to him to Thermopylae, was himself (as philosophical wits used to be)
filled with a great many doubts, and communicated them to others;
thereby confirming Aristotle’s saying, that much learning raises
many doubts. Other topics made our walks every day very pleasant,
but the common saying concerning dreams,—that those in autumn are
the vainest,—I know not how, whilst Favorinus was engaged in other
matters, was started after supper. Your friends and my sons thought
Aristotle had given sufficient satisfaction in this point, and that
no other cause was to be sought after or allowed but that which he
mentions, the fruit. For the fruit, being new and flatulent, raises
many disturbing vapors in the body; for it is not likely that only wine
ferments, or new oil only makes a noise in the lamp, the heat agitating
its vapor; but new corn and all sorts of fruit are plump and distended,
till the unconcocted flatulent vapor is broke away. And that some sorts
of food disturb dreams, they said, was evident from beans and the
polypus’s head, from which those who would divine by their dreams are
commanded to abstain.
2. But Favorinus himself, though in all other things he admires
Aristotle exceedingly and thinks the Peripatetic philosophy to be most
probable, yet in this case resolved to scour up an old musty opinion
of Democritus. He first laid down that known principle of his, that
images pass through the pores into the inmost parts of the body, and
being carried upward cause dreams; and that these images fly from
every thing, vessels, garments, plants, but especially from animals,
because of their heat and the motion of their spirits; and that these
images not only carry the outward shape and likeness of the bodies
(as Epicurus thinks, following Democritus so far and no farther), but
the very designs, motions, and passions of the soul; and with those
entering into the bodies, as if they were living things, discover to
those that receive them the thoughts and inclinations of the persons
from whom they come, if so be that they preserve their frame and
order entire. And that is especially preserved when the air is calm
and clear, their passage then being quick and undisturbed. Now the
autumnal air, when trees shed their leaves, being very uneven and
disturbed, ruffles and disorders the images, and, hindering them in
their passage, makes them weak and ineffectual; when, on the contrary,
if they rise from warm and vigorous subjects, and are presently
applied, the notices which they give and the impressions they make are
clear and evident.
3. Then with a smile looking upon Autobulus, he continued: But, sir,
I perceive you design to have an airy skirmish with these images,
and try the goodness of this old opinion, as you would a picture,
by your touch. And Autobulus replied: Pray, sir, do not endeavor to
cheat us any longer; for we know very well that you, designing to make
Aristotle’s opinion appear the better, have used this of Democritus
only as its shade. Therefore I shall pass by that, and impugn
Aristotle’s opinion, which unjustly lays the blame on the new fruit.
For both the summer and the early autumn bear testimony in its favor,
when, as Antimachus says, the fruit is most fresh and juicy; for then,
though we eat the new fruit, yet our dreams are less vain than at other
times. And the months when the leaves fall, being next to winter, so
concoct the corn and remaining fruit, that they grow shrivelled and
less, and lose all their brisk agitating spirit. As for new wine, those
that drink it soonest forbear till February, which is after winter; and
the day on which we begin we call the day of the Good Genius, and the
Athenians the day of cask-opening. For whilst wine is working, we see
that even common laborers will not venture on it. Therefore no more
accusing the gifts of the Gods, let us seek after another cause of
vain dreams, to which the name of the season will direct us. For it is
called _leaf-shedding_, because the leaves then fall on account of
their dryness and coldness; except the leaves of hot and oily trees,
as of the olive, the laurel, or the palm; or of the moist, as of
the myrtle and the ivy. But the temperature of these preserves them,
though not others; because in others the vicious humor that holds the
leaves is constipated by the cold, or being weak and little is dried
up. Now moisture and heat are necessary for the growth and preservation
of plants, but especially of animals; and on the contrary, coldness
and dryness are very noxious to both. And therefore Homer elegantly
calls men moist and juicy; to rejoice he calls to be warmed; and any
thing that is grievous and frightful he calls cold and icy. Besides,
the words ἀλίβας and σκελετός are applied to the dead, those names
intimating their extreme dryness. But more, our blood, the principal
thing in our whole body, is moist and hot. And old age hath neither
of those two qualities. Now the autumn seems to be as it were the old
age of the decaying year; for the moisture doth not yet fall, and the
heat decays. And its inclining the body to diseases is an evident sign
of its cold and dryness. Now it is necessary that the souls should
be indisposed with the bodies and that, the subtile spirit being
condensed, the divining faculty of the soul, like a mirror that is
breathed upon, should be sullied; and therefore it cannot represent any
thing plain, distinct, and clear, as long as it remains thick, dark,
and condensed.
BOOK IX.
This ninth book, Sossius Senecio, contains the discourses we held at
Athens at the Muses’ feast, for this number nine is agreeable to the
number of the Muses. Nor must you wonder when you find more than ten
questions (which number I have observed in my other books) in it; for
we ought to give the Muses all that belongs to them, and be as careful
of robbing them as of a temple, since we owe them much more and much
better things than these.
_QUESTION I._
CONCERNING VERSES SEASONABLY AND UNSEASONABLY APPLIED.
AMMONIUS, PLUTARCH, ERATO, CERTAIN SCHOOLMASTERS, AND FRIENDS OF
AMMONIUS.
1. Ammonius, captain of the militia at Athens, would show Diogenianus
the proficiency of those youths that learned grammar, geometry,
rhetoric, and music; and invited the chief masters of the town to
supper. There were a great many scholars at the feast, and almost
all his acquaintance. Achilles invited only the single combatants
to his feast, intending (as the story goes) that, if in the heat of
the encounter they had conceived any anger or ill-will against one
another, they might then lay it aside, being made partakers of one
common entertainment. But the contrary happened to Ammonius, for the
contentions of the masters increased and grew more sharp midst their
cups and merriment; and all was disorder and confused babbling.
2. Therefore Ammonius commanded Erato to sing to his harp, and he sang
some part of Hesiod’s Works beginning thus,
Contention to one sort is not confined;[109]
and I commended him for choosing so apposite a song. Then he began
to discourse about the seasonable use of verse, that it was not only
pleasant but profitable. And straight every one’s mouth was full of
that poet who began Ptolemy’s epithalamium (when he married his
sister, a wicked and abominable match) thus,
Jove Juno called his sister and his wife;[110]
and another, who was unwilling to sing after supper to Demetrius the
king, but when he sent him his young son Philip to be educated sang
thus,
Breed thou the boy as doth become
Both Hercules’s race and us;
and Anaxarchus who, being pelted with apples by Alexander at supper,
rose up and said,
Some God shall wounded be by mortal hand.[111]
But that Corinthian captive boy excelled all, who, when the city was
destroyed, and Mummius, taking a survey of all the free-born children
that understood letters, commanded each to write a verse, wrote thus:
Thrice, four times blest, the happy Greeks that fell.[112]
For they say that Mummius was affected with it, wept, and gave all the
free-born children that were allied to the boy their liberty. And some
mentioned the wife of Theodorus the tragedian, who refused his embraces
a little before he contended for the prize; but, when he was conqueror
and came in unto her, clasped him and said,
Now, Agamemnon’s son, you freely may.[113]
3. After this a great many sayings were mentioned as unseasonably
spoken, it being fit that we should know such and avoid them;—as that
to Pompey the Great, to whom, upon his return from a dangerous war,
the schoolmaster brought his little daughter, and, to show him what a
proficient she was, called for a book, and bade her begin at this line,
Returned from war; but hadst thou there been slain,
My wish had been complete;[114]
and that to Cassius Longinus, to whom a flying report of his son’s
dying abroad being brought, and he no ways appearing either to know
the certain truth or to clear the doubt, an old senator came and said:
Longinus, will you not despise the flying uncertain rumor, as if you
neither knew nor had read this line,
For no report is wholly false?[115]
And he that at Rhodes, to a grammarian demanding a line upon which he
might show his skill in the theatre, proposed this,
Fly from the island, worst of all mankind,[116]
either slyly put a trick upon him, or unwittingly blundered. And this
discourse quieted the tumult.
_QUESTIONS II. & III._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT ALPHA IS PLACED FIRST IN THE ALPHABET, AND WHAT
IS THE PROPORTION BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF VOWELS AND SEMI-VOWELS?
AMMONIUS, HERMEAS, PROTOGENES, PLUTARCH, ZOPYRION.
1. It being the custom of the Muses’ feast to draw lots, and those that
were matched to propose curious questions to one another, Ammonius,
fearing that two of the same profession might be matched together,
ordered, without drawing lots, a geometrician to propose questions to a
grammarian, and a master of music to a rhetorician.
2. First therefore, Hermeas the geometrician demanded of Protogenes the
grammarian a reason why Alpha was the first letter of the alphabet.
And he returned the common answer of the schools, that it was fit the
vowels should be set before the mutes and semi-vowels. And of the
vowels, some being long, some short, some both long and short, it is
just that the latter should be most esteemed. And of these that are
long and short, that is to be set first which is usually placed before
the other two, but never after either; and that is Alpha. For that put
either after Iota or Upsilon will not be pronounced, will not make one
syllable with them, but as it were resenting the affront and angry at
the position, seeks the first as its proper place. But if you place
Alpha before either of those, they are obedient, and quietly join in
one syllable, as in these words, αὔριον, αὐλεῖν, Αἴαντος, αἰδεῖσθαι,
and a thousand others. In these three respects therefore, as the
conquerors in all the five exercises, it claims the precedence,—that
of most other letters by being a vowel, that of other vowels by being
double-timed, and lastly, that of these double-timed vowels themselves
because it is its natural place to be set before and never after them.
3. Protogenes making a pause, Ammonius, speaking to me, said: What!
have you, being a Boeotian, nothing to say for Cadmus, who (as the
story goes) placed Alpha the first in order, because a cow is called
Alpha by the Phoenicians, and they account it not the second or third
(as Hesiod doth) but the first of their necessary things? Nothing
at all, I replied, for it is just that, to the best of my power, I
should rather assist my own than Bacchus’s grandfather. For Lamprias
my grandfather said, that the first articulate sound that is made is
Alpha; for the air in the mouth is formed and fashioned by the motion
of the lips; now as soon as those are opened, that sound breaks forth,
being very plain and simple, not requiring or depending upon the motion
of the tongue, but gently breathed forth whilst that lies still.
Therefore that is the first sound that children make. Thus ἀίειν, _to
hear_, ᾄδειν, _to sing_, αὐλεῖν, _to pipe_, ἀλαλάζειν,
_to hollow_, begin with the letter Alpha; and I think that αἴρειν,
_to lift up_, and ἀνοίγειν, _to open_, were fitly taken from
that opening and lifting up of the lips when his voice is uttered.
Thus all the names of the mutes besides one have an Alpha, as it were a
light to assist their blindness; for Pi alone wants it, and Phi and Chi
are only Pi and Kappa with an aspirate.
* * * * *
1. Hermeas saying that he approved both reasons, why then (continued I)
do not you explain the proportion, if there be any, of the number of
the letters; for, in my opinion, there is; and I think so, because the
number of mutes and semi-vowels, compared between themselves or with
the vowels, doth not seem casual and undesigned, but to be according
to the first proportion which you call arithmetical. For their number
being nine, eight, and seven, the middle exceeds the last as much as
it wants of the first. And the first number being compared with the
last, hath the same proportion that the Muses have to Apollo; for
nine is appropriated to them, and seven to him. And these two numbers
tied together double the middle; and not without reason, since the
semi-vowels partake the power of both.
2. And Hermeas replied: It is said that Mercury was the first God that
discovered letters in Egypt; and therefore the Egyptians make the
figure of an Ibis, a bird dedicated to Mercury, for the first letter.
But it is not fit, in my opinion, to place an animal that makes no
noise at the head of the letters. Amongst all the numbers, the fourth
is peculiarly dedicated to Mercury, because, as some say, the God
was born on the fourth day of the month. The first letters called
Phoenician from Cadmus are four times four, or sixteen; and of those
that were afterward added, Palamedes found four, and Simonides four
more. Now amongst numbers, three is the first perfect, as consisting of
a first, a middle, and a last; and after that six, as being equal the
sum of its own divisors (1 + 2 + 3). Of these, six multiplied by four
makes twenty-four; and also the first perfect number, three, multiplied
by the first cube, eight.
3. Whilst he was discoursing thus, Zopyrion the grammarian sneered and
muttered something between his teeth; and, as soon as he had done,
cried out that he most egregiously trifled; for it was mere chance, and
not design, that gave such a number and order to the letters, as it was
mere chance that the first and last verses of Homer’s Iliads have just
as many syllables as the first and last of his Odysseys.
_QUESTION IV._
WHICH OF VENUS’S HANDS DIOMEDES WOUNDED.
HERMEAS, ZOPYRION, MAXIMUS.
1. Hermeas would have replied to Zopyrion, but we desired him to
hold; and Maximus the rhetorician proposed to him this far-fetched
question out of Homer, Which of Venus’s hands Diomedes wounded.
And Zopyrion presently asking him again, Of which leg was Philip
lame?—Maximus replied, It is a different case, for Demosthenes hath
left us no foundation upon which we may build our conjecture. But if
you confess your ignorance in this matter, others will show how the
poet sufficiently intimates to an understanding man which hand it was.
