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 divides 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 position

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 Phaëton 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

exhalations, by which the fiery train, whose seat is beneath the ether

and the planets, is produced. Posidonius, that it is a combination of

fire, of rarer 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, believing that these meteors, being formed by the clouds,

do differ according to their various configurations. Epigenes, that a

comet arises from an elevation of spirit or wind, mixed with an earthy

substance and set on fire. Boëthus, that it is a phantasy presented to

us by inflamed air. Diogenes, that comets are stars. Anaxagoras, that

those styled shooting stars fall down from the ether 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, by reason of its

minuteness and lightness it violently endeavors to make its passage;

and in breaking through the cloud it gives the noise; and the rending

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

thunderbolt. 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 seen against the blackness of

the cloud causes 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, force their

passage, and 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 by the air 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 rain 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 says:

Jove paints the rainbow with a purple dye,

Alluring man to cast his wandering eye.[43]

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

reflection: these last 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 tenuious; 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 reflection, and this is perspicuous

by 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 reflection, 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 shining red

color be the splendor of the sun falling upon these small drops, the

whole body of light being reflected, 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 reflected 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 vehemently following the sun

when he 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 in its surface, 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 hearth-fire of the universe; the second place to the

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

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 atmosphere 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 part which is in

the middle of 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 makes the earthquake. Anaximenes, that

the dryness and rarety 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 removed, 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 cause why it should incline rather

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 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

make it 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 beneath the earth,

which may, by moving or pushing it, be capable of its 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 motion of the sun about it, by which the oily

part of the water being exhaled, the residue became salt and bitter.

Empedocles, that the sea is the sweat of the earth burnt by the sun.

Antiphon, that the sweat of that which was hot was separated from the

other parts 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 the density thereof; 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 exhaled 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 oscillation of the

sea, which by means of a mouth or orifice causes the alternate ebb and

flow; and by this means the seas do rise and flow contrarily. 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 HALO, OR A CIRCLE ABOUT A STAR.

The halo 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 is incident upon the

outward circumference of the orb of that star, there presently seems

a circle to appear. This circle thus appearing is called the ἅλως 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, this 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 exhalations. 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 (ἐντελέχεια) 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 that have been named by me do affirm that the soul itself is

incorporeal, and by its own nature is in a perpetual motion, and in its

own essence is an intelligent substance, and the actuality of a natural

organical body which has life. The followers of Anaxagoras, that it is

airy and a body. The Stoics, that it is a hot breath. Democritus, that

it is a fiery composition of things which are perceptible by reason,

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 former 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 arms of a

polypus aptly disposed. Democritus and Epicurus divide the soul into

two parts, the rational, which hath 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 every

thing, 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.

Erasistratus, 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 whole 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 which is about it. Diogenes, in

the arterial ventricle of the heart, which is also filled with 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 the mind

is immovable with respect to 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 endure 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. 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

are derived. The instruments of sense are intelligent spirits, which

from the said commanding part reach 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 exterior 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 an 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 which either the sense or fancy gives us is true, but of

those things that fall under the account of opinion, some are true,

some false: sense gives us a false representation of those things

only which are the objects of our understanding; but the fancy gives

us a double error, both of things sensible and things intellectual.

Empedocles and Heraclides, that the senses perceive by a just

accommodation of the pores in every case; every thing 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 several 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 the

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 else but 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 properly 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 (ἐννόημα from νοῦς). Therefore these visions are not

to be found in any other animals; they are appropriated only 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 merely pence and staters; but if

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

pence, &c., but your fraught.

CHAPTER XII.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IMAGINATION (φαντασια[** φαντασία]),

IMAGINABLE (φανταστόν), FANCY (φανταστικόν), AND PHANTOM (φάντασμα)?

Chrysippus affirms, these four are different one from another.

Imagination (he says) is that passion raised in the soul which

discovers itself and that which was the efficient of it; for 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 is it with touching and smelling.

