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