Zopyrion being at a stand, we all, since he made no reply, desired
Maximus to tell us.
2. And he began: The verses running thus,
Then Diomedes raised his mighty spear,
And leaping towards her just did graze her hand;[117]
it is evident that, if he designed to wound her left hand there had
been no need of leaping, since her left hand was opposite to his right.
Besides, it is probable that he would endeavor to wound the strongest
hand, and that with which she drew away Aeneas; which being wounded,
it was likely she would let him go. But more, after she returned to
Heaven, Minerva jeeringly said,
No doubt fair Venus won a Grecian dame,
To follow her beloved Trojan youths,
And as she gently stroked her with her hand,
Her golden buckler scratched this petty wound.[118]
And I suppose, sir, when you stroke any of your scholars, you use your
right hand, and not your left; and it is likely that Venus, the most
dexterous of all the goddesses, soothed the heroines after the same
manner.
_QUESTION V._
WHY PLATO SAYS THAT AJAX’S SOUL CAME TO DRAW HER LOT IN THE
TWENTIETH PLACE IN HELL.
HYLAS, SOSPIS, AMMONIUS, LAMPRIAS.
1. These discourses made all the other company merry; but Sospis the
rhetorician, seeing Hylas the grammarian sit silent and discomposed
(for he had not been very happy in his exercises), cried out,
But Ajax’s soul stood far apart;
and raising his voice repeated the rest to him,
But sit, draw near, and patiently attend,
Hear what I say, and tame your violent rage.
To this Hylas, unable to contain, returned a scurvy answer, saying that
Ajax’s soul, taking her lot in the twentieth place in hell, changed her
nature, according to Plato, for a lion’s; but, for his part, he could
not but often think upon the saying of the old comedian,
’Tis better far to be an ass, than see
Unworthie men in greater honor shine.
At this Sospis, laughing heartily, said: But in the mean time, before
we have the pack-saddles on, if you have any regard for Plato, tell us
why he makes Ajax’s soul, after the lots drawn, to have the twentieth
choice. Hylas, with great indignation, refused, thinking that this was
a jeering reflection on his former miscarriage. Therefore my brother
began thus: What, was not Ajax counted the second for beauty, strength,
and courage, and the next to Achilles in the Grecian army? And twenty
is the second ten, and ten is the chiefest of numbers, as Achilles of
the Greeks. We laughing at this, Ammonius said: Well, Lamprias, let
this suffice for a joke upon Hylas; but since you have voluntarily
taken upon you to give an account of this matter, leave off jesting,
and seriously proceed.
2. This startled Lamprias a little, but, after a short pause, he
continued thus: Plato often tells merry stories under borrowed names,
but when he puts any fable into a discourse concerning the soul, he
hath some considerable meaning in it. The intelligent nature of the
heavens he calls a flying chariot, intimating the harmonious whirl
of the world. And here he introduceth one Er, the son of Harmonius,
a Pamphylian, to tell what he had seen in hell; intimating that our
souls are begotten according to harmony, and are agreeably united
to our bodies, and that, when they are separated, they are from
all parts carried together into the air, and from thence return to
second generations. And what hinders but that twentieth (εἰχοστόν)
should intimate that this was not a true story, but only probable and
fictitious (εἰχός), and that the lot fell casually (εἰχῆ). For Plato
always toucheth upon three causes, he being the first and chiefest
philosopher that knew how fate agrees with fortune, and how our
free-will is mixed and complicated with both. And now he hath admirably
discovered what influence each hath upon our affairs. The choice of
our life he hath left to our free-will, for virtue and vice are free.
But that those who have made a good choice should live religiously,
and those who have made an ill choice should lead a contrary life, he
leaves to the necessity of fate. But the chances of lots thrown at a
venture introduce fortune into the several conditions of life in which
we are brought up, which pre-occupates and perverts our own choice. Now
consider whether it is not irrational to enquire after a cause of those
things that are done by chance. For if the lot seems to be disposed of
by design, it ceaseth to be chance and fortune, and becomes fate and
providence.
3. Whilst Lamprias was speaking, Marcus the grammarian seemed to be
counting to himself, and when he had done, he began thus: Amongst
the souls which Homer mentions in his Νεχυία, Elpenor’s is not to be
reckoned as mixed with those in hell, but, his body being not buried,
as wandering about the banks of the river Styx. Nor is it fit that we
should reckon Tiresias’s soul amongst the rest,—
On whom alone, when deep in hell beneath,
Wisdom Proserpina conferred,
to discourse and converse with the living even before he drank the
sacrifice’s blood. Therefore, Lamprias, if you subtract these two,
you will find that Ajax was the twentieth that Ulysses saw, and Plato
merrily alludes to that place in Homer’s Νεχυία.[119]
_QUESTION VI._
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE FABLE ABOUT THE DEFEAT OF NEPTUNE? AND ALSO, WHY
DO THE ATHENIANS TAKE OUT THE SECOND DAY OF THE MONTH BOEDROMION?
MENEPHYLUS, HYLAS, LAMPRIAS.
Now when the whole company were grown to a certain uproar, Menephylus,
a Peripatetic philosopher, called to Hylas by name and said: You see
that this question was not propounded by way of mockery and flouting;
but leave now that obstinate Ajax, whose very name (according to
Sophocles) is ill-omened, and betake yourself to Neptune. For you are
wont to recount unto us how he has been oftentimes overcome,—here by
Minerva, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Juno, in Aegina by Jupiter,
in Naxos by Bacchus,—and yet has borne himself always mild and gentle
in all his repulses. In proof whereof, there is even in this city a
temple common to him and Minerva, in which there is also an altar
dedicated to Oblivion. Then Hylas, who seemed by this time to be more
pleasantly disposed, replied: You have forgotten, Menephylus, that we
have abolished the second day of September, not in regard of the moon,
but because it was thought to be the day on which Neptune and Minerva
contended for the seigniory of Attica. By all means, quoth Lamprias, by
as much as Neptune was every way more civil than Thrasybulus, since not
being like him a winner, but the loser,...
(_The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the
exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question
XII._)
_QUESTION VII._
WHY THE ACCORDS IN MUSIC ARE DIVIDED INTO THREE.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHEREIN THE INTERVALS OR SPACES MELODIOUS DIFFER FROM THOSE THAT
ARE ACCORDANT.
_QUESTION IX._
WHAT CAUSE PRODUCETH ACCORD? AND ALSO, WHY, WHEN TWO ACCORDANT
STRING ARE TOUCHED TOGETHER, IS THE MELODY ASCRIBED TO THE BASE?
_QUESTION X._
WHY, WHEN THE ECLIPTIC PERIODS OF THE SUN AND THE MOON ARE EQUAL IN
NUMBER, THERE ARE MORE ECLIPSES OF THE MOON THAN OF THE SUN.
_QUESTION XI._
THAT WE CONTINUE NOT ALWAYS ONE AND THE SAME, IN REGARD OF THE
DAILY DEFLUX OF OUR SUBSTANCE.
_QUESTION XII._
WHETHER OF THE TWAIN IS MORE PROBABLE, THAT THE NUMBER OF THE STARS
IS EVEN OR ODD?
... but men are to be deceived with oaths. And Glaucias said: I have
heard that this speech was used against Polycrates the tyrant, and it
may be that it was spoken also to others. But why do you demand this
of me? Because verily, quoth Sospis, I see that children play at odd
and even with cockal bones, but Academics with words. For it seems to
me that such stomachs differ in nothing from them who hold out their
clutched fists and ask whether they hold odd or even. Then Protogenes
arose and called me by name, saying: What ail we, that we suffer these
rhetoricians thus to brave it out and to mock others, being demanded
nothing in the mean time, nor put to it to contribute their scot to the
conference?—unless peradventure they will come in with the plea that
they have no part of this table-talk over the wine, being followers
of Demosthenes, who in all his life never drank wine. That is not the
reason, said I; but we have put them no questions. And now, unless
you have any thing better to ask, methinks I can be even with these
fellows, and put them a puzzling question out of Homer, as to a case of
repugnance in contrary laws.
_QUESTION XIII._
A MOOT-POINT OUT OF THE THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS.
PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, GLAUCIAS, SOSPIS.
1. What question will you put them, said Protogenes? I will tell you,
continued I, and let them carefully attend. Paris makes his challenge
in these express words:
Let me and valiant Menelaus fight
For Helen, and for all the goods she brought;
And he that shall o’ercome, let him enjoy
The goods and woman; let them be his own.
And Hector afterwards publicly proclaiming this challenge in these
express words:
He bids the Trojans and the valiant Greeks
To fix their arms upon the fruitful ground;
Let Menelaus and stout Paris fight
For all the goods; and he that beats have all.
Menelaus accepted the challenge, and the conditions were sworn to,
Agamemnon dictating thus:
If Paris valiant Menelaus kills,
Let him have Helen, and the goods possess;
If youthful Menelaus Paris kills,
The woman and the goods shall all be his.[120]
Now since Menelaus only overcame but did not kill Paris, each party
hath somewhat to say for itself, and against the other. The one may
demand restitution, because Paris was overcome; the other deny it,
because he was not killed. Now how to determine this case and clear the
seeming repugnances doth not belong to philosophers or grammarians, but
to rhetoricians, that are well skilled both in grammar and philosophy.
2. Then Sospis said: The challenger’s word is decisive; for the
challenger proposed the conditions, and when they were accepted, the
other party had no power to make additions. Now the condition proposed
in this challenge was not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason
that it should be so, for Helen ought to be the wife of the bravest.
Now the bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an
excellent soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what
happened afterward, when Achilles was shot by Paris. For I do not
believe that you will affirm, that Achilles was not so brave a man as
Paris because he was killed by him, and that it should be called the
victory, and not rather the unjust good fortune, of him that shot him.
But Hector was overcome before he was killed by Achilles, because he
would not stand, but trembled and fled at his approach. For he that
refuseth the combat or flies cannot palliate his defeat, and plainly
grants that his adversary is the better man. And therefore Iris tells
Helen beforehand,
In single combat they shall fight for you,
And you shall be the glorious victor’s wife.[121]
And Jupiter afterwards adjudges the victory to Menelaus in these words:
The conquest leans to Menelaus’s side.[122]
For it would be ridiculous to call Menelaus a conqueror when he shot
Podes, a man at a great distance, before he thought of or could provide
against his danger, and yet not allow him the reward of victory over
him whom he made fly and sneak into the embraces of his wife, and whom
he spoiled of his arms whilst he was yet alive, and who had himself
given the challenge, by the terms of which Menelaus now appeared to be
the conqueror.
3. Glaucias subjoined: In all laws, decrees, contracts, and promises,
those latest made are always accounted more valid than the former. Now
the later contract was Agamemnon’s, the condition of which was killing,
and not only overcoming. Besides the former was mere words, the latter
confirmed by oath; and, by the consent of all, those were cursed that
broke them; so that this latter was properly the contract, and the
other a bare challenge. And this Priam at his going away, after he had
sworn to the conditions, confirms by these words:
But Jove and other Gods alone do know,
Which is designed to see the shades below;[123]
for he understood that to be the condition of the contract. And
therefore a little after Hector says,
But Jove hath undetermined left our oaths,[124]
for the combat had not its designed and indisputable determination,
since neither of them fell. Therefore this question doth not seem to
me to contain any contrariety of law, since the former contract is
comprised and overruled by the latter; for he that kills certainly
overcomes, but he that overcomes doth not always kill. But, in short,
Agamemnon did not annul, but only explain the challenge proposed by
Hector. He did not change any thing, but only added the most principal
part, placing victory in killing; for that is a complete conquest, but
all others may be evaded or disputed, as this of Menelaus, who neither
wounded nor pursued his adversary. Now as, where there are laws really
contrary, the judges take that side which is plain and indisputable,
and mind not that which is obscure; so in this case, let us admit that
contract to be most valid which contained killing, as a known and
undeniable evidence of victory. But (which is the greatest argument) he
that seems to have had the victory, not being quiet, but running up and
down the army, and searching all about,
To find neat Paris in the busy throng,[125]
sufficiently testifies that he himself did not imagine that the
conquest was perfect and complete when Paris had escaped. For he did
not forget his own words:
And which of us black fate and death design,
Let him be lost; the others cease from war.[126]
Therefore it was necessary for him to seek after Paris, that he might
kill him and complete the combat; but since he neither killed nor took
him, he had no right to the prize. For he did not conquer him, if we
may guess by what he said when he expostulated with Jove and bewailed
his unsuccessful attempt:
Jove, Heaven holds no more spiteful God than thou.
Now would I punish Paris for his crimes;
But oh! my sword is broke, my mighty spear,
Stretched out in vain, flies idly from my hand![127]
For in these words he confessed that it was to no purpose to pierce
the shield or take the head-piece of his adversary, unless he likewise
wounded or killed him.
_QUESTION XIV._
SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE NUMBER OF THE MUSES, NOT COMMONLY
KNOWN.
HERODES, AMMONIUS, LAMPRIAS, TRYPHON, DIONYSIUS, MENEPHYLUS, PLUTARCH.