Phantasy or imagination is denominated from φῶς, 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 any thing that is white, or any thing that is cold, or every thing

that may make an impression upon the imagination. Fancy is a vain

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

imaginable; this is experienced in those that whirl about their idle

hands 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 led 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 hurl 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.[44]

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 insinuation

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

rays which return to the eye after striking upon 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 congruous air, and

there is likewise a light emitted from bodies, which meets and is

joined with the fiery visual light in the intermediate air (which is

liquid and mutable); and the conjunction 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 effluvias

which, meeting together and insisting upon the superficies of the

mirror, are perfected by that fiery quality emitted by the said mirror,

which transmutes withal the air that surrounds it. Democritus and

Epicurus, that the specular appearances are formed by the subsistence

of the images which flow from our eyes; these fall upon the mirror

and remain, while the light rebounds 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 struck back, and caused to return upon

itself: the same appears in the hand, when it is stretched out and then

brought back again to the shoulder. Any one may apply 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, presses conically on the surrounding air, where this

is homogeneous. 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 spiral, 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 is 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 given to 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 (φωνή) is an articulate sound, which illustrates

(φωτίζει) 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 nature. 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 shore, 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 that

are 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

breath, it is infinitely moved in waves and in right circles, until it

fill that air which invests 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 GIVES THE ECHO?

Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle say that the voice is incorporeal; for

it is not the air that makes 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. True it is that it

moveth with the body, but of itself it hath no body; as we perceive

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 every thing 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. Moreover, every thing that creates a delight

or molestation is a body; harmonious music affects with delight, but

discord is tiresome. And every thing that is 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, imagination, 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 to the eyes; hearing is that spirit which from the principal

reacheth to the ears; smelling a spirit drawn from the principal to the

nostrils; tasting a spirit extended from the principal 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 unborn infants 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 an inspiration. The respiration that now is

arises when the blood is carried to the exterior surface, and by this

fluxion 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 evince

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 tunnel, and

maketh 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 up of the pipes in the neck; for these are at our command.

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

muscles, but believes 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 in turn sent forth by way of 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 motions two are dilatations, one when the lungs attract the

external 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 part patience

takes its residence, and this is apparent in terrible and dolorous

things, as also in timorous and valiant persons.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

OF DIVINATION.

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

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

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

and so likewise they explain interpretation by dreams. And these same

admit 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 as the blood and marrow of our bodies. Alcmaeon, that it

is a 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 flesh 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 very 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 without the matrix; and therefore

some women without coition, especially widows, give the seed. The same

also asserts that from men the bones, from women the flesh proceeds.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW IT IS THAT CONCEPTIONS ARE MADE.

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

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

the whole bulk part of the purest blood, and this is met by the genital

seed of man. On the contrary, there is a failure by the impurity and

inflation of the womb, by the passions of fear and grief, by the

weakness of women, or the decay 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 had their original from the earth in the eastern and

southern parts, and the first females in the northern parts thereof.

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; when there is an alteration in this course of nature, 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 which

are common to both sexes are engendered indifferently by one or the

other; but the peculiar parts by the one that is more prevalent. 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 perturbation in the motion, or else that

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

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

that it comes from 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 be in 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 may 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 PROGENTITORS.

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 contained in

the same. Parmenides, that when the sperm descends from 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 resemblances in the characters and figures of the children, as a

painter in his copy imitates the colors which are in the picture before

him. Women have a concurrent emission of seed; if the feminine seed

have the predominancy, then 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 when she conceives impresses

a shape upon the infant; for women have been enamored 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, by 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 may arise from the

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

barrenness,—if it be more condensed, or more spongy, or more hardened,

or more callous, or more carneous; or it may be from low spirits,

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

arise from a twisted or distorted configuration. 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 IF COMES TO PASS 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, for their 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 cast 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; and 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 bred in the matrix inanimate, yet they have a natural

heat; but presently, when the infant is cast into the open air, its

heat draws air into the lungs, and so it becomes an animal. Herophilus

acknowledgeth that infants have a natural, but not a respiratory

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 binds 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 greater part 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

treason that we reckon the first conception from the retention of

the menstruas; and so it may generally pass for seven months when

really there are not seven; for it sometimes happens that even after

conception a woman is purged in some degree. 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 are willing to rear them.

