul in sleep

becoming more sensible is moved by the rational part of it. Herophilus,

that dreams which are caused by divine instinct have a necessary cause;

but dreams which have their origin from a natural cause arise from

the soul's forming within itself the images of those things which are

convenient for it, and which will happen; those dreams which are of a

constitution mixed of both these have their origin from the fortuitous

appulse of images, as when we see those things which please us; thus

it happens many times to those persons who in their sleep imagine they

embrace their mistresses.

CHAPTER III. OF THE NATURE OF GENERATIVE SEED.

Aristotle says, that seed is that thing which contains in itself a power

of moving, whereby it is enabled to produce a being like unto that from

whence it was emitted. Pythagoras, that seed is the sediment of that

which nourisheth us, the froth of the purest blood, of the same nature

of the blood and marrow of our bodies. Alcmaeon, that it is part of the

brain. Plato, that it is the deflux of the spinal marrow. Epicurus,

that it is a fragment torn from the body and soul. Democritus, that it

proceeds from all the parts of the body, and chiefly from the principal

parts, as the tissues and muscles.

CHAPTER IV. WHETHER THE SPERM BE A BODY.

Leucippus and Zeno say, that it is a body and a fragment of the

soul. Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, that the spermatic faculty is

incorporeal, as the mind is which moves the body; but the effused matter

is corporeal. Strato and Democritus, that the essential power is a body;

for it is like spirit.

CHAPTER V. WHETHER WOMEN DO GIVE A SPERMATIC EMISSION AS MEN DO.

Pythagoras, Epicurus, and Democritus say, that women have a seminal

projection, but their spermatic vessels are inverted; and it is this

that makes them have a venereal appetite. Aristotle and Plato, that

they emit a material moisture, as sweat we see produced by exercise and

labor; but that moisture has no spermatic power. Hippo, that women

have a seminal emission, but not after the mode of men; it contributes

nothing to generation, for it falls outside of the matrix; and therefore

some women without coition, especially widows, give the seed. They also

assert that from men the bones, from women the flesh proceed.

CHAPTER VI. HOW IT IS THAT CONCEPTIONS ARE MADE.

Aristotle says, that conception takes place when the womb is drawn down

by the natural purgation, and the monthly terms attract from the whole

mass part of the purest blood, and this is met by the seed of man. On

the contrary, there is a failure by the impurity and inflation of the

womb, by fear and grief, by the weakness of women, or the decline of

strength in men.

CHAPTER VII. AFTER WHAT MANNER MALES AND FEMALES ARE GENERATED.

Empedocles affirms, that heat and cold give the difference in the

generation of males and females. Hence is it, as histories acquaint us,

that the first men originated from the earth in the eastern and southern

parts, and the first females in the northern parts. Parmenides is of

opinion perfectly contrariant. He affirms that men first sprouted out

of the northern earth, for their bodies are more dense; women out of

the southern, for theirs are more rare and fine. Hippo, that the more

compacted and strong sperm, and the more fluid and weak, discriminate

the sexes. Anaxagoras and Parmenides, that the seed of the man is

naturally cast from his right side into the right side of the womb, or

from the left side of the man into the left side of the womb; there

is an alteration in this course of nature when females are generated.

Cleophanes, whom Aristotle makes mention of, assigns the generation of

men to the right testicle, of women to the left. Leucippus gives the

reason of it to the alteration or diversity of parts, according to which

the man hath a yard, the female the matrix; as to any other reason he is

silent. Democritus, that the parts common to both sexes are engendered

indifferently; but the peculiar parts by the one that is more powerful.

Hippo, that if the spermatic faculty be more effectual, the male, if the

nutritive aliment, the female is generated.

CHAPTER VIII. BY WHAT MEANS IT IS THAT MONSTROUS BIRTHS ARE EFFECTED.

Empedocles believes that monsters receive their origination from the

abundance or defect of seed, or from its division into parts which are

superabundant, or from some disturbance in the motion, or else that

there is an error by a lapse into an unsuitable receptacle; and thus he

presumes he hath given all the causes of monstrous conceptions. Strato,

that it comes through addition, subtraction, or transposition of the

seed, or the distension or inflation of the matrix. And some physicians

say that the matrix suffers distortion, being distended with wind.

CHAPTER IX. HOW IT COMES TO PASS THAT A WOMAN'S TOO FREQUENT

CONVERSATION WITH A MAN HINDERS CONCEPTION.

Diocles the physician says that either no genital sperm is projected,

or, if there be, it is in a less quantity than nature requires, or

there is no prolific faculty in it; or there is a deficiency of a

due proportion of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness; or there is a

resolution of the generative parts. The Stoics attribute sterility to

the obliquity of the yard, by which means it is not able to ejaculate

in a due manner, or to the unproportionable magnitude of the parts,

the matrix being so contracted as not to have a capacity to receive.

Erasistratus assigns it to the womb's being more callous or more

carneous, thinner or smaller, than nature does require.

CHAPTER X. WHENCE IT IS THAT ONE BIRTH GIVES TWO OR THREE CHILDREN.

Empedocles affirms, that the superabundance of sperm and the division of

it causes the bringing forth of two or three infants. Asclepiades,

that it is performed from the excellent quality of the sperm, after the

manner that from the root of one barleycorn two or three stalks do grow;

sperm that is of this quality is the most prolific. Erasistratus, that

superfetation may happen to women as to irrational creatures; for, if

the womb be well purged and very clean, then there can be divers births.

The Stoics, that it ariseth from the various receptacles that are in the

womb: when the seed illapses into the first and second of them at once,

then there are conceptions upon conception; and so two or three infants

are born.

CHAPTER XI. WHENCE IT IS THAT CHILDREN REPRESENT THEIR PARENTS AND

PROGENITORS.

Empedocles says, that the similitude of children to their parents

proceeds from the vigorous prevalency of the generating sperm; the

dissimilitude from the evaporation of the natural heat it contains.

Parmenides, that when the sperm falls on the right side of the womb,

then the infant gives the resemblance of the father; if from the left,

it is stamped with the similitude of the mother. The Stoics, that the

whole body and soul give the sperm; and hence arise the likenesses

in the characters and faces of the children, as a painter in his copy

imitates the colors in a picture before him. Women have a concurrent

emission of seed; if the feminine seed have the predominancy, the child

resembles the mother; if the masculine, the father.

CHAPTER XII. HOW IT COMES TO PASS THAT CHILDREN HAVE A GREATER

SIMILITUDE WITH STRANGERS THAN WITH THEIR PARENTS.

The greatest part of physicians affirm, that this happens casually

and fortuitously; for, when the sperm of the man and woman is too much

refrigerated, then children carry a dissimilitude to their parents.

Empedocles, that a woman's imagination in conception impresses a shape

upon the infant; for women have been enamoured with images and statues,

and the children which were born of them gave their similitudes. The

Stoics, that the resemblances flow from the sympathy and consent of

minds, through the insertion of effluvias and rays, not of images or

pictures.

CHAPTER XIII. WHENCE ARISETH BARRENNESS IN WOMEN, AND IMPOTENCY IN MEN?

The physicians maintain, that sterility in women can arise from the

womb; for if it be after any ways thus affected, there will be a

barrenness,--if it be more condensed, or more thin, or more hardened,

or more callous, or more carneous; or it may be from languor, or from

an atrophy or vicious condition of body; or, lastly, it may arise from

a twisted or distorted position. Diocles holds that the sterility in

men ariseth from some of these causes,--either that they cannot at all

ejaculate any sperm, or if they do, it is less than nature doth require,

or else there is no generative faculty in the sperm, or the genital

members are flagging; or from the obliquity of the yard. The Stoics

attribute the cause of sterility to the contrariant qualities and

dispositions of those who lie with one another; but if it chance that

these persons are separated, and there happen a conjunction of those who

are of a suitable temperament, then there is a commixture according to

nature, and by this means an infant is formed.