1. This discourse ended, we poured out our offerings to the Muses, and
together with a hymn in honor of Apollo, the patron of the Muses, we
sung with Erato, who played upon the harp, the generation of the Muses
out of Hesiod. After the song was done, Herod the rhetorician said:
Pray, sirs, hearken. Those that will not admit Calliope to be ours say
that she keeps company with kings, not such, I suppose, as are busied
in resolving syllogisms or disputing, but such who do those things
that belong to rhetoricians and statesmen. But of the rest of the
Muses, Clio abets encomiums, for praises are called κλέα; and Polymnia
history, for her name signifies the remembrance of many things; and
it is said that all the Muses were somewhere called Remembrances. And
for my part, I think Euterpe hath some relation to us too, if (as
Chrysippus says) her lot be agreeableness in discourse and pleasantness
in conversation. For it belongs to an orator to converse, as well as
plead or give advice; since it is his part to gain the favor of his
auditors, and to defend or excuse his client. To praise or dispraise is
the commonest theme; and if we manage this artfully, it will turn to
considerable account; if unskilfully, we are lost. For that saying,
Gods! how he is honored and beloved by all,[128]
chiefly, in my opinion, belongs to those men who have a pleasing and
persuasive faculty in discourse.
2. Then said Ammonius to Herod: We have no reason to be angry with
you for grasping all the Muses, since the goods that friends have are
common, and Jove hath begotten a great many Muses, that every man may
be plentifully supplied; for we do not all need skill in hunting,
military arts, navigation, or any mechanical trades; but learning and
instruction is necessary for every one that
Eats the fruits of the spacious earth.[129]
And therefore Jove made but one Minerva, one Diana, one Vulcan, but
many Muses. But why there should be nine, and no more nor less, pray
acquaint us; for you, so great a lover of, and so well acquainted with,
the Muses, must certainly have considered this matter. What difficulty
is there in that? replied Herod. The number nine is in every body’s
mouth, as being the first square of the first odd number; and as doubly
odd, since it may be divided into three equal odd numbers. Ammonius
with a smile subjoined: Boldly said; and pray add, that this number
is composed of the first two cubes, one and eight, and according to
another composition of two triangles, three and six, each of which
is itself perfect. But why should this belong to the Muses more than
any other of the Gods? For we have nine Muses, but not nine Cereses,
nine Minervas or Dianas. For I do not believe you take it for a good
argument, that the Muses must be so many, because their mother’s name
(Mnemosyne) consists of just so many letters. Herod smiling, and every
body being silent, Ammonius desired our opinions.
3. My brother said, that the ancients celebrated but three Muses, and
that to bring proofs for this assertion would be pedantic and uncivil
in such a company. The reason of this number was (not as some say)
the three different sorts of music, the diatonic, the chromatic, and
harmonic, nor those stops that make the intervals nete, mese, and
hypate; though the Delphians gave the Muses this name erroneously,
in my opinion, appropriating it to one science, or rather to a part
of one single science, the harmoniac part of music. But, as I think,
the ancients, reducing all arts and sciences which are practised and
performed by reason or discourse to three heads, philosophy, rhetoric,
and mathematics, accounted them the gifts of three Gods, and named
them the Muses. Afterwards, about Hesiod’s time, the sciences being
better and more thoroughly looked into, men subdividing them found
that each science contained three different parts. In mathematics
are comprehended music, arithmetic, and geometry; in philosophy are
logic, ethics, and physics. In rhetoric, they say the first part was
demonstrative or encomiastic, the second deliberative, the third
judicial. None of all which they believed to be without a God or a Muse
or some superior power for its patron, and did not, it is probable,
make the Muses equal in number to these divisions, but found them to
be so. Now, as you may divide nine into threes, and each three into as
many units; so there is but one rectitude of reason, which is employed
about the supreme truth, and which belongs to the whole in common,
while each of the three kinds of science has three Muses assigned to
it, and each of these has her separate faculty assigned to her, which
she disposes and orders. And I do not think the poets and astrologers
will find fault with us for passing over their professions in silence,
since they know, as well as we, that astrology is comprehended in
geometry, and poetry in music.
4. As soon as he had said this, Trypho the physician subjoined: How
hath our art offended you, that you have shut the Museum against us?
And Dionysius of Melite added: Sir, you have a great many that will
side with you in the accusation; for we farmers think Thalia to be
ours, assigning her the care of springing and budding seeds and plants.
But I interposing said: Your accusation is not just; for you have
bountiful Ceres, and Bacchus who (as Pindar phraseth it) increaseth the
trees, the chaste beauty of the fruits; and we know that Aesculapius
is the patron of the physicians, and they make their address to Apollo
as Paean, but never as the Muses’ chief. All men (as Homer says) stand
in need of the Gods, but all stand not in need of all. But I wonder
Lamprias did not mind what the Delphians say in this matter; for they
affirm that the Muses amongst them were not named so either from the
strings or sounds in music; but the universe being divided into three
parts, the first portion was of the fixed stars, the second of the
planets, the third of those things that are under the concave of the
moon; and all these are ordered according to harmonical proportions,
and of each portion a Muse takes care; Hypate of the first, Nete of
the last, and Mese in the middle, combining as much as possible, and
turning about mortal things with the Gods, and earthly with heavenly.
And Plato intimates the same thing under the names of the Fates,
calling one Atropos, the other Lachesis, and the other Clotho. For he
committed the revolutions of the eight spheres to so many Sirens, and
not Muses.
5. Then Menephylus the Peripatetic subjoined: The Delphians’ opinion
hath indeed somewhat of probability in it; but Plato is absurd in
committing the eternal and divine revolutions not to the Muses but to
the Sirens, Daemons that neither love nor are benevolent to mankind,
wholly passing by the Muses, or calling them by the names of the Fates,
the daughters of Necessity. For Necessity is averse to the Muses; but
Persuasion being more agreeable and better acquainted with them, in my
opinion, than the grace of Empedocles,
Intolerable Necessity abhors
6. No doubt, said Ammonius, as it is in us a violent and involuntary
cause; but in the Gods Necessity is not intolerable, uncontrollable, or
violent, unless it be to the wicked; as the law in a commonwealth to
the best men is its best good, not to be violated or transgressed, not
because they have no power, but because they have no will, to change
it. And Homer’s Sirens give us no just reason to be afraid; for he in
that fable rightly intimates the power of their music not to be hurtful
to man, but delightfully charming, and detaining the souls which pass
from hence thither and wander after death; working in them a love for
divine and heavenly things, and a forgetfulness of every thing on
earth; and they extremely pleased follow and attend them. And from
thence some imperfect sound, and as it were echo of that music, coming
to us by the means of reason and good precepts, rouseth our souls, and
restores the notice of those things to our minds, the greatest part of
which lie encumbered with and entangled in disturbances of the flesh
and distracting passions. But the generous soul hears and remembers,
and her affection for those pleasures riseth up to the most ardent
passion, whilst she eagerly desires but is not able to free herself
from the body.
It is true, I do not approve what he says; but Plato seems to me, as he
hath strangely and unaccountably called the axes spindles and distaffs,
and the stars whirls, so to have named the Muses Sirens, as delivering
divine things to the ghosts below, as Ulysses in Sophocles says of the
Sirens,
I next to Phorcus’s daughters came,
Who fix the sullen laws below
Eight of the Muses take care of the spheres, and one of all about
the earth. The eight who govern the motions of the spheres maintain
the harmony of the planets with the fixed stars and one another. But
that one who looks after the place betwixt the earth and moon and
takes care of mortal things, by means of speech and song introduceth
persuasion, assisting our natural consent to community and agreement,
and giveth men as much harmony, grace, and order as is possible for
them to receive; introducing this persuasion to smooth and quiet our
disturbances, and as it were to recall our wandering desires out of the
wrong way, and to set us in the right path. But, as Pindar says,
Whom Jove abhors, he starts to hear
The Muses sounding in his ear.[130]
7. To this discourse Ammonius, as he used to do, subjoined that verse
of Xenophanes,
This fine discourse seems near allied to truth,
and desired every one to deliver his opinion. And I, after a short
silence, said: As Plato thinks by the name, as it were by tracks, to
discover the powers of the Gods, so let us place in heaven and over
heavenly things one of the Muses, Urania. And it is likely that those
require no distracting variety of cares to govern them, since they
have the same single nature for the cause of all their motions. But
where are a great many irregularities and disorders, there we must
place the eight Muses, that we may have one to correct each particular
irregularity and miscarriage. There are two parts in a man’s life, the
serious and the merry; and each must be regulated and methodized. The
serious part, which instructs us in the knowledge and contemplation
of the Gods, Calliope, Clio, and Thalia seem chiefly to look after and
direct. The other Muses govern our weak part, which changes presently
into wantonness and folly; they do not neglect our brutish and violent
passions and let them run their own course, but by apposite dancing,
music, song, and orderly motion mixed with reason, bring them down to
a moderate temper and condition. For my part, since Plato admits two
principles of every action, the natural desire after pleasure, and
acquired opinion which covets and wishes for the best, and calls one
reason and the other passion, and since each of these is manifold, I
think that each requires a considerable and, to speak the truth, a
divine direction. For instance, one faculty of our reason is said to
be political or imperial, over which Hesiod says Calliope presides;
Clio’s province is the noble and aspiring; and Polymnia’s that faculty
of the soul which inclines to attain and keep knowledge (and therefore
the Sicyonians call one of their three Muses Polymathia); to Euterpe
everybody allows the searches into nature and physical speculations,
there being no greater, no sincerer pleasure belonging to any other
sort of speculation in the world. The natural desire to meat and drink
Thalia reduceth from brutish and uncivil to be sociable and friendly;
and therefore we say θαλιάζειν of those that are friendly, merry,
and sociable over their cups, and not of those that are quarrelsome
and mad. Erato, together with Persuasion, that brings along with it
reason and opportunity, presides over marriages; she takes away and
extinguisheth all the violent fury of pleasure, and makes it tend to
friendship, mutual confidence, and endearment, and not to effeminacy,
lust, or discontent. The delight which the eye or ear receives is a
sort of pleasure, either appropriate to reason or to passion, or common
to them both. This the two other Muses, Terpsichore and Melpomene, so
moderate, that the one may only cheer and not charm, the other only
please and not bewitch.
_QUESTION XV._
THAT THERE ARE THREE PARTS IN DANCING: φορά, MOTION, σχῆμα, GESTURE,
AND δεῖξις, REPRESENTATION. WHAT EACH OF THOSE IS, AND WHAT IS COMMON
POETRY AND DANCING.
AMMONIUS AND THRASYBULUS.
1. After this, a match of dancing was proposed, and a cake was the
prize. The judges were Meniscus the dancing-master, and my brother
Lamprias; for he danced the Pyrrhic very well, and in the Palaestra
none could match him for the graceful motion of his hands and arms
in dancing. Now a great many dancing with more heat than art, some
desired two of the company who seemed to be best skilled and took most
care to observe their steps, to dance in the style called φορὰν παρὰ
φοράν. Upon this Thrasybulus, the son of Ammonius, demanded what φορά
signified, and gave Ammonius occasion to run over most of the parts of
dancing.
2. He said they were three,—φορά, σχῆμα, and δεῖξις. For dancing
is made up of motion and manner (σχέσις), as a song of sounds and
stops; stops are the ends of motion. Now the motions they call φοραί,
and the gestures and likeness to which the motions tend, and in
which they end, they call σχήματα: as, for instance, when by their
own motions they represent the figure of Apollo, Pan, or any of the
raging Bacchae. The third, δεῖξις, is not an imitation, but a plain
downright indication of the things represented. For the poets, when
they would speak of Achilles, Ulysses, the earth, or heaven, use their
proper names, and such as the vulgar usually understand. But for the
more lively representation, they use words which by their very sound
express some eminent quality in the thing, or metaphors; as when they
say that streams do “babble and flash;” that arrows fly “desirous the
flesh to wound;” or when they describe an equal battle by saying “the
fight had equal heads.” They have likewise a great many significative
compositions in their verses. Thus Euripides of Perseus,
He that Medusa slew, and flies in air;
and Pindar of a horse,
When by the smooth Alpheus’ banks
He ran the race, and never felt the spur;
and Homer of a race,
The chariots, overlaid with tin and brass,
By fiery horses drawn ran swiftly on.[131]
So in dancing, the σχῆμα represents the shape and figure, the φορά
shows some action, passion, or power; but by the δεῖξις are properly
and significatively shown the things themselves, for instance, the
heaven, earth, or the company. Which, being done in a certain order and
method, resembles the proper names used in poetry, decently clothed and
attended with suitable epithets. As in these lines,
Themis the venerable and admired,
And Venus beauteous with her bending brows,
Dione fair, and Juno crowned with gold.[132]
And in these,
From Hellen kings renowned for giving laws,
Great Dorus and the mighty Xuthus, sprang,
And Aeolus, whose chief delight was horse.[133]
For if poets did not take this liberty, how mean, how grovelling and
flat, would be their verse! As suppose they wrote thus,
From this came Hercules, from the other Iphitus.
Her father, husband, and her son were kings,
Her brother and forefathers were the same;
And she in Greece was called Olympias.