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

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

it falls from her but is not properly nourished, the navel being weak

on account of the heavy burden of the infant, then it doth not thrive;

but if the infant continues nine months in the womb, and then breaks

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 overplus 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 stretched; 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 last is reckoned the eighth from the first, as the first and the

eighth, the second and the ninth, &c.; 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:

For nothing dies,

But 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 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 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 similar elements (like earth and water), but a

union of animals among themselves,—in some the nourishment being made

dense, in others female beauty provoking a lust 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 breathe in the

air; those that are heavier incline to the earth; but those animals

whose parts are of a just and equal 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 also animals, yea, and God himself

he defines to be an animal endowed with reason and immortal. Democritus

and Epicurus esteem 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 act rationally. This is

manifested in apes and dogs, which have 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 enjoy neither understanding nor sense; but

they are affected as madmen are, the commanding rational part being

defectuous and impeached.

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 the nerves; but when it happens that

the nerves are refrigerated where they meet 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, duly mixed together;

sweat and tears flow from the liquefaction of these bodies of ours.

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

every thing 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 remission 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 remission of the sensitive spirit,

then 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 moisture in the breast, which doth steam and arise

in the manner of a vapor into the head, and from the aliment in the

stomach, whose natural heat is cooled in the heart. Death is the

perfect refrigeration of all heat in the 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 immoderate 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 GROW, AND WHETHER THEY ARE ANIMALS.

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 draw 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 move 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 glory 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 have a deficiency of water, when this

is dried up by the heat of summer, lose their leaves; whereas they

that have plenty thereof keep their leaves on still, 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 NOURISHMENT 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 no other than 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, &c....

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 proper unto 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

efficient cause of disease is the excess of heat or cold, the material

cause is superabundance 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 food,

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 contain the fiery element within their bodies; for 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

have a contrary state of their bodies, for they are condensed and

robust, and by consequence live the longer.

A BREVIATE OF A DISCOURSE, SHOWING THAT THE STOICS SPEAK GREATER

IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.

1. Pindar’s Caeneus hath been taken to task by several, 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 rampire,

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.

2. 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 to-day 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, god-like, and beauteous person.

3. 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)

hump-backed, 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.

4. 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.[45]

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 every thing, though they have not one drachm

of silver in the house.

5. 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.

6. The king of Ithaca begs with a design that none may know who he is,

and makes himself

As like a dirty sorry beggar[46]

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.

PLUTARCH’S SYMPOSIACS.

BOOK I.

Some, my dear Sossius Senecio, imagine that this sentence, μισέω

μνάμονα συμπόταν, 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 μνάμονα, _a remembrancer_. Others think that this

proverb admonisheth the guests to forget every thing 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 that to forget absurdities is

indeed (as Euripides says) 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 MIDST OUR CUPS IT IS FIT TO TALK LEARNEDLY AND

PHILOSOPHIZE?

SOSSIUS SENECIO, ARISTO, PLUTARCH, CRATO, AND OTHERS.

1. 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.

2. And Crato cried out: By Bacchus, he was right in forswearing

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 in a court-room, as those that entertained Orestes, and were

silence enjoined by law, that might prove a not unlucky cloak of our

ignorance; but if Bacchus is really λύσιος (_a looser_ of

every thing), 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.

3. 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, men like Socrates, Phaedrus, Pausanias,

Euryximachus; or at Callias’s board, Charmides, Antisthenes,

Hermogenes, and the like,—we will permit them to philosophize, 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 mute consonants with vowels, in the midst

of the other learned, will participate in a voice not altogether

inarticulate and insignificant. 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 yet 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 and correct in some

sort those that are not altogether insensible.