CHAPTER XIV. HOW IT ARISES THAT MULES ARE BARREN.

Alcmaeon says, that the barrenness of the male mules ariseth from the

thinness of the genital sperm, that is, the seed is too chill; the

female mules are barren, because the womb does not open its mouth (as

he expresses it). Empedocles, the matrix of the mule is so small, so

depressed, so narrow, so invertedly growing to the belly, that the sperm

cannot be regularly ejaculated into it, and if it could, there would

be no capacity to receive it. Diocles concurs in this opinion with him;

for, saith he, in our anatomical dissection of mules we have seen that

their matrices are of such configurations; and it is possible that there

may be the same reason why some women are barren.

CHAPTER XV. WHETHER THE INFANT IN THE MOTHER'S WOMB BE AN ANIMAL.

Plato says, that the embryo is an animal; for, being contained in the

mother's womb, motion and aliment are imparted to it. The Stoics say

that it is not an animal, but to be accounted part of the mother's

belly; like as we see the fruit of trees is esteemed part of the trees,

until it be full ripe; then it falls and ceaseth to belong to the

tree; thus it is with the embryo. Empedocles, that the embryo is not an

animal, yet whilst it remains in the belly it breathes. The first breath

that it draws as an animal is when the infant is newly born; then

the child having its moisture separated, the extraneous air making an

entrance into the empty places, a respiration is caused in the infant by

the empty vessels receiving of it. Diogenes, that infants are nurtured

in the matrix inanimate, yet they have a natural heat; but presently,

when the infant is cast into the open air, its heat brings air into

the lungs, and so it becomes an animal. Herophilus acknowledgeth that a

natural, but not an animal motion, and that the nerves are the cause of

that motion; that then they become animals, when being first born they

suck in something of the air.

CHAPTER XVI. HOW EMBRYOS ARE NOURISHED, OR HOW THE INFANT IN THE BELLY

RECEIVES ITS ALIMENT.

Democritus and Epicurus say, that the embryos in the womb receive their

aliment by the mouth, for we perceive, as soon as ever the infant is

born, it applies its mouth to the breast; in the wombs of women (our

understanding concludes) there are little dugs, and the embryos have

small mouths by which they receive their nutriment. The Stoics, that

by the secundines and navel they partake of aliment, and therefore

the midwife instantly after their birth ties the navel, and opens the

infant's mouth, that it may receive another sort of aliment. Alcmaeon,

that they receive their nourishment from every part of the body; as a

sponge sucks in water.

CHAPTER XVII. WHAT PART OF THE BODY IS FIRST FORMED IN THE WOMB.

The Stoics believe that the whole is formed at the same time. Aristotle,

as the keel of a ship is first made, so the first part that is formed

is the loins. Alcmaeon, the head, for that is the commanding and the

principal part of the body. The physicians, the heart, in which are the

veins and arteries. Some think the great toe is first formed; others

affirm the navel.

CHAPTER XVIII. WHENCE IS IT THAT INFANTS BORN IN THE SEVENTH MONTH ARE BORN ALIVE.

Empedocles says, that when the human race took first its original from

the earth, the sun was so slow in its motion that then one day in its

length was equal to ten months, as now they are; in process of time one

day became as long as seven months are; and there is the reason that

those infants which are born at the end of seven months or ten months

are born alive, the course of nature so disposing that the infant

shall be brought to maturity in one day after that night in which it is

begotten. Timaeus says, that we count not ten months but nine, by reason

that we reckon the first conception from the stoppage of the menstruas;

and so it may generally pass for seven months when really there are not

seven; for it sometimes occurs that even after conception a woman is

purged to some extent. Polybus, Diocles, and the Empirics, acknowledge

that the eighth month gives a vital birth to the infant, though the

life of it is more faint and languid; many therefore we see born in that

month die out of mere weakness. Though we see many born in that month

arrive at the state of man, yet (they affirm) if children be born in

that month, none wish to rear them.

Aristotle and Hippocrates, that if the womb is full in seven months,

then the child falls from the mother and is born alive, but if it falls

from her but is not nourished, the navel being weak on account of

the weight of the infant, then it doth not thrive; but if the infant

continues nine months in the womb, and then comes forth from the woman,

it is entire and perfect. Polybus, that a hundred and eighty-two days

and a half suffice for the bringing forth of a living child; that is,

six months, in which space of time the sun moves from one tropic to the

other; and this is called seven months, for the days which are over plus

in the sixth are accounted to give the seventh month. Those children

which are born in the eighth month cannot live, for, the infant then

falling from the womb, the navel, which is the cause of nourishment, is

thereby too much wrenched; and is the reason that the infant languishes

and hath an atrophy. The astrologers, that eight months are enemies to

every birth, seven are friends and kind to it. The signs of the zodiac

are then enemies, when they fall upon those stars which are lords

of houses; whatever infant is then born will have a life short and

unfortunate. Those signs of the zodiac which are malevolent and

injurious to generation are those pairs of which the final is reckoned

the eighth from the first, as the first and the eighth, the second and

the ninth, etc; so is the Ram unsociable with Scorpio, the Bull with

Sagittarius, the Twins with the Goat, the Crab with Aquarius, the Lion

with Pisces, the Virgin with the Ram. Upon this reason those infants

that are born in the seventh or tenth months are like to live, but those

in the eighth month will die.

CHAPTER XIX. OF THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS, HOW ANIMALS ARE BEGOTTEN, AND

WHETHER THEY ARE OBNOXIOUS TO CORRUPTION.

Those philosophers who entertain the opinion that the world had

an original do likewise assert that all animals are generated and

corruptible. The followers of Epicurus, who gives an eternity to

the world, affirm the generation of animals ariseth from the various

permutation of parts mutually among themselves, for they are parts of

this world. With them Anaxagoras and Euripides concur:

Nothing dies,

Different changes give their various forms.

Anaximander's opinion is, that the first animals were generated in

moisture, and were enclosed in bark on which thorns grew; but in process

of time they came upon dry land, and this thorny bark with which they

were covered being broken, they lived only for a short space of time.

Empedocles says, that the first generation of animals and plants was by

no means completed, for the parts were disjoined and would not admit of

a union; the second preparation and for their being generated was when

their parts were united and appeared in the form of images; the third

preparation for generation was when their parts mutually amongst

themselves gave a being to one another; the fourth, when there was no

longer a mixture of like elements (as earth and water), but a union of

animals among themselves,--in some the nourishment being made dense, in

others female beauty provoking a desire of spermatic motion. All

sorts of animals are discriminated by their proper temperament and

constitution; some are carried by a proper appetite and inclination to

water, some, which partake of a more fiery quality, to live in the air

those that are heavier incline to the earth; but those animals whose

parts are of a just temperament are fitted equally for all places.

CHAPTER XX. HOW MANY SPECIES OF ANIMALS THERE ARE, AND WHETHER ALL

ANIMALS HAVE THE ENDOWMENTS OF SENSE AND REASON.

There is a certain treatise of Aristotle, in which animals are

distributed into four kinds, terrestrial, aqueous, fowl, and heavenly;

and he calls the stars and the world too animals, yea, and God himself

he posits to be an animal gifted with reason and immortal. Democritus

and Epicurus consider all animals rational which have their residence in

the heavens. Anaxagoras says that animals have only that reason which

is operative, but not that which is passive, which is justly styled the

interpreter of the mind, and is like the mind itself. Pythagoras and

Plato, that the souls of all those who are styled brutes are rational;

but by the evil constitution of their bodies, and because they have

a want of a discoursive faculty, they do not conduct themselves

rationally. This is manifested in apes and dogs, which have inarticulate

voice but not speech. Diogenes, that this sort of animals are partakers

of intelligence and air, but by reason of the density in some parts of

them, and by the superfluity of moisture in others, they neither enjoy

understanding nor sense; but they are affected as madmen are, the

commanding rational part being defectuous and injured.