The same faults may be committed in that sort of dancing called
δεῖξις, unless the representation be lifelike and graceful, decent and
unaffected. And, in short, we may aptly transfer what Simonides said of
painting to dancing, and call dancing mute poetry, and poetry speaking
dancing; for poesy doth not properly belong to painting, nor painting
to poesy, neither do they any way make use of one another. But poesy
and dancing have much in common, especially in that sort of song called
Hyporchema, in which is the most lively representation imaginable,
dancing doing it by gesture, and poesy by words. So that poesy may
bear some resemblance to the colors in painting, while dancing is like
the lines which mark out the features of the face. And therefore he
who was the most famous writer of Hyporchemes, who here even outdid
himself,[134] sufficiently evidenceth that these two arts stand in need
of one another. For, whilst he sings these songs,
* * * * *
he shows what tendency poetry hath to dancing; whilst the sound excites
the hands and feet, or rather as it were by some cords distends and
raiseth every member of the whole body; so that, whilst such songs are
pronounced or sung, they cannot be quiet. But now-a-days no sort of
exercise hath such bad depraved music applied to it as dancing; and so
it suffers that which Ibycus as to his own concerns was fearful of, as
appears by these lines,
I fear lest, losing fame amongst the Gods,
I shall receive respect from men alone.
For having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and
falling from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly
acquainted, it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and
inconsiderate spectators, like a tyrant; it hath subjected nearly the
whole of music, but hath lost all its honor with excellent and wise men.
These, my Sossius Senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had
at Ammonius’s house during the festival of the Muses.
OF MORAL VIRTUE.
1. My design in this essay is to treat of that virtue which is
called and accounted moral, and is chiefly distinguished from the
contemplative, in its having for the matter thereof the passions of the
mind, and for its form, right reason; and herein to consider the nature
of it and how it subsists, and whether that part of the soul wherein
it resides be endowed with reason of its own, inherent in itself, or
whether it participates of that which is foreign; and if the latter,
whether it does this after the manner of those things which are mingled
with what is better than themselves, or whether, as being distinct
itself but yet under the dominion and superintendency of another,
it may be said to partake of the power of the predominant faculty.
For that it is possible for virtue to exist and continue altogether
independent of matter, and free from all mixture, I take to be most
manifest. But in the first place I conceive it may be very useful
briefly to run over the opinions of other philosophers, not so much for
the vanity of giving an historical account thereof, as that, they being
premised, ours may thence receive the greater light and be more firmly
established.
2. To begin then with Menedemus of Eretria, he took away both the
number and the differences of virtue, by asserting it to be but one,
although distinguished by several names; holding that, in the same
manner as a mortal and a man are all one, so what we call temperance,
fortitude, and justice are but one and the same thing. As for Ariston
of Chios, he likewise made virtue to be but one in substance, and
called it sanity, which, as it had respect to this or that, was to be
variously multiplied and distinguished; just after the same manner as
if any one should call our sight, when applied to any white object,
by the name of white-look; when to one that is black, by the name of
black-look; and so in other matters. For according to him, virtue, when
it considers such things as we ought to do or not to do, is called
prudence; when it moderates our desires, and prescribes the measure and
season for our pleasures, temperance; and when it governs the commerce
and mutual contracts of mankind, justice;—in the same manner, for
instance, as a knife is one and the same knife still, notwithstanding
sometimes it cuts one thing, sometimes another, and just as fire does
operate upon different matter, and yet retain the very same nature.
Unto which opinion it seems also as if Zeno the Citian did in some
measure incline; he defining prudence, while it distributes to every
man his own, to be justice; when it teaches what we are to choose and
what to reject or avoid, temperance; and with respect to what is to
be borne or suffered, fortitude. But it is to be observed, that they
who take upon them the defence of Zeno’s notions do suppose him to
mean science by what he calls prudence. But then Chrysippus, whilst
he imagined from every distinct quality a several and peculiar virtue
to be formed, before he was aware, raised (as Plato hath it) a whole
swarm of virtues never before known or used among the philosophers. For
as from brave he derived bravery; from mild, mildness; and from just,
justice; so from pleasant he fetched pleasantness; from good, goodness;
from grand, grandeur; and from honest, honesty; placing these and all
kind of dexterous application of discourse, all kind of facetiousness
of conversation, and all witty turns of expression in the number of
virtues, thereby over-running philosophy, which requires nothing less,
with a multitude of uncouth, absurd, and barbarous terms.
3. However, all these do commonly agree in this one thing, in supposing
virtue to be a certain disposition and faculty of the governing and
directive part of the soul, of which reason is the cause; or rather
to be reason itself, when it consents to what it ought, and is firm
and immutable. And they do likewise think, that that part of the soul
which is the seat of the passions, and is called brutal or irrational,
is not at all distinct by any physical difference from that which is
rational; but that this part of the soul (which they call rational and
directive), being wholly turned about and changed by its affections
and by those several alterations which are wrought in it with respect
either to habit or disposition, becometh either vice or virtue, without
having any thing in itself that is really brutal or irrational, but
is then called brutal or irrational, when by the over-ruling and
prevailing violence of our appetites it is hurried on to something
absurd and vicious, against the judgment of reason. For passion,
according to them, is nothing else but depraved and intemperate reason,
that through a perverse and vicious judgment is grown over-vehement and
headstrong.
Now, it seems to me, all these philosophers were perfect strangers to
the clearness and truth of this point, that we every one of us are in
reality twofold and compound. For, discerning only that composition in
us which of the two is most evident, namely that of the soul and body,
of the other they knew nothing at all. And yet that in the soul itself
also there is a certain composition of two dissimilar and distinct
natures, the brutal part whereof, as another body, is necessarily and
physically compounded with and conjoined to reason, was, it should
seem, no secret to Pythagoras himself,—as some have guessed from his
having introduced the study of music amongst his scholars, for the more
easy calming and assuaging the mind, as well knowing that it is not
in every part of it obedient and subject to precepts and discipline,
nor indeed by reason only to be recovered and retrieved from vice,
but requires some other kind of persuasives to co-operate with it,
to dispose it to such a temper and gentleness as that it may not be
utterly intractable and obstinate to the precepts of philosophy.
And Plato very strongly and plainly, without the least hesitation,
maintained that the soul of the universe is neither simple, uniform,
nor uncompounded; but that being mixed, as it were, and made up of that
which is always the same and of that which is otherwise, in some places
it is continually governed and carried about after a uniform manner in
one and the same powerful and predominant order, and in other places is
divided into motions and circles, one contrary to the other, unsettled
and fortuitous,—whence are derived the beginnings and generation of
differences in things. And so, in like manner, the soul of man, being
a part or portion of that of the universe, and framed upon reasons
and proportions answerable to it, cannot be simple and all of the
same nature; but must have one part that is intelligent and rational,
which naturally ought to have dominion over a man, and another which,
being subject to passion, irrational, extravagant, and unbounded,
stands in need of direction and restraint. And this last is again
subdivided into two other parts; one whereof, being called corporeal,
is called concupiscible, and the other, which sometimes takes part with
this and sometimes with reason, and gives respectively to either of
them strength and vigor, is called irascible. And that which chiefly
discovers the difference between the one and the other is the frequent
conflict of the intellect and reason with concupiscence and anger, it
being the nature of things that are different amongst themselves to be
oftentimes repugnant and disobedient to what is best of all.
These principles at first Aristotle seems most to have relied upon, as
plainly enough appears from what he has written. Though afterwards he
confounded the irascible and concupiscible together, by joining the
one to the other, as if anger were nothing but a thirst and desire
of revenge. However, to the last he constantly maintained that the
sensual and irrational was wholly distinct from the intellectual and
rational part of the soul. Not that it is so absolutely devoid of
reason as those faculties of the soul which are sensitive, nutritive,
and vegetative, and are common to us with brute beasts and plants;
for these are always deaf to the voice of reason and incapable of
it, and may in some sort be said to derive themselves from flesh and
blood, and to be inseparably attached to the body and devoted to the
service thereof; but the other sensual part, subject to the sudden
efforts of the passions and destitute of any reason of its own, is
yet nevertheless naturally adapted to hear and obey the intellect and
judgment, to have regard to it, and to submit itself to be regulated
and ordered according the rules and precepts thereof, unless it happen
to be utterly corrupted and vitiated by pleasure, which is deaf to all
instruction, and by a luxurious way of living.
4. As for those who wonder how it should come to pass, that that which
is irrational in itself should yet become obsequious to the dictates of
right reason, they seem to me not to have duly considered the force and
power of reason, how great and extensive it is, and how far it is able
to carry and extend its authority and command, not so much by harsh and
arbitrary methods, as by soft and gentle means, which persuade more
and gain obedience sooner than all the severities and violences in the
world. For even the spirits, the nerves, bones, and other parts of
the body are destitute of reason; but yet no sooner do they feel the
least motion of the will, reason shaking (as it were), though never so
gently, the reins, but all of them observe their proper order, agree
together, and pay a ready obedience. As, for instance, the feet, if the
impulse of the mind be to run, immediately betake themselves to their
office; or if the motion of the will be for the throwing or lifting up
of any thing, the hands in a moment fall to their business. And this
sympathy or consent of the brutal faculties to right reason, and the
ready conformity of them thereto, Homer has most admirably expressed in
these verses:
In tears dissolved she mourns her consort’s fate,
So great her sorrows, scarce her charms more great.
Her tears compassion in Ulysses move,
And fill his breast with pity and with love;
Yet artful he his passion secret keeps,
It rages in his heart; and there he inward weeps.
Like steel or ivory, his fixed eyeballs stand,
Placed by some statuary’s skilful hand;
And when a gentle tear would force its way,
He hides it falling, or commands its stay.[135]
Under such perfect subjection to his reason and judgment had he even
his spirits, his blood, and his tears. A most evident proof of this
matter we have also from hence, that our natural desires and motions
are as soon repressed and quieted as we know we are either by reason
or law forbidden to approach the fair ones we at the first view had so
great a passion for; a thing which most commonly happens to those who
are apt to fall in love at sight with beautiful women, without knowing
or examining who they are; for no sooner do they afterwards find their
error, by discovering the person with whose charms they were before
captivated to be a sister or a daughter, but their flame is presently
extinguished by the interposition of reason. And flesh and blood are
immediately brought into order, and become obedient to the judgment.
It often falls out likewise that, after we have eaten some kinds of
meat or fish finely dressed, and by that means artificially disguised,
with great pleasure and a very good stomach, at the first moment we
understand they were either unclean, or unlawful and forbidden, our
judgment being thereby shocked, we feel not only remorse and trouble
in our mind, but the conceit reaches farther, and our whole frame is
disordered by the nauseous qualms and vomitings thereby occasioned.
I fear I should be thought on purpose to hunt after too far-fetched
and youthful instances to insert in this discourse, if I should take
notice of the lute, the harp, the pipe and flute, and such like musical
instruments invented by art, and adapted to the raising or allaying of
human passions; which, though they are void of life and sense, do yet
most readily accommodate themselves to the judgment, to our passions
and our manners, either indulging our melancholy, increasing our mirth,
or feeding our wantonness, as we happen at that time to be disposed.
And therefore it is reported of Zeno himself, that, going one day
to the theatre to hear Amoebeus sing to the lute, he called to his
scholars, Come, says he, let us go and learn what harmony and music the
guts and sinews of beasts, nay even wood and bones are capable of, by
the help of numbers, proportion, and order.
But to let these things pass, I would gladly know of them, whether,
when they see domestic animals (as dogs, horses, or birds) by use,
feeding, and teaching brought to so high a degree of perfection as
that they shall utter articulately some senseful words, and by their
motions, gestures, and all their actions, shall approve themselves
governable, and become useful to us; and when also they find Achilles
in Homer encouraging horses, as well as men, to battle;—whether, I
say, after all this, they can yet make any wonder or doubt, whether
those faculties of the mind to which we owe our anger, our desires,
our joys, and our sorrows, be of such a nature that they are capable
of being obedient to reason, and so affected by it as to consent and
become entirely subject to it; considering especially that these
faculties are not seated without us, or separated from us, or formed by
any thing which is not in us, or hammered out by force and violence,
but, as they have by nature their entire dependence upon the soul, so
they are ever conversant and bred up with it, and also receive their
final complement and perfection from use, custom, and practice. For
this reason the Greeks very properly call manners ἦθος, _custom_;
for they are nothing else, in short, but certain qualities of the
irrational and brutal part of the mind, and hence by them are so named,
in that this brutal and irrational part of the mind being formed and
moulded by right reason, by long custom and use (which they call
ἔθος), has these qualities or differences stamped upon it. Not that
reason so much as attempts to eradicate our passions and affections,
which is neither possible nor expedient, but only to keep them within
due bounds, reduce them into good order, and so direct them to a good
end; and thus to generate moral virtue, consisting not in a kind of
insensibility, or total freedom from passions, but in the well-ordering
our passions and keeping them within measure, which she effects by
wisdom and prudence, bringing the faculties of that part of the soul
where our affections and appetite are seated to a good habit. For these
three things are commonly held to be in the soul, namely, a faculty
or aptitude, passion, and habit. This aptitude or faculty then is
the principle or very matter of passions; as for example, the power
or aptitude to be angry, to be ashamed, to be confident and bold, or
the like; passion is the actual exercise of that aptitude or faculty,
as anger, shame, confidence, or boldness; and habit is the strength,
firmness, and establishment of the disposition or faculty in the
irrational part of the soul, gotten by continual use and custom, and
which, according as the passions are well or ill governed by reason,
becomes either virtue or vice.
