the poet plainly inferring complacency of humor and the aptitude of a
person to fit himself to all tempers to be an excellency aspiring to
virtue itself. Which Pindar himself also testifies, saying of Cadmus,
that he listened to true music from Apollo himself.[199] Nor must we
believe that the theologists, who were the most ancient philosophers,
ordered the pictures and statues of the Gods to be made with musical
instruments in their hands because they thought the Gods no better than
pipers or harpers, but to signify that no work was so becoming to the
Gods as accord and harmony.
Now then, as it would be absurd and ridiculous for any man to search
for sesquiterces, sesquialters, and duples in the neck, or belly,
or sides of a lute or harp,—though every one of these must also be
allowed their symmetry of length and thickness,—the harmony and
proportion of concords being to be sought for in the sound; so it
is most probable that the bodies of the stars, the distances of
spheres, and the swiftness of the motions and revolutions, have their
sundry proportions, as well one to another as to the whole fabric,
like instruments of music well set and tuned, though the measure of
the quantity be unknown to us. However, we are to imagine that the
principal effect and efficacy of these numbers and proportions, which
the Supreme Architect made use of, is that same agreement, harmony, and
consent of the soul with itself, by means of which she replenished the
heavens themselves, when she came to actuate and perform her office
there, with so many infinite beauties, and by which she governs the
earth by virtue of the several seasons, and other alterations wisely
and artificially measured and varied as well for the generation as
preservation of all terrestrial productions.