CHAPTER XXI. WHAT TIME IS REQUIRED TO SHAPE THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN THE

WOMB.

Empedocles believes, that the joints of men begin to be formed from the

thirty-sixth day, and their shape is completed in the nine and fortieth.

Asclepiades, that male embryos, by reason of a greater natural heat,

have their joints begun to be formed in the twenty-sixth day,--many even

sooner,--and that they are completed in all their parts on the fiftieth

day; the parts of the females are articulated in two months, but by the

defect of heat are not consummated till the fourth; but the members of

brutes are completed at various times, according to the commixture of

the elements of which they consist.

CHAPTER XXII. OF WHAT ELEMENTS EACH OF THE MEMBERS OF US MEN IS

COMPOSED.

Empedocles says, that the fleshy parts of us are constituted by the

contemperation of the four elements in us; earth and fire mixed with

a double proportion of water make nerves; but when it happens that the

nerves are refrigerated where they come in contact with the air, then

the nails are made; the bones are produced by two parts of water and

the same of air, with four parts of fire and the same of earth, mixed

together; sweat and tears flow from liquefaction of bodies.

CHAPTER XXIII. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF SLEEP AND DEATH?

Alcmaeon says, that sleep is caused when the blood retreats to the

concourse of the veins, but when the blood diffuses itself then we

awake and when there is a total retirement of the blood, then men die.

Empedocles, that a moderate cooling of the blood causeth sleep, but a

total remotion of heat from blood causeth death. Diogenes, that when all

the blood is so diffused as that it fills all the veins, and forces the

air contained in them to the back and to the belly that is below it, the

breast being thereby more heated, thence sleep arises, but if everything

that is airy in the breast forsakes the veins, then death succeeds.

Plato and the Stoics, that sleep ariseth from the relaxation of the

sensitive spirit, it not receiving such total relaxing as if it fell to

the earth, but so that that spirit is carried about the intestine, parts

of the eyebrows, in which the principal part has its residence; but when

there is a total relaxing of the sensitive spirit, death ensues.

CHAPTER XXIV. WHEN AND FROM WHENCE THE PERFECTION OF A MAN COMMENCES.

Heraclitus and the Stoics say, that men begin their completeness when

the second septenary of years begins, about which time the seminal serum

is emitted. Trees first begin their perfection when they give their

seeds; till then they are immature, imperfect, and unfruitful. After the

same manner a man is completed in the second septenary of years, and is

capable of learning what is good and evil, and of discipline therein.

CHAPTER XXV. WHETHER SLEEP OR DEATH APPERTAINS TO THE SOUL OR BODY.

Aristotle's opinion is, that both the soul and body sleep; and this

proceeds from the evaporation in the breast, which doth steam and arise

into the head, and from the aliment in the stomach, whose proper heat is

cooled in the heart. Death is the perfect refrigeration of all heat in

body; but death is only of the body, and not of the soul, for the soul

is immortal. Anaxagoras thinks, that sleep makes the operations of the

body to cease; it is a corporeal passion and affects not the soul. Death

is the separation of the soul from the body. Leucippus, that sleep

is only of the body; but when the smaller particles cause excessive

evaporation from the soul's heat, this makes death; but these affections

of death and sleep are of the body, not of the soul. Empedocles, that

death is nothing else but separation of those fiery parts by which man

is composed, and according to this sentiment both body and soul die; but

sleep is only a smaller separation of the fiery qualities.

CHAPTER XXVI. HOW PLANTS INCREASE.

Plato and Empedocles believe, that plants are animals, and are informed

with a soul; of this there are clear arguments, for they have tossing

and shaking, and their branches are extended; when the woodmen bend them

they yield, but they return to their former straightness and strength

again when they are let loose, and even carry up weights that are laid

upon them. Aristotle doth grant that they live, but not that they are

animals; for animals are affected with appetite, sense, and reason. The

Stoics and Epicureans deny that they are informed with a soul; by reason

that all sorts of animals have either sense, appetite, or reason; but

plants act fortuitously, and not by means of any soul. Empedocles, that

the first of all animals were trees, and they sprang from the earth

before the sun in its motion enriched the world, and before day

and night were distinguished; but by the harmony which is in their

constitution they partake of a masculine and feminine nature; and they

increase by that heat which is exalted out of the earth, so that they

are parts belonging to it, as embryos in the womb are parts of the womb.

Fruits in plants are excrescences proceeding from water and fire;

but the plants which lack water, when this is dried up by the heat of

summer, shed their leaves; whereas they that have plenty thereof keep

their leaves on, as the olive, laurel, and palm. The differences of

their moisture and juice arise from the difference of particles

and various other causes, and they are discriminated by the various

particles that feed them. And this is apparent in vines for the

excellence of wine flows not from the difference in the vines, but from

the soil from whence they receive their nutriment.

CHAPTER XXVII. OF NUTRITION AND GROWTH.

Empedocles believes, that animals are nourished by the remaining in them

of that which is proper to their own nature; they are augmented by the

application of heat; and the subtraction of either of these makes

them to languish and decay. The stature of men in this present age, if

compared with the magnitude of those men which were first produced, is

only a mere infancy.

CHAPTER XXVIII. WHENCE IT IS THAT IN ANIMALS THERE ARE APPETITES AND

PLEASURES.

Empedocles says that the want of those elements which compose animals

gives to them appetite, and pleasures spring from humidity. As to the

motions of dangers and such like things as perturbations, etc....

CHAPTER XXIX. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF A FEVER, OR WHETHER IT IS AN

AFFECTION OF THE BODY ANNEXED TO A PRIMARY PASSION

Erasistratus gives this definition of a fever: A fever is a quick motion

of blood, not produced by our consent, which enters into the vessels,

the seat of the vital spirits. This we see in the sea; it is in a

serene calm when nothing disturbs it, but is in motion when a violent

preternatural wind blows upon it, and then it rageth and is circled with

waves. After this manner it is in the body of man; when the blood is

in a nimble agitation, then it falls upon those vessels in which the

spirits are, and there being in an extraordinary heat, it fires the

whole body. The opinion that a fever is an appendix to a preceding

affection pleaseth him. Diocles proceeds after this manner: Those things

which are internal and latent are manifested by those which externally

break forth and appear; and it is clear to us that a fever is annexed

to certain outward affections, for example, to wounds, inflaming tumors,

inguinary abscesses.

CHAPTER XXX. OF HEALTH, SICKNESS, AND OLD AGE.

Alcmaeon says that the preserver of health is an equal proportion of the

qualities of heat, moisture, cold, dryness, bitterness, sweetness, and

the other qualities; on the contrary, the prevailing empire of one above

the rest is the cause of diseases and author of destruction. The direct

cause of disease is the excess of heat or cold, the formal cause is

excess or defect, the place is the blood or brain. But health is the

harmonious commixture of the elements. Diocles, that sickness for the

most part proceeds from the irregular disposition of the elements in the

body, for that makes an ill habit or constitution of it. Erasistratus,

that sickness is caused by the excess of nourishment, indigestion, and

corruptions; on the contrary, health is the moderation of the diet, and

the taking that which is convenient and sufficient for us. It is the

unanimous opinion of the Stoics that the want of heat brings old age,

for (they say) those persons in whom heat more abounds live the longer.