5. But, forasmuch as philosophers do not make all virtue to consist in
a mediocrity nor call it moral, to show the difference more clearly,
it will be necessary to take our rise a little farther off. For of all
things then in the universe, some do exist absolutely, simply, and for
themselves only; others again relatively, for and with regard to us.
Among those things which have an absolute and simple existence are the
earth, the heavens, the stars, and the sea; and of such things as have
their being relatively, with respect to us, are good and evil, things
desirable and to be avoided, and things pleasant and hurtful. And
seeing that both are the proper objects of reason,—while it considers
the former, which are absolutely and for themselves, it is scientifical
and contemplative; and when the other, which have reference to us, it
is deliberative and practical. And as the proper virtue in the latter
case is prudence, in the former it is science. And between the one
and the other, namely, between prudence and science, there is this
difference. Prudence consists in a certain application and relation of
the contemplative faculties of the soul to those which are practical,
for the government of the sensual and irrational part, according to
reason. To which purpose prudence has often need of Fortune; whereas
neither of that nor of deliberation has science any occasion or want
to attain its ends, forasmuch as it has nothing to consider but
such things as remain always the same. For as a geometrician never
deliberates about a triangle, whether all its three angles be equal
to two right angles, because of that he has a clear and distinct
knowledge (and men use to deliberate about such things only as are
sometimes in one state or condition and sometimes in another, and
not of those which are always firm and immutable), so the mind, when
merely contemplative, exercising itself about first principles and
things permanent, such as retaining the same nature are incapable of
mutation, has no room or occasion for deliberation. Whereas prudence,
descending to actions full of error and confusion, is very often under
the necessity of encountering with fortuitous accidents, and, in
doubtful cases, of making use of deliberation, and, to reduce those
deliberations into practice, of calling also to its assistance even
the irrational faculties, which are (as it were) forcibly dragged to
go along with it, and by that means to give a certain vigor or impetus
to its determinations. For its determinations do indeed want something
which may enliven and give them such an impetus. And moral virtue it is
which gives an impetus or vigor to the passions; but at the same time
reason, which accompanies that impetus, and of which it stands in great
need, does so set bounds thereunto, that nothing but what is moderate
appears, and that it neither outruns the proper seasons of action, nor
yet falls short of them.
For the sensual faculties, where passions are seated, are subject to
motions, some over-vehement, sudden, and quick, and others again too
remiss, and more slow and heavy than is convenient. So that, though
every thing we do can be good but in one manner, yet it may be evil
in several; as there is but one single way of hitting the mark, but
to miss it a great many, either by shooting over, or under, or on one
side. The business therefore of practical reason, governing our actions
according to the order of Nature, is to correct the excesses as well
as the defects of the passions, by reducing them to a true mediocrity.
For as, when through infirmity of the mind, effeminacy, fear, or
laziness, the vehemence and keenness of the appetites are so abated
that they are ready to sink and fall short of the good at which they
are aimed and directed, there is then this practical reason at hand,
exciting and rousing and pushing them onward; so, on the other hand,
when it lashes out too far and is hurried beyond all measure, there
also is the same reason ready to bring it again within compass and put
a stop to its career. And thus, prescribing bounds and giving law to
the motions of the passions, it produces in the irrational part of the
soul these moral virtues (of which we now treat), which are nothing
else but the mean between excess and defect. For it cannot be said
that all virtue consists in mediocrity; since wisdom or prudence (one
of the intellectual virtues), standing in no need of the irrational
faculties,—as being seated in that part of the soul which is pure and
unmixed and free from all passions,—is of itself absolutely perfect,
the utmost extremity and power of reason, whereby we attain to that
perfection of knowledge which is itself most divine and renders us
most happy. Whereas moral virtue, which because of the body is so
necessary to us, and, to put things in practice, stands in need of the
instrumental ministry of the passions (as being so far from promoting
the destruction and abolition of irrational powers, as to be altogether
employed in the due regulation thereof), is, with respect to its power
or quality, the very top and extremity of perfection; but, in respect
of the proportion and quantity which it determines, it is mediocrity,
in that it takes away all excess on the one hand, and cures all defects
on the other.
6. Now mean and mediocrity may be differently understood. For there is
one mean which is compounded and made up of the two simple extremes,
as in colors, gray, of white and black; and another, where that which
contains and is contained is the medium between the containing and
the contained, as, for instance, the number eight, between twelve and
four. And a third sort there is also, which participates of neither
extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good
nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent. But in
none of these ways can virtue be said to be a mean, or mediocrity. For
neither is it a mixture of vices, nor, comprehending that which is
defective and short, is it comprehended by that which runs out into
excess; nor yet is it exempt from the impetuosity and sudden efforts
of the passions, in which excess and defect do properly take place.
But moral virtue properly doth consist in a mean or mediocrity (and
so it is commonly taken), most like to that which there is in our
Greek music and harmony. For, whereas there are the highest and lowest
musical notes in the extremities of the scale called nete and hypate;
so likewise is there in the middle thereof, between these two, another
musical note, and that the sweetest of all, called mese (or mean),
which does as perfectly avoid the extreme sharpness of the one as it
doth the over-flatness of the other. And so also virtue, being a motion
and power which is exercised about the brutal and irrational part
of the soul, takes away the remission and intention—in a word, the
excess and defect—of the appetites, reducing thereby every one of the
passions to a due mediocrity and perfect state of rectitude.
For example, fortitude is said to be the mean between cowardice and
rashness, whereof the one is a defect, as the other is an excess of
the irascible faculty; liberality, between sordid parsimony on the
one hand, and extravagant prodigality on the other; clemency between
insensibility of injuries and its opposite, revengeful cruelty; and so
of justice and temperance; the former being the mean between giving and
distributing more or less than is due in all contracts, affairs, and
business between man and man, and the latter a just mediocrity between
a stupid apathy, touched with no sense or relish of pleasure, and
dissolute softness, abandoned to all manner of sensualities.
And from this instance of temperance it is, that we are most clearly
given to understand the difference between the irrational and the
rational faculties of the soul, and that it so plainly appears to us
that the passions and affections of the mind are quite a distinct thing
from reason. For otherwise never should we be able to distinguish
continence from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, in
lust and pleasures, if it were one and the same faculty of the soul
wherewith we reason and judge, and whereby we desire and covet. Now
temperance is that whereby reason governs and manages that part of the
soul which is subject to the passions (as it were some wild creature
brought up by hand, and made quite tame and gentle), having gained an
absolute victory over all its appetites, and brought them entirely
under the dominion of it. Whereas we call it continence, when reason
has indeed gained the mastery over the appetites and prevailed against
them, though not without great pains and trouble, they being perverse
and continuing to struggle, as not having wholly submitted themselves;
so that it is not without great difficulty able to preserve its
government over them, being forced to retain and hold them in, and keep
them within compass, as it were, with stripes, with the bit and bridle,
while the mind all the time is full of nothing but agony, contentions,
and confusion. All which Plato endeavors to illustrate by a similitude
of the chariot-horses of the soul, the one whereof, being more unruly,
not only kicks and flings at him that is more gentle and tractable, but
also thereby so troubles and disorders the driver himself, that he is
forced sometimes to hold him hard in, and sometimes again to give him
his head,
Lest from his hands the purple reins should slip,
as Simonides speaks.
And from hence we may see why continence is not thought worthy to be
placed in the number of perfect virtues, but is taken to be a degree
under virtue. For there is not therein produced a mediocrity arising
from a symphony of the worst with the better, nor are the excesses of
the passions retrenched; nor yet doth the appetite become obedient and
subservient to the reasonable faculties, but it both makes and feels
disorder and disturbance, being repressed by violence and constraint,
and (as it were) by necessity; as in a sedition or faction in a city
or state, the contending parties, breathing nothing but war and
destruction and ruin to one another, do yet cohabit together (it may
be) within the compass of the same walls; insomuch that the soul of the
incontinent person, with respect to the conflicts and incongruities
therein, may very properly be compared to the city,
Where all the streets are filled with incense smoke,
And songs of triumph mixed with groans resound.[136]
And upon the same grounds it is, that incontinence is held to be
something less than vice also, but intemperance to be a complete and
perfect vice, for therein not the appetite only but reason likewise is
debauched and corrupted; and as the former incites and pushes forward
the desires and affections to that which is evil, so this, by making an
ill judgment, is easily led to consent and agree to the soft whispers
and tempting allurements of corrupt lusts and passions, and soon loseth
all sense of sin and evil. Whereas incontinence preserves the judgment,
by the help of reason, right and sound; but yet, by irresistible
force and violence of the passions, is even against judgment drawn
away. Moreover, in these respects following it differeth also from
intemperance:—inasmuch as reason in that is overpowered by passion,
but in this it never so much as struggleth; the incontinent person,
after a noble resistance, is at last forced to submit to the tyranny of
his lusts, and follow their guidance, while the intemperate approves
them, and gladly goes along with and submits to them; one feels remorse
for the evil he commits, while the other prides in lewdness and vice.
Again, the one wilfully and of his own accord runs into sin; while the
other, even against his will, is forced to abandon that which is good.
And this difference between them is not to be collected only from their
actions, but may as plainly also be discovered by their words. For at
this rate do intemperate persons use to talk:
What mirth in life, what pleasure, what delight,
Without content in sports of Venus bright?
Were those joys past, and I for them unmeet,
Ring out my knell, bring forth my winding-sheet.[137]
And thus says another:
To eat, to drink, to wench are principal,
All pleasures else I accessories call;
as if from his very soul he were wholly abandoned and given up to
pleasures and voluptuousness, and even overwhelmed therein. And much of
the same mind was he, and his judgment was as totally depraved by his
passions, who said,
Let me, ye dull and formal fops, alone,
I am resolved, ’tis best to be undone.
But quite another spirit do we find running through the sayings of the
incontinent:
Blame Nature only for it, blame not me,
Would she permit, I then should virtuous be,[138]
says one of them. And again,
Ah! ’tis decreed by Fate. We know, ’tis true,
We know those virtues, which we ne’er pursue.{B}
And another,
What will my swelling passions’ force assuage?
No more can I sustain this tempest’s rage,
Than anchor’s fluke, dropt on loose ground, a storm,
where not improperly he compares the fluke of an anchor dropped in
loose ground to that ill-grounded, feeble, and irresolute reason, which
by the vanity, weakness, and luxury of the mind is easily brought to
forsake the judgment. And the like metaphor has the poet made use of
happily enough in these verses.
To us, in ships moored near the shore who lie,
Though strong the cables, when the winds rise high
Cables will prove but small security;
where by the cables the poet means the judgment opposing itself against
all that is evil or dishonest, which is, however, oftentimes disturbed
and broken by violent and sudden gusts of the passions. For, indeed,
the intemperate are borne away directly and with full sail to their
pleasures; to them they deliver up themselves entirely, and thither
it is they bend their whole course. While the incontinent, indirectly
only, as endeavoring to sustain and repel the assaults of the passions
and withstand their temptations, either is allured and as it were
slides into evil, or else is plunged violently into it whether he will
or no. As Timon, in his bitter way of raillery, reproaches Anaxarchus,
When first the dogged Anaxarchus strove
The power of virtue o’er his mind to prove,
Firm though he seemed, and obstinately good,
In vain th’ impulse of temper he withstood.
Nature recoiled, whatever he could do;
He saw those ills, which yet he did pursue;
In this not single, other sophists too
Felt the same force, which they could ne’er subdue.
And neither is a wise man continent, but temperate; nor a fool
incontinent, but intemperate; the one taking true pleasure and delight
in good, the other having no displeasure against evil. And therefore
incontinence is said to be found only in a mind which is sophistical
(or which barely makes a show of being governed and directed by
prudence), and which has indeed the use of reason, but in so weak and
faint a manner, that it is not able to persevere in that which it knows
to be right.
7. Thus we have seen the diversity between incontinence and
intemperance. And as for continence and temperance, their differences
are analogous, and bear proportion to those of the other, but in
contrary respects. For remorse, grief, and indignation do always
accompany continence; whereas in the mind of a temperate person there
is all over such an evenness, calmness, and firmness, that, seeing with
what wonderful easiness and tranquillity the irrational faculties go
along with reason and submit to its directions, one cannot but call to
mind that of the poet:
Swift the command ran through the raging deep;
Th’ obedient waves compose themselves to sleep;[139]
reason having quite deadened and repressed the vehement raging and
furious motions of the passions and affections. But those whose
assistance Nature necessarily requires are by reason rendered so
agreeable and consenting, so submissive, friendly, and co-operative
in the execution of all good designs and purposes, that they neither
outrun it, nor recede from it, nor behave themselves disorderly, nor
ever show the least disobedience; but every appetite willingly and
cheerfully pursues its dictates,
As sucking foal runs by his mother mare.
Which very much confirms what was said by Xenocrates of those who are
true philosophers, namely, that they alone do that voluntarily which
all others do against their wills for fear of the laws; being diverted
and restrained from the pursuit of their pleasures, as a dog is
frightened by a whipping or a cat scared by a noise, having regard to
nothing else in the matter but their own danger.