4. 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 to 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 round

from 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.[47]

For that, in my opinion, was the Nepenthe, the care-dissolving

medicament,—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 with persuasive and smooth

arguments, rather 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 prepare himself

for the contest (as he is wont) like a wrestler, that he may take the

faster hold of his adversary and be sure of giving him the trip; but he

draws men on by more soft and pliable attacks, by pleasant fictions and

pat examples.

5. Besides, the questions should be easy, the problems known, the

interrogations plain and familiar, 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 pitch 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 contentious 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 flat stone, 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, which she could

conveniently thrust her bill into, 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 fables 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 σκολιά

(_crooked_ or _obscure_); this is not fit nor agreeable

to a feast. Though some say these σκολιά 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 αἴσακον because he that

received it was obliged to sing (ᾄδειν); 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 σκολιόν, because it was 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

σκολιόν, _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.

1. 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 walked 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.

2. 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.[48]

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. Homer often calls the stoutest and the

greatest princes κοσμήτορας λαῶν, _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 every thing 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 that the same order should not 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[49] (as they say), a hodge-podge

and confusion. This my father brought for his opinion.

3. 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 for him to distinguish; for some claim respect by

reason of their age, others from their familiarity and acquaintance;

and, like those that make declamations consisting of comparisons, he

must have Aristotle’s τόποι and Thrasymachus’s ὑπερβάλλοντες (books

that furnish him with heads of argument) at his fingers’ end; 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 we endeavor to remit all other passions, to intend

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 may 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 debasing 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.

4. 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,[50]

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;[51]

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,[52]

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.[53]

And Pindar plainly says,

She sits just next the thunder-breathing flames

Indeed Timon urges, we ought not to rob many to honor one. Now it

seems to me that he does this very thing himself, even more than

others; for he robs that makes something that is proper common; and

suitable honor to his worth is each man’s property. And he gives

that pre-eminence to running fast and making haste, which is due 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, or with his 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.

5. 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 seats in a theatre or

the Amphictyonic Council, so that pride and arrogance must be admitted

even into our mirth and entertainments? In seating our guests we should

not have 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 does a painter

give the most costly color the chiefest place; nor a shipwright the

Corinthian fir or Cretan cypress; but they so distribute them as 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, murets of the sea, and shell-fish every one,

With massy coat, the tortoise eke, with crust as hard as stone,

And vaulted back, which archwise he aloft doth hollow rear,

Show all that heavy earth they do above their bodies bear;

the earth 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 every thing 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.

6. We all agreed that he 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 into the other empty one. A

sophister I will forbid to sit by a sophister, and one poet by another;

For beggars beggars, poets poets, envy[54]

I separate the clamorous scoffers and the testy, by putting some

good-nature between them, that they may not justle so roughly on one

another; but 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 place

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, as 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 for any well-defined reason, as if it were

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 was,

that the consuls, having dissolved the monarchy, and reduced every

thing 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 was, that, two beds being appointed

for the invited guests, the third—and the first place in this—is most

convenient for the master of the feast, whence, like a coachman or a

pilot, he can guide and order every thing, and readily overlook the

management of the whole affair. Besides, he is not so far removed but

that he may 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 this place to be most convenient for the despatch of

any sudden business; for the Roman consul is not such a one as Archias

the governor of Thebes, so as to 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 skilful 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,[55] the

turning at the corner leaves a vacant space, so that a notary, servant,

guardsman, or a messenger from the army might approach, deliver the

message, and receive commands; and the consul, having room enough to

speak or use his hand, neither troubles any one, nor is hindered by any

of the guests.

_QUESTION IV._

WHAT MANNER OF MAN SHOULD A STEWARD OF A FEAST BE?