Asclepiades, that the Ethiopians soon grow old, and at thirty years of

age are ancient men, their bodies being excessively heated and scorched

by the sun; in Britain persons live a hundred and twenty years, on

account of the coldness of the country, and because the people keep the

fiery element within their bodies; the bodies of the Ethiopians are more

fine and thin, because they are relaxed by the sun's heat, while

they who live in northern countries are condensed and robust, and by

consequence are more long lived.

END OF THREE---------

ABSTRACT OF A DISCOURSE SHOWING THAT THE STOICS SPEAK GREATER

IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.

Pinder's Caeneus hath been taken to task by several, for being

improbably feigned, impenetrable by steel and impassible in his body,

and so

Descending, into hell without a wound.

And with sound foot parting in two the ground.

But the Stoics' Lapithes, as if they had carved him out of the

very adamantine matter of impassibility itself, though he is not

invulnerable, nor exempt from either sickness or pain, yet remains

fearless, regretless, invincible, and unconstrainable in the midst of

wounds, dolors, and torments, and in the very subversions of the

walls of his native city, and other such like great calamities. Again,

Pindar's Caeneus is not wounded when struck; but the Stoics' wise man

is not detained when shut up in a prison, suffers no compulsion by being

thrown down a precipice, is not tortured when on the rack, takes no hurt

by being maimed, and when he catches a fall in wrestling he is still

unconquered; when he is encompassed with a vampire, he is not besieged;

and when sold by his enemies, he is still not made a prisoner. The

wonderful man is like to those ships that have inscribed upon them A

PROSPEROUS VOYAGE, OR PROTECTING PROVIDENCE, or A PRESERVATIVE AGAINST

DANGERS, and yet for all that endure storms, and are miserably shattered

and overturned.

Euripides's Iolaus of a feeble, superannuated old man, by means of a

certain prayer, became on a sudden youthful and strong for battle;

but the Stoics wise man was yesterday most detestable and the worst of

villains, but today is changed on a sudden into a state of virtue, and

is become of a wrinkled, pale fellow, and as Aeschylus speaks,

Of an old sickly wretch with stitch in 's back,

Distent with rending pains as on a rack,

a gallant, godlike, and beauteous person.

The goddess Minerva took from Ulysses his wrinkles, baldness, and

deformity, to make him appear a handsome man. But these men's wise man,

though old age quits not his body, but contrariwise still lays on

and heaps more upon it, though he remains (for instance) humpbacked,

toothless, one-eyed, is yet neither deformed, disfigured, nor

ill-favored. For as beetles are said to relinquish perfumes and to

pursue after ill scents; so Stoical love, having used itself to the most

foul and deformed persons, if by means of philosophy they change into

good form and comeliness, becomes presently disgusted.

He that in the Stoics' account was in the forenoon (for example) the

worst man in the world is in the afternoon the best of men; and he that

falls asleep a very sot, dunce, miscreant, and brute, nay, by Jove, a

slave and a beggar to boot, rises up the same day a prince, a rich and

a happy man, and (which is yet more) a continent, just, determined, and

unprepossessed person;--not by shooting forth out of a young and tender

body a downy beard or the sprouting tokens of mature youth, but by

having in a feeble, soft, unmanful, and undetermined mind, a perfect

intellect, a consummate prudence, a godlike disposition, an unprejudiced

science, and an unalterable habit. All this time his viciousness gives

not the least ground in order to it, but he becomes in an instant, I had

almost said, of the vilest brute, a sort of hero, genius, or god. For he

that receives his virtue from the Stoics portico may say,

Ask what thou wilt, it shall be granted thee.

(From Menander)

It brings wealth along with it, it contains kingship in it, it confers

fortune; it renders men prosperous, and makes them to want nothing and

to have a sufficiency of everything, though they have not one drachm of

silver in the house.

The fabular relations of the poets are so careful of decorum, that they

never leave a Hercules destitute of necessaries; but those still spring,

as out of some fountain, as well for him as for his companions. But he

that hath received of the Stoics Amalthaea becomes indeed a rich man,

but he begs his victuals of other men; he is a king, but resolves

syllogisms for hire; he is the only man that hath all things, but yet

he pays rent for the house he lives in, and oftentimes buys bread with

borrowed money, or else begs it of those that have nothing themselves.

The king of Ithaca begs with a design that none may know who he is, and

makes himself

As like a dirty sorry beggar

("Odyssey," xvi. 273.)

as he can. But he that is of the Portico, while he bawls and cries out,

It is I only that am a king, It is I only that am a rich man, is yet

many times seen at other people's doors saying:--

On poor Hipponax, pray, some pity take,

Bestow an old cast coat for heaven's sake;

I'm well-nigh dead with cold, and all o'er quake.

END OF FOUR---------------

SYMPOSIACS.

BOOK 1.

Some, my dear Sossius Senecio imagine that this sentence, [Greek

omitted] was principally designed against the stewards of a feast, who

are usually troublesome and press liquor too much upon the guests. For

the Dorians in Sicily (as I am informed) called the steward, [Greek

omitted] a REMEMBRANCER. Others think that this proverb admonisheth

the guests to forget everything that is spoken or done in company; and

agreeably to this, the ancients used to consecrate forgetfulness with a

ferula to Bacchus, thereby intimating that we should either not remember

any irregularity committed in mirth and company, or apply a gentle and

childish correction to the faults. But because you are of opinion (as

Euripides says) that to forget absurdities is indeed a piece of wisdom,

but to deliver over to oblivion all sort of discourse that merry

meetings do usually produce is not only repugnant to that endearing

quality that most allow to an entertainment, but against the known

practice of the greatest philosophers (for Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle,

Speusippus, Epicurus, Prytanis, Hieronymus, Dion the Academic, have

thought it a worthy and noble employment to deliver down to us those

discourses they had at table), and since it is your pleasure that I

should gather up the chiefest of those scattered topics which both at

Rome and Greece amidst our cups and feasting we have disputed on, in

obedience to your commands I have sent three books, each containing

ten problems; and the rest shall quickly follow, if these find good

acceptance and do not seem altogether foolish and impertinent.

QUESTION I. WHETHER AT TABLE IT IS ALLOWABLE TO PHILOSOPHIZE?

SOSSIUS, SENECIO, ARISTO, PLUTARCH, CRATO, AND OTHERS.

The first question is, Whether at table it is allowable to philosophize?

For I remember at a supper at Athens this doubt was started, whether at

a merry meeting it was fit to use philosophical discourse, and how

far it might be used? And Aristo presently cried out: What then, for

heaven's sake, are there any that banish philosophy from company and

wine? And I replied: Yes, sir, there are, and such as with a grave scoff

tell us that philosophy, like the matron of the house, should never be

heard at a merry entertainment; and commend the custom of the Persians,

who never let their wives appear, but drink, dance, and wanton with

their whores. This they propose for us to imitate; they permit us

to have mimics and music at our feasts, but forbid philosophy; she,

forsooth, being very unfit to be wanton with us, and we in a bad

condition to be serious. Isocrates the rhetorician, when at a drinking

bout some begged him to make a speech, only returned: With those things

in which I have skill the time doth not suit; and in those things with

which the time suits I have no skill.

And Crato cried out: By Bacchus, he was right to forswear talk, if he

designed to make such long-winded discourses as would have spoiled all

mirth and conversation; but I do not think there is the same reason

to forbid philosophy as to take away rhetoric from our feasts. For

philosophy is quite of another nature; it is an art of living, and

therefore must be admitted into every part of our conversation, into

all our gay humors and our pleasures, to regulate and adjust them, to

proportion the time, and keep them from excess; unless, perchance, upon

the same scoffing pretence of gravity, they would banish temperance,

justice, and moderation. It is true, were we to feast before a court, as

those that entertained Orestes, and were silence enjoined by law, that

might prove no mean cloak of our ignorance; but if Bacchus is really

[Greek omitted] (A LOOSER of everything), and chiefly takes off all

restraints and bridles from the tongue, and gives the voice the greatest

freedom, I think it is foolish and absurd to deprive that time in

which we are usually most talkative of the most useful and profitable

discourse; and in our schools to dispute of the offices of company, in

what consists the excellence of a guest, how mirth, feasting, and wine

are to be used and yet deny philosophy a place in these feasts, as if

not able to confirm by practice what by precepts it instructs.