It is manifest then from what has been discoursed, that the soul
does perceive within itself something that is firm and immovable,
totally distinct from its passions and appetites, these being what it
does always oppose and is ever contending with. But some there are,
nevertheless, who affirm that reason and passion do not materially
differ from one another, and that there is not in the soul any faction,
sedition, or dissension of two several and contending faculties, but
only a shifting, conversion, or alteration of the same reason or
rational faculty from one side to the other, backward and forward,
which, by reason of the suddenness and swiftness of the change, is not
perceptible by us; and therefore, that we do not consider that the same
faculty of the soul is by nature so adapted as to be capable of both
concupiscence and repentance, of anger and of fear, of being drawn to
the commission of any lewdness or evil by the allurements of pleasure,
and afterwards of being again retrieved from it. And as for lust,
anger, fear, and such like passions, they will have them to be nothing
but perverse opinions and false judgments, not arising or formed in any
inferior part of the soul, peculiarly belonging to them, but being the
advances and returns, or the motions forward and backward, the good
likenings and more vehement efforts, and (in a word) such operations
and energies of the whole rational and directive faculty as are ready
to be turned this way or that with the greatest ease imaginable;
like the sudden motions and irruptions in children, the violence and
impetuosity whereof, by reason of their imbecility and weakness, are
very fleeting and inconstant.
But these opinions are against common sense and experience; for no
man ever felt such a sudden change in himself, as that whenever he
chose any thing he immediately judged it fit to be chosen, or that,
on the other hand, whenever he judged any thing fit to be chosen he
immediately made choice of it. Neither does the lover who is convinced
by reason that his amour is fit to be broken off, and that he ought to
strive against his passion, therefore immediately cease to love; nor
on the other side doth he desist reasoning, and cease from being able
to give a right judgment of things, even then, when, being softened
and overcome by luxury, he delivers himself up a captive to his lusts.
But as, while by the assistance of reason he makes opposition to the
efforts of his passions, they yet continue to solicit, and at last
overcome him; so likewise, when he is overcome and forced to submit to
them, by the light of reason does he plainly discern and know that he
has done amiss; so that neither by the passions is reason effaced and
destroyed, nor yet by reason is he rescued and delivered from them;
but, being tossed to and fro between the one and the other, he is a
kind of neuter, and participates in common of them both. And those,
methinks, who imagine that one while the directive and rational part
of the soul is changed into concupiscence and lust, and that by and by
reason opposes itself against them, and they are changed into that, are
not much unlike them who make the sportsman and his game not to be two,
but one body, which, by a nimble and dexterous mutation of itself, one
while appears in the shape of the huntsman, and at another turn puts
on the form of a wild beast. For as these in a plain evident matter
seem to be stark blind, so they in the other case belie even their own
senses, seeing they must needs feel in themselves not merely a change
or mutation of one and the same thing, but a downright struggle and
quarrel between two several and distinct faculties.
But is not, say they, the deliberative power or faculty of a man often
divided in itself, and distracted among several opinions contrary to
one another, about that which is expedient; and yet is but one, simple,
uniform thing? All this we grant to be true; but it does not reach the
case we are speaking of. For that part of the soul where reason and
judgment are seated is not at variance with itself, but by one and
the same faculty is conversant about different reasonings; or rather,
there is but one simple power of reasoning, which employs itself on
several arguments, as so many different subject-matters. And therefore
it is, that no disturbance or uneasiness accompanies those reasonings
or deliberations, where the passions do not at all interpose. Nor
are we at any time forced, as it were, to choose any thing contrary
to the dictates of our own reason, but when, as in a balance, some
lurking hidden passions lay something in the scale against reason to
weigh it down. And this often falls out to be the case, where it is
not reasoning that is opposed to reasoning, but either ambition, or
emulation, or favor, or jealousy, or fear, making a show as if there
were a variance or contest between two differing reasons, according to
that of Homer,
Shame in denial, in acceptance fear;[140]
and of another poet,
Hard fate to fall, but yet a glorious fate;
’Tis cowardly to live, but yet ’tis sweet.
And in determining of controversies about contracts between man and
man, it is by the interposition of the passions that so many disputes
and delays are created. So likewise in the consultations and counsels
of kings, they who design to make their court incline not to one side
of the question or debate rather than the other, but only accommodate
themselves to their own passions, without any regard to the interest of
the public. Which is the reason that in aristocratical governments the
magistrates will not suffer orators in their pleadings, by declaiming
and haranguing, to raise the passions and move the affections. For
reason, not being disturbed or diverted by passion, tends directly
to that which is honorable and just; but if the passions are once
raised, there immediately follows a mighty controversy and struggle
between pleasure and grief on the one hand, and reason and judgment on
the other. For otherwise how comes it to pass, that in philosophical
disputes and disquisitions we so often and with so little trouble are
by others drawn off from our own opinions and wrought upon to change
them?—and that Aristotle himself, Democritus, and Chrysippus have
without any concern or regret of mind, nay even with great satisfaction
to themselves, retracted some of those points which they formerly
so much approved of, and were wont so stiffly to maintain? For no
passions residing in the contemplative and scientifical part of the
soul make any tumult or disturbance therein, and the irrational and
brutal faculties remain quiet and calm, without busying themselves
to intermeddle in matters of that kind. By which means it falls out,
that reason no sooner comes within view of truth, but rejecting that
which is false it readily embraces it; forasmuch as there is in the
former what is not to be found in the other, namely, a willingness to
assent and disagree as there is occasion; whereas in all deliberations
had, judgments made, and resolutions taken about such things as are
to be reduced into practice, and are mixed and interwoven with the
passions and affections, reason meets with much opposition, and is
put under great difficulties, by being stopped and interrupted in
its course by the brutal faculties of the mind, throwing in its way
either pleasure or fear or grief or lust, or some such like temptation
or discouragement. And then the decision of these disputes belongs
to sense, which is equally affected with both the one and the other;
and whichsoever of them gets the mastery, the other is not thereby
destroyed, but (though struggling and resisting all the while) is
forced only to comply and go along with the conqueror. As an amorous
person, for example, finding himself engaged in an amour he cannot
approve of, has immediately recourse to his reason, to oppose the force
of that against his passion, as having them both together actually
subsisting in his soul, plainly discerning them to be several and
distinct, and feeling a sensible conflict between the two, while he
endeavors (as it were) with his hand to repress and keep down the
part which is inflamed and rages so violently within him. But, on the
contrary, in those deliberations and disquisitions where the passions
have nothing to do, such I mean as belong properly to the contemplative
part of the soul, if the reasons are equally balanced, not inclining
more to one side than another, then is there no determinate judgment
formed, but there remains a doubting, as if there were a rest or
suspense of the understanding between two contrary opinions. But if
there happen to be any inclination or determination towards one side,
that prevailing must needs get the better of the other, but without any
regret or obstinate opposition from it against the opinion which is
received. In short, whenever the contest seems to be of reason against
reason, in that case we have no manner of sense of two distinct powers,
but of one simple, uniform faculty only, under different apprehensions
or imaginations; but when the dispute is between the irrational part
and reason, where nature has so ordered it that neither the victory nor
the defeat can be had without anxiety and regret, there immediately
the two contending powers divide the soul in the quarrel, and thereby
make the difference and distinction between them to be most plain and
evident.
8. And not only from their contests, but no less also from the
consequences that follow thereupon, may one clearly enough discern
the source and original of the passions to be different from that of
reason. For since a man may set his affection upon an ingenuous and
virtuously disposed child, and no less also upon one that is naughty
and dissolute, and since also one may have unreasonable and indecent
transports of anger against his children or his parents, and on the
contrary, may justly and unblamably be angry in their defence against
their enemies and tyrants; as in the one case there is perceived a
struggle and dispute of the passions against reason, so in the other
may be seen a ready submission and agreement of them, running to its
assistance, and lending as it were their helping hand. To illustrate
this with a familiar example,—after a good man has in obedience to the
laws married a convenient wife, he then in the first place comes to a
resolution of conversing and cohabiting with her wisely and honestly,
and of making at least a civil husband; but in process of time, custom
and constant familiarity having bred within him a true passion for her,
he sensibly finds that upon principles of reason his affection and love
for her are every day more and more improved and grow upon him. So in
like manner, young men having met with kind and gentle masters, to
guide and inform their minds in the study of philosophy and sciences,
make use of them at first for instruction only and information, but
afterwards come to have such an affection for them, that from familiar
companions and scholars they become their lovers and admirers, and are
so accounted. And the same happens also to most men, with respect to
good magistrates in the commonwealth, to their neighbors, and to their
kindred; for, beginning an acquaintance upon necessity and interest,
for the exchange of the common offices of intercourse and commerce with
one another, they do afterwards by degrees, ere they are aware, grow to
have a love and friendship for them; reason in such and the like cases
having over-persuaded and even compelled the passions to take delight
in and pursue what it before had approved of and consented to. As for
the poet who said,
Of modesty two kinds there be;
The one we cannot blame,
The other troubleth many a house,
And doth decay the same;[141]
doth he not plainly hereby intimate, that he had oftentimes found by
experience that this affection of the mind, by a sheepish, shamefaced
backwardness, and by foolishly bashful delays against all reason, had
lost him the opportunities and seasons of making his fortune, and
hindered and disappointed many brave actions and noble enterprises?
9. But these men, though by the force of these arguments sufficiently
convinced, do yet seek for evasions, by calling shame by the name of
modesty, pleasures by that of joy, and fear by that of caution. No man
would go about to blame them for giving things the softest names they
can invent, if they would be so just as to bestow these good words upon
those passions and affections only which have put themselves under
the conduct and direction of reason, and leave those which oppose
reason and offer violence to it to be called by their own proper and
odious names. But, when fully convinced by the tears they shed, by
the trembling of their joints, and by their sudden changing of color
back and forward, if instead of plainly calling the passions whereof
these are the effects grief and fear, they make use of the fantastic
terms of compunctions and conturbations, and to varnish over and
disguise the lusts and affections, give them the name only of so many
forwardnesses of mind, and I know not what else, they seem not to act
like philosophers, but, relying upon little shifts and sophistical
artifices, under an amusement of strange words, they vainly hope to
cover and conceal the nature of things.
And yet even these men themselves sometimes make use of very proper
terms to express these matters; as, for instance, when they call. those
joys, volitions, and cautions of theirs, not by the name of apathies,
as if they were devoid of all manner of passions, but of eupathies.
For then is there said to be an eupathy, or good disposition of the
affections, when reason hath not utterly destroyed, but composed and
adjusted them in the minds of discreet and temperate persons. But what
then becomes of vicious and dissolute persons? Why, if they should
judge it reasonable to love their parents, instead of a mistress or
a gallant, are they unable to perform this; but should they judge it
fitting to set their hearts upon a strumpet or a parasite, the judgment
is no sooner made, but they are most desperately in love? Now were the
passions and judgment one, it could not be but that the passions of
love and hatred would immediately follow upon judgments made what to
love and hate. But we see the contrary often happen; for the passions,
as they submit to some resolutions and judgments, so others again
they oppose themselves to, and refuse to comply with. Whence it is
that, compelled thereto by truth and the evidence of things, they do
not affirm every judgment and determination of reason to be passion,
but that only which excites too violent and inordinate an appetite;
acknowledging thereby that the faculty we have in us of judging is
quite another thing than that which is susceptible of the passions,
as is that also which moveth from that which is moved. Nay, even
Chrysippus himself, in many places defining patience and continence to
be habits of submitting to and pursuing the choice and direction of
right reason, doth thereby make it apparent that by the force of truth
he was driven to confess that it is one thing in us which is obedient
and submissive, but another and quite a different thing which it obeys
when it submits, but resists when it does not submit.
10. Now, as for those who make all sins and faults to be equal, to
examine whether in other matters they have not also departed from the
truth is not at this time and in this place seasonable; since they
seem not herein only, but in most things else, to advance unreasonable
paradoxes against common sense and experience. For according to them,
all our passions and affections are so many faults, and whosoever
grieves, fears, or desires, commits sin. But, with their leave, nothing
is more visible and apparent than the mighty difference in those and
all other passions, according as we are more or less affected with
them. For will any man say that the fear of Dolon was no more than that
of Ajax, who, being forced to give way before the enemy,
Sometimes retreated back, then faced about,
And step by step retired at once, and fought?[142]
Or compare the grief of Plato for the death of Socrates to the sorrow
and anguish of mind which Alexander felt, when, for having murdered
Clitus, he attempted to lay violent hands upon himself. For our
grief is commonly increased and augmented above measure by sudden
and unexpected accidents. And that which surprises us on the sudden,
contrary to our hope and expectation, is much more uneasy and grievous
than that which is either foreseen, or not very unlikely to happen; as
must needs fall out in the case of those who, expecting nothing more
than to see the happiness, advancement, and glory of a friend or a
kinsman, should hear of his being put to the most exquisite tortures,
as Parmenio did of his son Philotas. And who will ever say that the
anger of Magas against Philemon can bear any proportion to the rage
of Nicocreon against Anaxarchus? The occasion given was in both cases
the same, each of them having severally been bitterly reproached and
reviled by the other. For whereas Nicocreon caused Anaxarchus to be
broken to pieces and brayed in a mortar with iron pestles, Magas only
commanded the executioner to lay the edge of the naked sword upon the
neck of Philemon, and so dismissed him. And therefore Plato called
anger the nerves of the mind; because, as it may swell and be made
more intense by sourness and ill-nature, so may it be slackened and
remitted by gentleness and good-nature.
