Solomon saith, “There is no new thing upon the earth;”[589] so
that as Plato[590] had an imagination that all knowledge was but
remembrance, so Solomon giveth his sentence, “That all novelty is but
oblivion;”[591] whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe runneth
as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that
saith, if it were not for two things that are constant (the one is,
that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and
never come nearer together, nor go further asunder; the other, that
the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time), no individual would last
one moment; certain it is, that the matter is in a perpetual flux, and
never at a stay. The great winding-sheets that bury all things in
oblivion, are two,—deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and
great droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but destroy. Phaeton’s
car went but a day; and the three years’ drought in the time of
Elias,[592] was but particular,[593] and left people alive. As for the
great burnings by lightnings, which are often in the West Indies,[594]
they are but narrow;[595] but in the other two destructions, by deluge
and earthquake, it is further to be noted, that the remnant of people
which happen to be reserved, are commonly ignorant and mountainous
people, that can give no account of the time past; so that the oblivion
is all one, as if none had been left. If you consider well of the
people of the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer,
or a younger people than the people of the old world; and it is much
more likely that the destruction that hath heretofore been there, was
not by earthquakes, (as the Egyptian priest told Solon, concerning the
Island of Atlantis,[596] that it was swallowed by an earthquake), but
rather that it was desolated by a particular deluge, for earthquakes
are seldom in those parts; but, on the other side, they have such
pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia, and Africa, and Europe, are but
brooks to them. Their Andes, likewise, or mountains, are far higher
than those with us; whereby it seems, that the remnants of generations
of men were in such a particular deluge saved. As for the observation
that Machiavel hath, that the jealousy of sects doth much extinguish
the memory of things,[597] traducing Gregory the Great, that he did
what in him lay to extinguish all heathen antiquities, I do not find
that those zeals do any great effects, nor last long; as it appeared in
the succession of Sabinian,[598] who did revive the former antiquities.
The vicissitude, or mutations, in the superior globe, are no fit matter
for this present argument. It may be, Plato’s great year,[599] if the
world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing
the state of like individuals (for that is the fume[600] of those
that conceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon
these things below, than indeed they have), but in gross. Comets, out
of question, have likewise power and effect over the gross and mass
of things; but they are rather gazed, and waited upon[601] in their
journey, than wisely observed in their effects, especially in their
respective effects; that is, what kind of comet for magnitude, color,
version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven, or lasting,
produceth what kind of effects.
There is a toy,[602] which I have heard, and I would not have it given
over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low
Countries (I know not in what part), that every five and thirty years
the same kind and suit of years and weather comes about again; as great
frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with little
heat, and the like; and they call it the prime. It is a thing I do
the rather mention, because, computing backwards, I have found some
concurrence.
But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The greatest
vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and
religions; for those orbs rule in men’s minds most. The true religion
is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. To
speak, therefore, of the causes of new sects, and to give some counsel
concerning them, as far as the weakness of human judgment can give stay
to so great revolutions.
When the religion formerly received is rent by discords, and when the
holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal,
and, withal, the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may
doubt the springing up of a new sect; if then, also, there should arise
any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof; all
which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect have
not two properties, fear it not, for it will not spread. The one is the
supplanting or the opposing of authority established, for nothing is
more popular than that; the other is, the giving license to pleasures
and a voluptuous life; for as for speculative heresies (such as were in
ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians),[603] though they work
mightily upon men’s wits, yet they do not produce any great alterations
in states, except it be by the help of civil occasions. There be three
manner of plantations of new sects: by the power of signs and miracles;
by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the
sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles, because they
seem to exceed the strength of human nature; and I may do the like of
superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely, there is no better
way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses;
to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with
sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors,
by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and
bitterness.
The changes and vicissitude in wars are many, but chiefly in three
things: in the seats or stages of the war, in the weapons, and in the
manner of the conduct. Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move from
east to west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars (which
were the invaders), were all eastern people. It is true the Gauls
were western; but we read but of two incursions of theirs, the one to
Gallo-Græcia, the other to Rome: but east and west have no certain
points of heaven; and no more have the wars, either from the east or
west, any certainty of observation; but north and south are fixed; and
it hath seldom or never been seen that the far southern people have
invaded the northern, but contrariwise: whereby it is manifest that
the northern tract of the world is in nature the more martial region,
be it in respect of the stars of that hemisphere,[604] or of the great
continents that are upon the north; whereas, the south part, for aught
that is known, is almost all sea; or (which is most apparent) of
the cold of the northern parts, which is that which, without aid of
discipline, doth make the bodies hardest, and the courage warmest.
Upon the breaking and shivering of a great state and empire, you may be
sure to have wars; for great empires, while they stand, do enervate and
destroy the forces of the natives which they have subdued, resting upon
their own protecting forces; and then, when they fail also, all goes
to ruin, and they become a prey. So was it in the decay of the Roman
empire, and likewise in the empire of Almaigne,[605] after Charles
the Great,[606] every bird taking a feather, and were not unlike to
befall to Spain, if it should break. The great accessions and unions
of kingdoms do likewise stir up wars; for when a state grows to an
over-power, it is like a great flood, that will be sure to overflow,
as it hath been seen in the states of Rome, Turkey, Spain, and others.
Look when the world hath fewest barbarous people, but such as commonly
will not marry or generate, except they know means to live (as it is
almost everywhere at this day, except Tartary), there is no danger of
inundations of people; but when there be great shoals of people, which
go on to populate, without foreseeing means of life and sustenation,
it is of necessity that once in an age or two they discharge a portion
of their people upon other nations, which the ancient northern people
were wont to do by lot; casting lots what part should stay at home,
and what should seek their fortunes. When a warlike state grows soft
and effeminate, they may be sure of a war, for commonly such states are
grown rich in the time of their degenerating; and so the prey inviteth,
and their decay in valor encourageth a war.
As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under rule and observation, yet
we see even they have returns and vicissitudes; for certain it is that
ordnance was known in the city of the Oxidraces, in India, and was that
which the Macedonians[607] called thunder and lightning, and magic;
and it is well known that the use of ordnance hath been in China above
two thousand years. The conditions of weapons, and their improvements
are, first, the fetching[608] afar off, for that outruns the danger,
as it is seen in ordnance and muskets; secondly, the strength of the
percussion, wherein, likewise, ordnance do exceed all arietations,[609]
and ancient inventions; the third is, the commodious use of them, as
that they may serve in all weathers, that the carriage may be light and
manageable, and the like.
For the conduct of the war: at the first, men rested extremely upon
number; they did put the wars likewise upon main force and valor,
pointing days for pitched fields, and so trying it out upon an even
match; and they were more ignorant in ranging and arraying their
battles. After they grew to rest upon number, rather competent than
vast, they grew to advantages of place, cunning diversions, and the
like, and they grew more skilful in the ordering of their battles.
In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age of a
state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the
declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning
hath its infancy when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then
its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of
years, when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, its old age, when
it waxeth dry and exhaust. But it is not good to look too long upon
these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become giddy; as for the
philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, and therefore not fit
for this writing.