And when you affirmed that none ought to oppose what Crato said, but

determine what sorts of philosophical topics were to be admitted as fit

companions at a feast, and so avoid that just and pleasant taunt put

upon the wrangling disputers of the age,

Come now to supper, that we may contend;

and when you seemed concerned and urged us to speak to that head, I

first replied: Sir, we must consider what company we have; for if

the greater part of the guests are learned men,--as for instance, at

Agatho's entertainment, characters like Socrates, Phaedrus, Pausanias,

Euryximachus; or at Callias's board, Charmides, Antisthenes, Hermogenes,

and the like,--we will permit them to philosohize, and to mix Bacchus

with the Muses as well as with the Nymphs; for the latter make him

wholesome and gentle to the body, and the other pleasant and agreeable

to the soul. And if there are some few illiterate persons present,

they, as consonants with vowels, in the midst of the other learned, will

participate not altogether inarticulately and insignificantly. But if

the greater part consists of such who can better endure the noise of any

bird, fiddle-string, or piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher,

Pisistratus hath shown us what to do; for being at difference with his

sons, when he heard his enemies rejoiced at it, in a full assembly he

declared that he had endeavored to persuade his sons to submit to him,

but since he found them obstinate, he was resolved to yield and submit

to their humors. So a philosopher, midst those companions that slight

his excellent discourse, will lay aside his gravity, follow them, and

comply with their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well

that men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their

philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst

they are piqued upon or repartee. For it is not only (as Plato says) the

highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so; but it is

the top of wisdom to philosophize, yet not appear to do it; and in mirth

to do the same with those that are serious, and still seem in earnest.

For as in Euripides, the Bacchae, though unprovided of iron weapons and

unarmed, wounded their invaders with their boughs, thus the very jests

and merry talk of true philosophers move those that are not altogether

insensible.

I think there are topics fit to be used at table, some of which reading

and study give us, others the present occasion; some to incite to study,

others to piety and great and noble actions, others to make us rivals

of the bountiful and kind; which if a man cunningly and without any

apparent design inserts for the instruction of the rest, he will free

these entertainments from many of those considerable evils which usually

attend them. Some that put borage into the wine, or sprinkle the floor

with water in which verbena and maiden-hair have been steeped, as good

raise mirth and jollity in the guests (in imitation of Homer's Helen,

who with some medicament diluted the pure wine she had prepared), do not

understand that that fable, coming from round Egypt, after a long way

ends at last in easy and fit discourse. For whilst they were drinking

Helen relates the story of Ulysses,

How Fortune's spite the hero did control,

And bore his troubles with a manly soul.

("Odyssey," iv. 242.)

For that, in my opinion, was the Nepenthe, the care-dissolving

medicament, viz, that story exactly fitted to the then disasters and

juncture of affairs. The pleasing men, though they designedly and

apparently instruct, draw on their maxims rather with persuasive and

smooth arguments, than the violent force of demonstrations. You see that

even Plato in his Symposium, where he disputes of the chief end, the

chief good, and is altogether on subjects theological, doth not lay down

strong and close demonstrations; he doth not make himself ready for the

contest (as he is wont) like a wrestler, that he may take the firmer

hold of his adversary and be sure of giving him the trip; but draws

men on by more soft and pliable attacks, by pleasant fictions and pat

examples.

Besides the questions should be easy, the problems known, the

interrogations plain, familiar, and not intricate and dark that they

might neither vex the unlearned, nor fright them from the disquisition.

For--as it is allowable to dissolve our entertainment into a dance, but

if we force our guests to toss quoits or play at cudgels, we shall not

only make our feast unpleasant, but hurtful and unnatural--thus light

and easy disquisitions do pleasantly and profitably excite us, but we

must forbear all contentions and (to use Democritus's word) wrangling

disputes, which perplex the proposers with intricate and inexplicable

doubts, and trouble all the others that are present. Our discourse

should be like our wine, common to all, and of which every one may

equally partake; and they that propose hard problems seem no better

fitted for society than Aesop's fox and crane. For the fox vexed the

crane with thin broth poured out upon a plain table, and laughed at

her when he saw her, by reason of the narrowness of her bill and the

thinness of the broth, incapable of partaking what he had prepared; and

the crane, in requital, inviting the fox to supper, brought forth her

dainties in a pot with a long and narrow neck, into which she could

conveniently thrust her bill, whilst the fox could not reach one bit.

Just so, when philosophers midst their cups dive into minute and logical

disputes, they are very troublesome to those that cannot follow them

through the same depths; and those that bring in idle songs, trifling

disquisitions, common talk, and mechanical discourse destroy the

very end of conversation and merry entertainments, and abuse Bacchus.

Therefore, as when Phrynichus and Aeschylus brought tragedy to discourse

of fictions and misfortunes, it was asked, What is this to Bacchus?--so

methinks, when I hear some pedantically drawing a syllogism into

table-talk, I have reason to cry out, Sir, what is this to Bacchus?

Perchance one, the great bowl standing in the midst, and the chaplets

given round, which the god in token of the liberty he bestows sets on

every head, sings one of those songs called [Greek omitted] (CROOKED

OR OBSCURE); this is not fit nor agreeable to a feast. Though some say

these songs were not dark and intricate composures; but that the guests

sang the first song all together, praising Bacchus and describing the

power of the god; and the second each man sang singly in his turn, a

myrtle bough being delivered to every one in order, which they call an

[Greek omitted] because he that received it was obliged [Greek omitted]

to sing; and after this a harp being carried round the company, the

skilful took it, and fitted the music to the song; this when the

unskilful could not perform, the song was called [Greek omitted] because

hard to them, and one in which they could not bear a part. Others say

this myrtle bough was not delivered in order, but from bed to bed;

and when the uppermost of the first table had sung, he sent it to the

uppermost of the second, and he to the uppermost of the third; and so

the second in like manner to the second; and from these many windings

and this circuit it was called [Greek omitted] CROOKED.

QUESTION II. WHETHER THE ENTERTAINER SHOULD SEAT THE GUESTS, OR LET

EVERY MAN TAKE HIS OWN PLACE.

TIMON, A GUEST, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH'S FATHER, LAMPRIAS, AND OTHERS.

My brother Timon, making a great entertainment, desired the guests as

they came to seat themselves; for he had invited strangers and citizens,

neighbors and acquaintance, and all sorts of persons to the feast. A

great many being already come, a certain stranger at last appeared,

dressed as fine as hands could make him, his clothes rich, and

an unseemly train of foot-boys at his heels; he walking up to the

parlor-door, and, staring round upon those that were already seated,

turned his back and scornfully retired; and when a great many stepped

after him and begged him to return, he said, I see no fit place left for

me. At that, the other guests (for the glasses had gone round) laughed

abundantly, and desired his room rather than his company.

But after supper, my father addressing himself to me, who sat at another

quarter of the table,--Timon, said he, and I have a dispute, and you

are to be judge, for I have been upon his skirts already about that

stranger; for if according to my directions he had seated every man in

his proper place, we had never been thought unskilful in this matter, by

one

Whose art is great in ordering horse and foot.

("Iliad," ii 554.)