But to elude these and such like objections, they will not allow
these intense and vehement efforts of the passions to be according to
judgment, or so to proceed from it as if that were therein faulty; but
they call them cessations, contractions, and extensions or diffusions,
which by the irrational part are capable of being increased or
diminished. But that there are also differences of judgment is most
plain and evident; for some there are who take poverty to be no evil
at all, others who look upon it as a great evil, and others again
who esteem it to be the greatest evil and worst thing in the world,
insomuch that rather than endure it they would dash themselves in
pieces against the rocks, or cast themselves headlong into the sea.
And among those who reckon death to be an evil, some are of that
opinion, in regard only that it deprives us of the enjoyment of the
good things of the world, as others are with respect to the eternal
torments and horrible punishments under ground in hell. As for bodily
health, some love it no otherwise than as it is agreeable to Nature,
and very convenient and useful; while others value it as the most
sovereign good, in comparison whereof they make no reckoning of riches
or children, no, nor of sceptres and crowns,
Which make men equal to the Gods above.
Nor will they, in fine, allow even virtue itself to signify any thing
or be of any use, without good health. So that hence it sufficiently
appears that, in the judgments men make of things, they may be mistaken
and very faulty with respect to both the extremes of too much and too
little; but I shall pursue this argument no farther in this place.
Thus much may, however, fairly be assumed from what has already
been said on this head, that even they themselves do allow a plain
difference between the judgment and the irrational faculties, by means
whereof, they say, the passions become greater and more violent; and
so, while they cavil and contend about names and words, they give up
the very cause to those who maintain the irrational part of the soul,
which is the seat of the passions, to be several and distinct from that
faculty by which we reason and make a judgment of things. And indeed
Chrysippus, in those books which he wrote of Anomology,—after he has
told us that anger is blind, not discerning oftentimes those things
which are plain and conspicuous, and as frequently casting a mist
upon such things as were before clear and evident,—proceeds a little
farther in this manner: For, says he, the passions, being once raised,
not only reject and drive away reason and those things which appear
otherwise than they would have them, but violently push men forward
to actions that are contrary to reason. And then he makes use of the
testimony of Menander, saying,
What have I done? Where has my soul been strayed?
Would she not stay to see herself obeyed,
But let me act what I abhorred but now?
And again the same Chrysippus a little after says: Every rational
creature is by Nature so disposed as to use reason in all things,
and to be governed by it; but yet oftentimes it falls out that we
dispose and reject it, being carried away by another more violent and
over-ruling motion. In these words he plainly enough acknowledges what
uses in such a case to happen on account of the difference and contest
between the passions and reason. And upon any other ground it would be
ridiculous (as Plato says) to suppose a man to be sometimes better than
himself, and sometimes again worse; one while to be his own master, and
another while his own slave.
11. For how could it possibly be, that a man should be better and
worse than himself, and at once both his own master and slave, if
every one were not in some sort naturally double or twofold, having in
himself at the same time a better part and a worse? For so may he be
reckoned to have a power over himself and to be better than himself,
who has his worse and inferior faculties in obedience and subjection
to the superior and more excellent; whereas he who suffers his nobler
powers to fall under the government and direction of the intemperate
and irrational part of the soul is less and worse than himself, and
has wholly lost the command over himself, and is in a state which
is contrary to Nature. For by the order of Nature, reason, which is
divine, ought to have the sovereignty and dominion over the irrational
and brutal faculties, which, deriving their original from the body, and
being incorporated, as it were, and thoroughly mixed therewith, bear a
very near resemblance to it, are replenished with, and do participate
in common of the qualities, properties, and passions thereof; as is
plain from our more vehement motions and efforts towards corporeal
objects, which always increase or diminish in vigor according to the
several changes and alterations which happen in the body. From whence
it is that young men are in their lusts and appetites, because of
the abundance and warmth of their blood, so quick, forward, hot, and
furious; whereas in old men all natural fire being almost extinguished,
and the first principles and source of the affections and passions,
seated about the liver, being much lessened and debilitated, reason
becomes more vigorous and predominant, while the appetites languish
and decay together with the body. And after this manner it is that the
nature of beasts is framed and disposed to divers passions. For it is
not from any strength or weakness of thought, or from any opinions
right or wrong which they form to themselves, that some of them are
so bold and venturous, and dare encounter any thing, and others of
them are fearful and cowardly, shrinking at every danger; but from
the force and power of the blood, the spirits, and the body does this
diversity of passions in them arise; for that part where the passions
are seated, being derived from the body, as from its root, retains all
the qualities and propensions of that from whence it is extracted.
Now that in man there is a sympathy and an agreeable and correspondent
motion of the body with the passions and appetites, is proved by the
paleness and blushings of the face, by the tremblings of the joints,
and by the palpitation of the heart; and, on the contrary, by the
diffusion or dilatation which we feel upon the hope and expectation of
pleasures. But when the mind or intellect doth move of itself alone,
without any passion to disorder and ruffle it, then is the body at
repose and rests quiet, having nothing at all to do with those acts
and operations of the mind; as, when it takes into consideration a
proposition in mathematics or some such scientifical thing, it calls
not for the aid or assistance of the irrational or brutal faculties.
From whence also it is very apparent that there are in us two distinct
parts, differing in their powers and faculties from one another.
12. In fine, throughout the whole world, all things (as they themselves
are forced to confess, and is evident in itself) are governed and
directed, some by a certain habit, some by Nature, others by a
brutal or irrational soul, and some again by that which has reason
and understanding. Of all which things man does in some measure
participate, and is concerned in all the above-mentioned differences.
For he is contained by habit, and nourished by Nature; he makes use
of reason and understanding; he wants not his share of the irrational
soul; he has also in him a native source and inbred principle of the
passions, not as adventitious, but necessary to him, which ought not
therefore to be utterly rooted out, but only pruned and cultivated.
For it is not the method and custom of reason—in imitation either
of the manner of the Thracians or of what Lycurgus ordered to be
done to the vines—to destroy and tear up all the passions and
affections indifferently, good and bad, useful and hurtful together;
but rather—like some kind and careful Deity who has a tender regard
to the growth and improvement of fruit-trees and plants—to cut away
and clip off that which grows wild and rank, and to dress and manage
the rest that it may serve for use and profit. For as they who are
afraid of being drunk pour not their wine upon the ground, but dilute
it with water; so neither do they who fear any violent commotion of
their passions go about utterly to destroy and eradicate, but rather
wisely to temper and moderate them. And as they who use to break horses
and oxen do not go about to take away their goings, or to render them
unfit for labor and service, but only strive to cure them of their
unluckiness and flinging up their heels, and to bring them to be
patient of the bit and yoke, so as to become useful; after the same
manner reason makes very good use of the passions, after they are well
subdued and made gentle, without either tearing in pieces or over-much
weakening that part of the soul which was made to be obedient to her.
In Pindar we find it said:
As ’tis the horse’s pride to win the race,
And to plough up the fruitful soil
Is the laborious ox’s toil,
So the fierce dog we take the foaming boar to chase.
But much more useful than these in their several kinds are the whole
brood of passions, when they become attendants to reason, and when,
being assistant and obedient to virtue, they give life and vigor to it.
Thus, moderate anger is of admirable use to courage or fortitude;
hatred and aversion for ill men promotes the execution of justice; and
a just indignation against those who are prosperous beyond what they
deserve is then both convenient and even necessary, when with pride
and insolence their minds are so swollen and elated, that they need to
be repressed and taken down. Neither by any means can a man, though he
never so much desire it, be able to separate from friendship a natural
propension to affection; from humanity and good nature, tenderness and
commiseration; nor from true benevolence, a mutual participation of
joy and grief. And if they run into an error who would take away all
love that they may destroy mad and wanton passions, neither can those
be in the right who, for the sake of covetousness, condemn all other
appetites and desires. Which is full as ridiculous as if one should
always refuse to run, because one time or other he may chance to catch
a fall; or to shoot, because he may sometimes happen to miss the mark;
or should forbear all singing, because a discord or a jar is offensive
to the ear. For, as in sounds the music and harmony thereof takes away
neither the sharpest nor the deepest notes, and in our bodies physic
procureth health, not by the destruction of heat and cold, but by a due
and proportionable temperature and mixture of them both together; so in
the same manner it happeneth in the soul of man, when reason becomes
victorious and triumphant by reducing the faculties of the mind which
belong to the passions, and all their motions, to a due moderation and
mediocrity. And excessive and unmeasurable joy or grief or fear in the
soul (not, however, either joy, grief, or fear, simply in itself) may
very properly be resembled to a great swelling or inflammation in the
body. And therefore Homer, where he says,
A valiant man doth never color change;
Excessive fear to him is very strange,[143]
does not take away all fear (but that only which is extreme and
unmanly), that bravery and courage may not be thought to be
fool-hardiness, nor boldness and resolution pass for temerity and
rashness. And therefore he that in pleasures and delights can prescribe
bounds to his lusts and desires, and in punishing offences can moderate
his rage and hatred to the offenders, shall in one case get the
reputation not of an insensible, but temperate person, and in the other
be accounted a man of justice without cruelty or bitterness. Whereas,
if all the passions, if that were possible, were clean rooted out,
reason in most men would grow sensibly more dull and inactive than the
pilot of a ship in a calm.
And to these things (as it should seem) prudent lawgivers having regard
have wisely taken care to excite and encourage in commonwealths and
cities the ambition and emulation of their people amongst one another,
and with trumpets, drums, and flutes to whet their anger and courage
against their enemies. For not only in poetry (as Plato very well
observes), he that is inspired by the Muses, and as it were possessed
by a poetical fury, will make him that is otherwise a master of his
trade and an exact critic in poetry appear ridiculous; but also in
fighting, those who are elevated and inspired with a noble rage, and a
resolution and courage about the common pitch, become invincible, and
are not to be withstood. And this is that warlike fury which the Gods,
as Homer will have it, infuse into men of honor:
He spoke, and every word new strength inspired;
and again:
This more than human rage is from the Gods;[144]
as if to reason the Gods had joined some or other of passions, as an
incitement or, if I may so say, a vehicle to push and carry it forward.
Nay we often see these very men against whom I now dispute exciting
and encouraging young persons with praises, and as often checking
and rebuking them with severe reprimands; whereupon in the one case
there must follow pleasure and satisfaction as necessarily as grief
and trouble are produced in the other. For reprehension and admonition
certainly strike us with repentance and shame, whereof this is
comprehended under fear, as the other is under grief. And these are
the things they chiefly make use of for correction and amendment.
Which seems to be the reason why Diogenes, to some who had magnified
Plato, made this reply: What can there be in him, said he, so much to
be valued, who, having been so long a philosopher, has never yet been
known so much as to excite the single passion of grief in the mind of
any one? And certainly the mathematics cannot so properly be called
(to use the words of Xenocrates) the handles of philosophy, as these
passions are of young men, namely, bashfulness, desire, repentance,
pleasure, pain, ambition; whereon right reason and the law discreetly
laying their salutary hands do thereby effectually and speedily reduce
a young man into the right way. Agreeably hereunto the Lacedaemonian
instructor of youth was in the right, when he professed that he would
bring it to pass that youths under his care should take a pleasure and
satisfaction in good and have an abhorrence for evil, than which there
cannot be a greater or nobler end of the liberal education of youth
proposed or assigned.
PLUTARCH’S NATURAL QUESTIONS.
I.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT SEA-WATER NOURISHES NOT TREES?
Is it not for the same reason that it nourishes not earthly animals?
For Plato, Anaxagoras, and Democritus think plants are earthly animals.
Nor, though sea-water be aliment to marine plants, as it is to fishes,
will it therefore nourish earthly plants, since it can neither
penetrate the roots, because of its grossness, nor ascend, by reason of
its weight; for this, among many other things, shows sea-water to be
heavy and terrene, because it more easily bears up ships and swimmers.
Or is it because drought is a great enemy to trees? For sea-water is of
a drying faculty; upon which account salt resists putrefaction, and the
bodies of such as wash in the sea are presently dry and rough. Or is it
because oil is destructive to earthly plants, and kills things anointed
with it? But sea-water participates of much fatness; for it burns
together with it. Wherefore, when men would quench fire, we forbid
them to throw on sea-water. Or is it because sea-water is not fit to
drink and bitter (as Aristotle says) through a mixture of burnt earth?
For a lye is made by the falling of ashes into sweet water, and the
dissolution ejects and corrupts what was good and potable, as in us men
fevers convert the humors into bile. As for what woods and plants men
talk of growing in the Red Sea, they bear no fruit, but are nourished
by rivers casting up much mud; therefore they grow not at any great
distance from land, but very near to it.
II.
WHY DO TREES AND SEEDS THRIVE BETTER WITH RAIN THAN WITH WATERING?
Whether is it because (as Laitus thinks) showers, parting the earth
by the violence of their fall, make passages, whereby the water may
more easily penetrate to the root? Or cannot this be true; and did
Laitus never consider that marsh-plants (as cat’s-tail, pond-weeds,
and rushes) neither thrive nor sprout when the rains fall not in their
season; but it is true, as Aristotle said, rain-water is new and fresh,
that of lakes old and stale? And what if this be rather probable than
true? For the waters of fountains and rivers are ever fresh, new always
arriving; therefore Heraclitus said well, that no man could go twice
into the same river. And yet these very waters nourish worse than
rain-water. But water from the heavens is light and aerial, and, being
mixed with spirit, is the quicker passed and elevated into the plant,
by reason of its tenuity. And for this very reason it makes bubbles
when mixed with the air. Or does that nourish most which is soonest
altered and overcome by the thing nourished?—for this very thing
is concoction. On the contrary, inconcoction is when the aliment is
too strong to be affected by the thing nourished. Now thin, simple,
and insipid things are the most easily altered, of which number is
rain-water, which is bred in the air and wind, and falls pure and
sincere. But fountain-water, being assimilated to the earth and places
through which it passes, is filled with many qualities which render
it less nutritive and slower in alteration to the thing nourished.
Moreover, that rain-water is easily alterable is an argument, because
it sooner putrefies than either spring or river-water. For concoction
seems to be putrefaction as Empedocles says,—
When in vine wood the water putrefies,
It turns to wine, while under bark it lies.
Or, which may most readily be assigned for a reason, is it because
rain is sweet and mild, when it is presently sent by the wind? For
this reason cattle drink it most greedily, and frogs in expectation of
it raise their voice, as if they were calling for rain to sweeten the
marsh and to be sauce to the water in the pools. For Aratus makes this
a sign of approaching rain,
When father frogs, to watery snakes sweet food,
Do croak and sing in mud, a wretched brood.
III.
WHY DO HERDSMEN SET SALT BEFORE CATTLE?
Whether (as many think) to nourish them the more, and fatten them
the better? For salt by its acrimony sharpens the appetite, and by
opening the passages brings meat more easily to digestion. Therefore
Apollonius, Herophilus’s scholar, would not have lean persons, and such
as did not thrive, be fed with sweet things and gruel, but ordered them
to use pickles and salt things for their food, whose tenuity, serving
instead of frication or sifting, might apply the aliment through the
passages of the body. Or is it for health’s sake that men give sheep
salt to lick, to cut off the redundance of nutriment? For when they are
over fat, they grow sick; but salt wastes and melts the fat. And this
they observe so well, that they can more easily flay them; for the fat,
which agglutinates and fastens the skin, is made thin and weak by the
acrimony. The blood also of things that lick salt is attenuated; nor do
things within the body stick together when salts are mixed with them.
Moreover, consider this, whether the cattle grow more fruitful and more
inclined to coition; for bitches do sooner conceive when they are fed
with salt victuals, and ships which carry salt are more pestered with
mice, by reason of their frequent coition.
IV.
WHY IS THE WATER OF SHOWERS WHICH FALLS IN THUNDER AND LIGHTNING FITTER
TO WATER SEEDS? AND THEY ARE THEREFORE CALLED THUNDER-SHOWERS.
Is it because they contain much spirit, by reason of their confusion
and mixture with the air? And the spirit moving the humor sends it more
upwards. Or is it because heat fighting against cold causes thunder and
lightning? Whence it is that it thunders very little in winter, but
in spring and autumn very much, because of the inequality of temper;
and the heat, concocting the humor, renders it friendly and commodious
for plants. Or does it thunder and lighten most in the spring for the
aforesaid cause, and do the seeds have greater occasion for the vernal
rains before summer? Therefore that country which is best watered with
rain in spring, as Sicily is, produces abundance of good fruit.
V.
HOW COMES IT TO PASS, THAT SINCE THERE BE EIGHT KINDS OF TASTES, WE
FIND THE SALT IN NO FRUIT WHATEVER?
Indeed, at first the olive is bitter, and the grape acid; one whereof
afterward turns fat, and the other vinous. But the harshness in dates
and the austere in pomegranates turn sweet. Some pomegranates and
apples have only a simple acid taste. The pungent taste is frequent in
roots and seeds.
Is it because a salt taste is never natural, but arises when the
rest are corrupt? Therefore such plants and seeds as are nourished
receive no nourishment from salt; it serves indeed some instead of
sauce, by preventing a surfeit of other nourishment. Or, as men take
away saltness and bitingness from the sea-water by distilling, is
saltness so abolished in hot things by heat? Or indeed does the taste
(as Plato says) arise from water percolated through a plant, and does
even sea-water percolated lose its saltness, being terrene and of
gross parts? Therefore people that dig near the sea happen upon wells
fit to drink. Several also that draw the sea-water into waxen buckets
receive it sweet and potable, the salt and earthy matter being strained
out. And straining through clay renders sea-water potable, since the
clay retains the earthy parts and does not let them pass through. And
since things are so, it is very probable either that plants receive
no saltness extrinsically, or, if they do, they put it not forth into
fruit; for things terrene and consisting of gross parts cannot pass, by
reason of the straitness of the passages. Or may saltness be reckoned a
sort of bitterness? For so Homer says:
Out of his mouth the bitter brine did flow,
And down his body from his head did go.[145]
Plato also says that both these tastes have an abstersive and
colliquative faculty; but the salt does it less, nor is it rough. And
the bitter seems to differ from the salt in abundance of heat, since
the salt has also a drying quality.
VI.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT, IF A MAN FREQUENTLY PASS ALONG DEWY TREES,
THOSE LIMBS THAT TOUCH THE WOOD ARE SEIZED WITH A LEPROSY?
Whether (as Laitus said) that by the tenuity of the dew the moisture of
the skin is fretted away? Or, as smut and mildew fall upon moistened
seeds, so, when the green and tender parts on the superficies are
fretted and dissolved by the dew, is a certain noxious taint carried
and imparted to the most bloodless parts of the body, as the legs and
feet, which there eats and frets the superficies? For that by Nature
there is a corrosive faculty in dew sufficiently appears, in that it
makes fat people lean; and gross women gather it, either with wool or
on their clothes, to take down their flesh.
VII.
WHY IN WINTER DO SHIPS SAIL SLOWER IN RIVERS, BUT DO NOT SO IN THE
SEA?
Whether, because the river-air, which is at all times heavy and slow,
being in winter more condensed by the cold, does more resist sailing?
Or is it long of the water rather than the air? For the piercing cold
makes the water heavy and thick, as one may perceive in a water-clock;
for the water passes more slowly in winter than in summer. Theophrastus
talks of a well about Pangaeum in Thrace, how that a vessel filled
with the water of it weighs twice as much in winter as it does in
summer. Besides, hence it is apparent that the grossness of the water
makes ships sail slower, because in winter river-vessels carry greater
burthens. For the water, being made more dense and heavy, makes the
more renitency; but the heat hinders the sea from being condensed or
frozen.
VIII.
WHY, SINCE ALL OTHER LIQUORS UPON MOVING AND STIRRING ABOUT GROW COLD,
DOES THE SEA BY BEING TOSSED IN WAVES GROW HOT?
Whether that motion expels and dissipates the heat of other liquors as
a thing adscititious, and the winds do rather excite and increase the
innate heat of the sea? Its transparentness is an argument of heat; and
so is its not being frozen, though it is terrene and heavy.
IX.
WHY IN WINTER IS THE SEA LEAST SALT AND BITTER TO THE TASTE? FOR THEY
SAY THAT DIONYSIUS THE HYDRAGOGUE REPORTED THIS.
Is it that the bitterness of the sea is not devoid of all sweetness, as
receiving so many rivers into it; but, since the sun exhales the sweet
and potable water thereof, arising to the top by reason of its levity,
and since this is done in summer more than in winter, when it affects
the sea more weakly by reason of the debility of its heat, that so in
winter a great deal of sweetness is left, which tempers and mitigates
its excessive poisonous bitterness? And the same thing befalls potable
waters; for in summer they are worse, the sun wasting the lightest and
sweetest part of them. And a fresh sweetness returns in winter, of
which the sea must needs participate, since it moves, and is carried
with the rivers into the sea.
X.
WHY DO MEN POUR SEA-WATER UPON WINE, AND SAY THE FISHER MEN HAD AN
ORACLE GIVEN THEM, WHEREBY THEY WERE BID TO DIP BACCHUS INTO THE SEA?
AND WHY DO THEY THAT LIVE FAR FROM THE SEA CAST IN SOME ZACYNTHIAN
EARTH TOASTED?
Whether that heat is good against cold? Or that it quenches heat, by
diluting the wine and destroying its strength? Or that the aqueous and
aerial part of wine (which is therefore prone to mutation) is stayed
by the throwing in of terrene parts, whose nature it is to constipate
and condense? Moreover, salts with the sea-water, attenuating and
colliquating whatever is foreign and superfluous, suffer no fetidness
or putrefaction to breed. Besides, the gross and terrene parts, being
entangled with the heavy and sinking together, make a sediment or lees,
and so make the wine fine.
XI.
WHY ARE THEY SICKER THAT SAIL ON THE SEA THAN THEY THAT SAIL IN
FRESH RIVERS, EVEN IN CALM WEATHER?
Of all the senses, smelling causes nauseousness the most, and of all
the passions of the mind, fear. For men tremble and shake and bewray
themselves upon apprehension of great danger. They that sail in a river
are troubled with neither of these. And the smell of sweet and potable
water is familiar to all, and the voyage is without danger. On the sea
an unusual smell is troublesome; and men are afraid, not knowing what
the issue may be. Therefore tranquillity abroad avails not, while an
estuating and disturbed mind disorders the body.
XII.
WHY DOES POURING OIL ON THE SEA MAKE IT CLEAR AND CALM?
Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force,
nor cause any waves? This may be probably said in respect of things
external; but they say that divers take oil in their mouths, and when
they spout it out they have light at the bottom, and it makes the water
transparent; so that the slipping of the winds will not hold good here
for an argument. Therefore it is to be considered, whether the sea,
which is terrene and uneven, is not compacted and made smooth by the
dense oil; and so the sea, being compact in itself, leaves passes,
and a pellucidity penetrable by the sight. Or whether that the air,
which is naturally mixed with the sea, is lucid, but by being troubled
grows unequal and shady; and so by the oil’s density, smoothing its
inequality, the sea recovers its evenness and pellucidity.
XIII.
WHY DO FISHERMEN’S NETS ROT MORE IN WINTER THAN IN SUMMER, SINCE
OTHER THINGS ROT MORE IN SUMMER?
Is not that the cause which Theophrastus assigns,—that heat (to wit)
shuns the cold, and is constrained by it on every side? Hence the
waters are hottest in the bottom of the sea. And so it is on land; for
springs are hotter in winter, and then lakes and rivers send up most
vapors, because the heat is compelled to the bottom by the prevailing
cold. Or it may be, nets do not rot at that time more than at another;
but being frozen and dried in the cold, since they are therefore the
more easily broken by the waves, they are liable to something like
putrefaction and rottenness. And they suffer most in the cold (as
strained cords are aptest to break in such a season), because then
there be most frequent storms at sea. Therefore fishermen guard their
nets with certain tinctures, for fear they should break. Otherwise
a net, neither tinged nor daubed with any thing, might more easily
deceive the fish; since line is of an air color, and is not easily
discerned in the sea.
XIV.
WHY DO THE DORIANS PRAY FOR BAD MAKING OF THEIR HAY?
Is it because hay rained upon is never well made? For the grass is
cut down green and not dry, wherefore it putrefies when wet with rain
water. But when before harvest it rains upon corn, this is a help to
it against the hot south winds; which otherwise would not let the
grain fill in the ear, but by their heat would hinder and destroy all
coalition, unless by watering the earth there came a moisture to cool
and moisten the ear.
XV.
WHY IS A FAT AND DEEP SOIL FRUITFUL OF WHEAT, AND A LEAN SOIL OF BARLEY?
Is it because a stronger grain needs more nourishment, and a weaker
a light and thin one? Now barley is weaker and laxer than wheat,
therefore it affords but little nourishment. And, as a farther
testimony to this reason, wheat, that is ripe in three months, grows
in dryer ground; because it is juiceless, and stands in need of less
nourishment, and therefore is more easily brought to perfection.
XVI.
WHY DO MEN SAY, SOW WHEAT IN CLAY AND BARLEY IN DUST?
Is the reason (as we said) because wheat takes up more nourishment;
and barley cannot bear so much, but is choked with it? Or does wheat,
because it is hard and ligneous, thrive better when it is softened
and loosened in a moist soil; and barley at the first in a dry soil,
because of its rarity? Or is the one temperament congruous and harmless
to wheat, because it is hot; and the other to barley, because it is
cold? Or are men afraid to sow wheat in a dry soil, because of the
ants, which presently lie in wait for it; but they cannot so easily
deal with barley nor carry it away, because it is a larger grain?
XVII.
WHY DO MEN USE THE HAIR OF HORSES RATHER THAN OF MARES FOR
FISHING-LINES?