And story says that Paulus Aemilius, after he had conquered Perseus the

king of Macedon, making an entertainment besides his costly furniture

and extraordinary provision, was very critical in the order of his

feast; saying, It is the same man's task to order a terrible battle and

a pleasing, entertainment, for both of them require skill in the art

of disposing right, and Homer often calls the stoutest and the greatest

princes [Greek omitted] disposers of the people; and you use to say

that the great Creator, by this art of disposing, turned disorder into

beauty, and neither taking away nor adding any new being, but setting

everything in its proper place, out of the most uncomely figure and

confused chaos produced this beauteous, this surprising face of nature

that appears. In these great and noble doctrines indeed you instruct

us; but our own observation sufficiently assures us, that the greatest

profuseness in a feast appears neither delightful nor genteel, unless

beautified by order. And therefore it is absurd that cooks and waiters

should be solicitous what dish must be brought first, what next,

what placed in the middle, and what last; and that the garlands, and

ointment, and music (if they have any) should have a proper place and

order assigned, and yet that the guests should be seated promiscuously,

and no respect be had to age, honor, or the like; no distinguishing

order by which the man in dignity might be honored, the inferior learn

to give place, and the disposer be exercised in distinguishing what is

proper and convenient. For it is not rational that, when we walk or sit

down to discourse, the best man should have the best place, and not

the same order be observed at table; or that the entertainer should

in civility drink to one before another, and yet make no difference in

their seats, at the first dash making the whole company one Myconus (as

they say), a hodge-podge and confusion. This my father brought for his

opinion.

And my brother said: I am not so much wiser than Bias, that, since

he refused to be arbitrator between two only of his friends, I should

pretend to be a judge between so many strangers and acquaintance;

especially since it is not a money matter, but about precedence and

dignity, as if I invited my friends not to treat them kindly, but to

abuse them. Menelaus is accounted absurd and passed into a proverb, for

pretending to advise when unasked; and sure he would be more ridiculous

that instead of an entertainer should set up for a judge, when nobody

requests him or submits to his determination which is the best and which

the worst man in the company; for the guests do not come to contend

about precedency, but to feast and be merry. Besides, it is no easy

task to distinguish for some claim respect by reason of their age,

others--from their familiarity and acquaintance; and, as those that make

declamations consisting of comparisons, he must have Aristotle's [Greek

omitted] and Thrasymachus's [Greek omitted] (books that furnish him with

heads of argument) at his fingers' ends; and all this to no good purpose

or profitable effect but to bring vanity from the bar and the theatre

into our feasts and entertainments, and, whilst by good fellowship

endeavor to remit all other passions, especially pride and arrogance,

from which, in my opinion we should be more careful to cleanse our souls

than to wash our feet from dirt, that our conversation be free, simple,

and full of mirth. And while by such meetings we strive to end all

differences that have at any time risen amongst the invited, we should

make them flame anew, and kindle them again by emulation, by thus

humbling some and puffing up others. And if, according as we seat them,

we should drink oftener and discourse more with some than others and

set daintier dishes before them, instead of being friendly we should be

lordly in our feasts. And if in other things we treat them all equally,

why should we not begin at the first part, and bring it into fashion for

all to take their seats promiscuously, without ceremony or pride, and to

let them see, as soon as they enter, that they are invited to a dinner

whose order is free and democratical, and not, as particular chosen men

to the government of a city where aristocracy is the form; since the

richest and the poorest sit promiscuously together.

When this had been offered on both sides, and all present required my

determination, I said: Being an arbitrator and not a judge, I shall

close strictly with neither side, but go indifferently in the middle

between both. If a man invites young men, citizens, or acquaintance,

they should (as Timon says) be accustomed to be content with any

place, without ceremony or concernment; and this good nature and

unconcernedness would be an excellent means to preserve and increase

friendship. But if we use the same method to strangers, magistrates, or

old men, I have just reason to fear that, whilst we seem to thrust our

pride at the fore-door, we bring it in again at the back, together with

a great deal of indifferency and disrespect. But in this, custom and

the established rules of decency must guide; or else let us abolish all

those modes of respect expressed by drinking to or saluting first; which

we do not use promiscuously to all the company but according to their

worth we honor every one

With better places, meat, and larger cups,

("Iliad," xii. 311.)

as Agamemnon says, naming the place first, as the chiefest sign of

honor. And we commend Alcinous for placing his guest next himself:--

He stout Laomedon his son removed,

Who sat next him, for him he dearly loved;

("Iliad," xx. 15.)

for to place a suppliant stranger in the seat of his beloved son

was wonderful kind, and extreme courteous. Nay even amongst the gods

themselves this distinction is observed; for Neptune, though he came

last into the assembly,

sat in the middle seat,

("Odyssey," vii. 170.)

as if that was his proper place. And Minerva seems to have that assigned

her which is next Jupiter himself; and this the poet intimates, when

speaking of Thetis he says,

She sat next Jove, Minerva giving Place.

(Ibid. xxiv. 100.)

And Pindar plainly says,

She sits just next the thunder-breathing flames.

Indeed Timon urges, we ought not to rob many to honor one, which he

seems to do himself, even more than others; for he robs that which makes

something that is individual common; and suitable honor to his worth is

each man's possession. And he gives that preeminence to running fast and

making haste, which belongs to virtue, kindred, magistracies, and such

other qualities; and whilst he endeavors not to affront his guests,

he necessarily falls into that very inconvenience; for he must affront

every one by defrauding them of their proper honor. Besides, in my

opinion it is no hard matter to make this distinction, and seat our

guests according to their quality; for first, it very seldom happens

that many of equal honor are invited to the same banquet; and then,

since there are many honorable places, you have room enough to dispose

them according to content, if you can but guess that this man must be

seated uppermost, that in the middle, another next to yourself, friend,

acquaintance, tutor, or the like, appointing every one some place of

honor; and as for the rest, I would supply their want of honor with some

little presents, affability, and kind discourse. But if their qualities

are not easy to be distinguished, and the men themselves hard to be

pleased, see what device I have in that case; for I seat in the

most honorable place my father, if invited; if not my grandfather,

father-in-law, uncle, or somebody whom the entertainer hath a more

particular reason to esteem. And this is one of the many rules of

decency that we have from Homer; for in his poem, when Achilles saw

Menelaus and Antilochus contending about the second prize of the

horse-race, fearing that their strife and fury would increase, he gave

the prize to another, under pretence of comforting and honoring Eumelus,

but indeed to take away the cause of their contention.

When I had said this, Lamprias, sitting (as he always doth) upon a low

bed, cried out: Sirs, will you give me leave to correct this sottish

judge? And the company bidding him speak freely and tell me roundly of

my faults, and not spare, he said: And who can forbear that philosopher

who disposes of places at a feast according to the birth, wealth, or

offices of the guests, as if they were in a theatre or the Council

House, so that pride and arrogance must be admitted even into our mirth

and entertainments? In seating our guests we should not have any

respect to honor, but mirth and conversation; not look after every man's

quality, but their agreement and harmony with one another, as those do

that join several different things in one composure. Thus a mason doth

not set an Athenian or a Spartan stone, because formed in a more noble

country, before an Asian or a Spanish; nor a painter give the most

costly color the chiefest place; nor a shipwright the Corinthian fir or

Cretan cypress; but so distribute them as they will best serve to the

common end, and make the whole composure strong, beautiful, and fit for

use. Nay, you see even the deity himself (by our Pindar named the most

skilful artificer) doth not everywhere place the fire above and the

earth below; but, as Empedocles hath it,

The Oysters Coverings do directly prove,

That heavy Earth is sometimes rais'd above;

not having that place that Nature appoints, but that which is necessary

to compound bodies and serviceable to the common end, the preservation

of the whole. Disorder is in everything an evil; but then its badness

is principally discovered, when it is amongst men whilst they are

making merry; for then it breeds contentions and a thousand unspeakable

mischiefs, which to foresee and hinder shows a man well skilled in good

order and disposing right.

We all agreed that he had said well, but asked him why he would not

instruct us how to order things aright, and communicate his skill. I am

content, says he, to instruct you, if you will permit me to change the

present order of the feast, and will yield as ready obedience to me as

the Thebans to Epaminondas when he altered the order of their battle. We

gave him full power; and he, having turned all the servants out, looked

round upon every one, and said: Hear (for I will tell you first) how

I design to order you together. In my mind, the Theban Pammenes justly

taxeth Homer as unskilful in love matters, for setting together, in

his description of an army, tribe and tribe, family and family; for he

should have joined the lover and the beloved, so that the whole body

being united in their minds might perfectly agree. This rule will

I follow, not set one rich man by another, a youth by a youth, a

magistrate by a magistrate, and a friend by a friend; for such an order

is of no force, either to beget or increase friendship and good-will.

But fitting that which wants with something that is able to supply

it, next one that is willing to instruct I will place one that is as

desirous to be instructed; next a morose, one good-natured; next a

talkative old man a youth patient and eager for a story; next a boaster,

a jeering smooth companion; and next an angry man, a quiet one. If I see

a wealthy fellow bountiful and kind, I will take some poor honest man

from his obscure place, and set him next, that something may run out of

that full vessel to the other empty one. A sophister I will forbid to

sit by a sophister, and one poet by another;

For beggars beggars, poets envy poets.

(Hesiod, "Work and Days," 26)

I separate the clamorous scoffers and the testy, by putting some

good-nature between them, so they cannot jostle so roughly on one

another; wrestlers, hunters, and farmers I put in one company. For some

of the same nature, when put together, fight as cocks; others are very

sociable as daws. Drinkers and lovers I set together, not only those who

(as Sophocles says) feel the sting of masculine love, but those that are

mad after virgins or married women; for they being warmed with the

like fire, as two pieces of iron to be joined, will more readily agree;

unless perhaps they both fancy the same person.

QUESTION III. UPON WHAT ACCOUNT IS THE PLACE AT THE TABLE CALLED

CONSULAR ESTEEMED HONORABLE.

THE SAME.

This raised a dispute about the dignity of places, for the same seat is

not accounted honorable amongst all nations; in Persia the midst, for

that is the place proper to the king himself; in Greece the uppermost;

at Rome the lowermost of the middle bed, and this is called the

consular; the Greeks about Pontus, and those of Heraclea, reckon the

uppermost of the middle bed to be the chief. But we were most puzzled

about the place called consular; for though it is esteemed most

honorable, yet it is not because it is either the first or the midst;

and its other circumstances are either not proper to that alone, or very

frivolous. Though I confess three of the reasons alleged seemed to have

something in them. The first, that the consuls, having dissolved the

monarchy and reduced everything to a more equal level and popular

estate, left the middle, the kingly place, and sat in a lower seat; that

by this means their power and authority might be less subject to envy,

and not so grievous to their fellow-citizens. The second, that, two beds

being appointed for the invited guests, the third--and the first place

in it--is most convenient for the master of the feast, from whence like

a pilot, he can guide and order everything, and readily overlook the

management of the whole affair. Besides, he is not so far removed that

he can easily discourse, talk to, and compliment his guests; for next

below him his wife and children usually are placed; next above him the

most honorable of the invited, that being the most proper place, as near

the master of the feast. The third reason was, that it is peculiar to

the this place to be most convenient for the despatch of any sudden

business; for the Roman consul will not as Archias, the governor of

Thebes, say, when letters of importance are brought to him at dinner,

"serious things to-morrow" and then throw aside the packet and take the

great bowl; but he will be careful, circumspect, and mind it at that

very instant. For not only (as the common saying hath it)

Each throw doth make the dicer fear,

but even midst his feasting and his pleasure a magistrate should be

intent on intervening business; and he hath this place appointed, as

the most convenient for him to receive any message, answer it, or sign

a bill; for there the second bed joining with the third, the turning at

the corner leaves a vacant space, so that a notary, servant, guard, or a

messenger from the army might approach, deliver the message, and receive

orders; and the consul, having room enough to speak or use his hand,

neither troubles any one, nor is hindered by any the guests.

QUESTION IV. WHAT MANNER OF MAN SHOULD A DIRECTOR OF A FEAST BE?

CRATO, THEON, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.

Crato my relative, and Theon my acquaintance, at a certain banquet,

where the glasses had gone round freely, and a little stir arose but was

suddenly appeased, began to discourse of the office of the steward of

a feast; declaring that it was my duty to wear the chaplet, assert the

decaying privilege, and restore that office which should take care for

the decency and good order of the banquet. This proposal pleased every

one, and they were all an end begging me to do it. Well then, said I,

since you will have it so, I make myself steward and director of you

all, command the rest to drink every one what he will but Crato and

Theon, the first proposers and authors of this decree, I enjoin to

declare in short what qualifications fit a man for this office, what he

should principally aim at and how behave himself towards those under

his command. This is the subject, and let them agree amongst themselves

which head each shall manage.

They made some slight excuse at first; but the whole company urging them

to obey, Crato began thus. A captain of a watch (as Plato says) ought

to be most watchful and diligent himself, and the director of merry

companions ought to be the best. And such a one he is, that will not be

easily overtaken or apt to refuse a glass; but as Cyrus in his epistle

to the Spartans says, that in many other things he was more fit than

his brother to be a king, and chiefly because he could bear abundance

of wine. For one that is drunk must have an ill carriage and be apt to

affront; and he that is perfectly sober must be unpleasant, and fitter

to be a governor of a school than of a feast. Pericles as often as he

was chosen general, when he put on his cloak, used to say to himself,

as it were to refresh his memory, Take heed, Pericles, thou dost govern

freemen, thou dost govern Greeks, thou dost govern Athenians. So let

our director say privately to himself, Thou art a governor over friends,

that he may remember to neither suffer them to be debauched nor stint

their mirth. Besides he ought to have some skill in the serious studies

of the guests and not be altogether ignorant of mirth and humor yet I

would have him (as pleasant wine ought to be) a little severe and rough,

for the liquor will soften and smooth him, and make his temper pleasant

and agreeable. For as Xenophon says, that Clearchus's rustic and morose

humor in a battle, by reason of his bravery and heat, seemed pleasant

and surprising; thus one that is not of a very sour nature, but grave

and severe, being softened by a chirping cup becomes more pleasant and

complaisant. But chiefly he should be acquainted with every one of the

guests' humors, what alteration the liquor makes in him, what passion he

is most subject to, and what quantity he can bear; for it is not to be

supposed different sorts of water bear various proportions to different

sorts of wine (which kings' cup-bearers understanding sometimes pour in

more, sometimes less), and that man hath no such relation to them. This

our director ought to know, and knowing, punctually observe; so that

like a good musician, screwing up one and letting down another, he may

make between these different natures a pleasing harmony and agreement;

so that he shall not proportion his wine by measure, but give every one

what was proper and agreeable, according to the present circumstances of

time and strength of body. But if this is too difficult a task, yet it

is necessary that a steward should know the common accidents of age and

nature, such as these,--that an old man will be sooner overtaken than

a youth, one that leaps about or talks than he that is silent or sits

still, the thoughtful and melancholy than the cheerful and the brisk.

And he that understands these things is much more able to preserve

quietness and order, than one that is perfectly ignorant and unskilful.

Besides, I think none will doubt but that the steward ought to be a

friend, and have no pique at any of the guests; for otherwise in his

injunctions he will be intolerable, in his distributions unequal, in

his jests apt to scoff and give offence. Such a figure, Theon, as out

of wax, hath my discourse framed for the steward of a feast; and now I

deliver him to you.

And Theon replied: He is welcome,--a very well-shaped gentleman,

and fitted for the office; but whether I shall not spoil him in my

particular application, I cannot tell. In my opinion he seems such a

one as will keep an entertainment to its primitive institution, and

not suffer it to be changed, sometimes into a mooting hall, sometimes a

school of rhetoric, now and then a dicing room, a playhouse, or a stage.

For do not you observe some making fine orations and putting cases at a

supper, others declaiming or reading some of their own compositions, and

others proposing prizes to dancers and mimics? Alcibiades and Theodorus

turned Polition's banquet into a temple of initiation, representing

there the sacred procession and mysteries of Ceres; now such things as

these, in my opinion, ought not to be suffered by a steward, but he must

permit such discourse only, such shows, such merriment, as promote

the particular end and design of such entertainments; and that is,

by pleasant conversation either to beget or maintain friendship and

good-will among the guests; for an entertainment is only a pastime table

with a glass of wine, ending in friendship through mutual goodwill.

But now because things pure and unmixed are usually surfeiting and

odious, and the very mixture itself, unless the simples be well

proportioned and opportunely put together, spoils the sweetness and

goodness of the composition; it is evident that there ought to be

a director to take care that the mirth and jollity of the guests be

exactly and opportunely tempered. It is a common saying that a voyage

near the land and a walk near the sea are the best recreation. Thus our

steward should place seriousness and gravity next jollity and humor;

that when they are merry, they should be on the very borders of gravity

itself, and when grave and serious, they might be refreshed as sea-sick

persons having an easy and short prospect to the mirth and jollity on

land. For mirth may be exceeding useful, and make our grave discourses

smooth and pleasant,--

As near the bramble oft the lily grows,

And neighboring rue commands the blushing rose.

But against vain and empty tempers, that wantonly break in upon our

feasts, like henbane mixed with the wine, he must advise the guests,

lest scoffing and affronts creep in under these, lest in their questions

or commands they grow scurrilous and abuse, as for instance by enjoining

stutterers to sing, bald-pates to comb their heads, or a cripple to rise

and dance. As the company abused Agapestor the Academic, one of whose

legs was lame and withered, when in a ridiculing frolic they ordained

that every man should stand upon his right leg and take off his glass,

or pay a fine; and he, when it was his turn to command, enjoined the

company to follow his example drink as he did, and having a narrow

earthen pitcher brought in, he put his withered leg into it, and drank

his glass and every one in the company, after a fruitless endeavor to

imitate, paid his forfeit. It was a good humor of Agapestor's and thus

every little merry abuse must be as merrily revenged. Besides he must

give such commands as will both please and profit, putting such as are

familiar and easy to the person, and when performed will be for his

credit and reputation. A songster must be enjoined to sing, an orator to

speak, a philosopher to solve a problem, and a poet to make a song; for

every one very readily and willingly undertakes that

In which he may outdo himself.

An Assyrian king by public proclamation promised a reward to him

that would find out any new sort of luxury and pleasure. And let the

governor, the king of an entertainments propose some pleasant reward for

any one that introduceth inoffensive merriment, profitable delight and

laughter, not such as attends scoffs and abusive jests, but kindness,

pleasant humor, and goodwill; for these matters not being well looked

after and observed spoil and ruin most of our entertainments. It is the

office of a prudent man to hinder all sort of anger and contention; in

the exchange, that which springs from covetousness; in the fencing and

wrestling schools, from emulation; in offices and state affairs, from

ambition; and in a feast or entertainment, from pleasantness and joke.

QUESTION V. WHY IT IS COMMONLY SAID THAT LOVE MAKES A MAN A POET.

SOSSIUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.

One day when Sossius entertained us, upon singing some Sapphic verses,

this question was started, how it could be true

That love in all doth vigorous thoughts inspire,

And teaches ignorants to tune the lyre?

Since Philoxenus, on the contrary, asserts, that the Cyclops

With sweet-tongued Muses cured his love.

Some said that love was bold and daring, venturing at new contrivances,

and eager to accomplish, upon which account Plato calls it the

enterpriser of everything; for it makes the reserved man talkative,

the modest complimental, the negligent and sluggish industrious and

observant; and, what is the greatest wonder, a close, hard, and covetous

fellow, if he happens to be in love, as iron in fire, becomes pliable

and soft, easy, good-natured, and very pleasant; as if there were

something in that common jest. A lover's purse is tied with the blade of

a leek. Others said that love was like drunkenness; it makes men warm,

merry, and dilated; and, when in that condition, they naturally slide

down to songs and words in measure; and it is reported of Aeschylus,

that he wrote tragedies after he was heated with a glass of wine; and

my grandfather Lamprias in his cups seemed to outdo himself in starting

questions and smart disputing, and usually said that, like frankincense,

he exhaled more freely after he was warmed. And as lovers are extremely

pleased with the sight of their beloved, so they praise with as much

satisfaction as they behold; and as love is talkative in everything,

so more especially in commendation; for lovers themselves believe,

and would have all others think, that the object of their passion is

pleasing and excellent; and this made Candaules the Lydian force Gyges

into his chamber to behold the beauty of his naked wife. For they

delight in the testimony of others, and therefore in all composures upon

the lovely they adorn them with songs and verses, as we dress images

with gold, that more may hear of them and that they may be remembered

the more. For if they present a cock, horse, or any other thing to the

beloved, it is neatly trimmed and set off with all the ornaments of art;

and therefore, when they would present a compliment, they would have it

curious, pleasing, as verse usually appears.

Sossius applauding these discourses added: Perhaps we may make a

probable conjecture from Theophrastus's discourse of Music, for I

have lately read the book. Theophrastus lays down three causes of

music,--grief, pleasure and enthusiasm; for each of these changes the

usual tone, and makes the voice slide into a cadence; for deep sorrow

has something tunable in its groans, and therefore we perceive our

orators in their conclusions, and actors in their complaints, are

somewhat melodious, and insensibly fall into a tune. Excess of joy

provokes the more airy men to frisk and dance and keep their steps,

though unskilful in the art; and, as Pindar hath it,

They shout, and roar, and wildly toss their heads.

But the graver sort are excited only to sing, raise their voice, and

tune their words into a sonnet. But enthusiasm quite changes the body

and the voice, and makes it far different from its usual constitution.

Hence the very Bacchae use measure, and the inspired give their oracles

in measure. And we shall see very few madmen but are frantic in rhyme

and rave in verse. This being certain, if you will but anatomize love a

little, and look narrowly into it, it will appear that no passion in

the world is attended with more violent grief, more excessive joy,

or greater ecstasies and fury; a lover's soul looks like Sophocles's

city:--

At once 'tis full of sacrifice,

Of joyful songs, of groans and cries.'

(Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyrannus," 4.)

And therefore it is no wonder, that since love contains all the causes

of music,--grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm,--and is besides industrious

and talkative, it should incline us more than any other passion to

poetry and songs.

QUESTION VI. WHETHER ALEXANDER WAS A GREAT DRINKER.

PHILINUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.

Some said that Alexander did not drink much, but sat long in company,

discoursing with his friends; but Philinus showed this to be an error

from the king's diary, where it was very often registered that such a

day, and sometimes two days together, the king slept after a debauch;

and this course of life made him cold in love, but passionate and angry,

which argues a hot constitution. And some report his sweat was fragrant

and perfumed his clothes; which is another argument of heat, as we see

the hottest and driest climates bear frankincense and cassia; for a

fragrant smell, as Theophrastus thinks, proceeds from a due concoction

of the humors, when the noxious moisture is conquered by the heat. And

it is thought probable, that he took a pique at Calisthenes for avoiding

his table because of the hard drinking, and refusing the great bowl

called Alexander's in his turn, adding, I will not drink of Alexander's

bowl, to stand in need of Aesculapius's. And thus much of Alexander's

drinking.