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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89818	The history of magick by way of apology, for all the wise men who have unjustly been reputed magicians, from the Creation, to the present age. / Written in French, by G. Naudæus late library-keeper to Cardinal Mazarin. Englished by J. Davies.; Apologie pour tous les grands personnages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de magie. English	Naudé, Gabriel, 1600-1653.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1657 (1657)	Wing N246; Thomason E1609_1; ESTC R202977	182,379	328

man's thumbe so to represent to us in their Books atomes like Mountaines and flyes like Elephants that is magnifie the smallest faults into the greatest crimes by a childish metamorphosis of the least jealousy into truth of a hearsay into a demonstration and accidents of no consequence into prodigious and memorable Histories Whence it is not to be wonder'd at that as the higher greater things are the more subject they are to Lightning so the greatest part of those Noble Souls of past ages those tutelary Gods of Parnassus and favourites of the Muses have not been free from that of Tongues For being the principall Actors upon the Stage of this world and as much above the ordinary rate of men as they are above other Creatures their leasts faults and most in considerable misapprehensions have been more narrowly pry'd into whether it be that the least mark or mole is more obvious in an extraordinary Beauty than on some poor Baucis or Cybale or that according to the saying of the sententious Poet Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui pecat habetur However it be we may adde this cause to the precedent as one of the principall that hath caused learned men to be thought Magicians and upon account whereof the curiosity of Albertus magnus the naturall Magick of Bacon the judiciary Astrology of Chicus the Mathematicks of Sylvester and he resy of Alchindus and certaine superstitious obervations have been reputed Geotick and diabolicall Magick But it must be confess'd it is for the most part the malevolent interpretation of those who judge not of things but with misprision of Authors but by their outside and superscriptions of Books but by their titles nor of men but by their vices div●●ging what they ought in prudence to conceale and priding it not only to lay open to the world the miscarriages of all these great persons but magnifying and aggravating them purposely to prepossesse and consequently make us passe sentence against their innocence which certainly ought to have all the faire play that may be it being just to suppose it not so weak and wounded as it is represented to us Besides should we a little more narrowly search into the truth of this opinion quae mala attollit et exaggerat cothurnis quibusdam auget we shall find all these proofs resolv'd into conjectures and all these enormous crimes into certain vaine and triviall snperstitions Nor is it in the mean time any miracle at all that these glorious men in their times should somewhat degenerate that way nay endeavour to practise them when it is of ordinary experience that what is most accomplished is also most delicate and perishable Thus we find that the sharpest points are the soonest blunted the perfect'st white the most easily soyl'd the best complexion the most subject to several altrations we have it from holy Writt that the noblest of the Angels was the first that fell Having therefore thus deduc'd all the causes we could find of this suspicion as to what concernes the accused we shall in the rest of this Chapter observe five others which we may say have contributed more to the propagation of this erroneous opinion then the former These are Heresy Malice Ignorance Credulity and the Dis-circumspection and want of judgment in Authors and writers For the first it amounts to something more then a conjecture that Alchindus Peter d' Apono Arnoldus de Villa nova Riply and some others who with some reason have been suspected guilty of Heresy may without any be charg'd with Magick though Tertullian sometimes said Notata sunt etiam commercia Haereticorum cum Magis plurimis cum Circulatoribus cum Astrologis cum Philosophis Which censure be confirmes elsewhere calling Magick haereticarum opinionum auctricem Hence haply some Catholick Doctors especially Delrio and Maldonat took occasion to lay it down as a Maxime strengthened by constant experience that either the Authors and first promoters of Heresies have been themselves Magicians as Simon Magus Menander Valentinianus Carpocrates Priscillianus Berengarius and Hermogenes or that prohibited and Magical Arts have alwayes come in the neck of some heresy This they exemplify out of some Historians of Spaine who relate that after the Arrians had long continu'd therein the Devils were for a good space of time seen tormenting men there So was the heresy of Hus seconded by a great tempest of Sorcerers and Demons through Bohemia and Germany and that of the Lollards through the Apennine Hills Of this the Jesuit Maldonat gives five principall reasons which we shall not presse in this place In the second cause of suspicion we may observe that Malice sometime made Apuleius be accus'd of Magick by his wife's friends the Popes Sylvester and Gregory by the Emperours they had excommunicated and some Heretiques their implacable enemyes To which may haply be added the procedure of the English against the Mayd of Orleance who accordingly condemn'd her for a Witch whereas de Langey and du Haillan make her act another quite contrary part But if the common opinion of those who were best acquainted with her may prevaile there is little probability she should have been a Witch which is the conclusion Valerandus Varanius puts to the History he made of her Tandem collatis patres ultroque citroque Articulis flammas sub iniquo judice passam Darcida concordi decernuntore modumque Angligenas violasse fori jurisque tenorem But Learning formerly alledg'd by us as one of the principall causes of this false accusation obliges us now to say something of Ignorance its adverse party and shew how prodeminant it was as well among the Greeks before Socrates who may be called the Patriarch of Philosophy as the Latines from the times of Boetius Symmachus and Cassiodorus till the last taking of Constantinople Then indeed the world began to put on another face the Heavens to move upon new Hypotheses the Aire to be better known as to Meteors the Sea to be more open and easie the Earth to acknowledge a Sister Hemisphere men to enter into greater correspondences by Navigation Arts to be delivered of those miraculous inventions of Guns and Printing Then were the Sciences restor'd to their former lustre in Gormany by Reuchlin and Agricola in Switzerland by Erasmus in England by Linacer and Ascham in Spain by Vives and Nebrissensis in France by Faber and Budaeus in Italy by Hermolaus Politianus Picus and the Greeks who fled thither for refuge from Constantinople and lastly in all other parts of the earth by the meanes of new Characters and Printing We formerly observ'd out of Plutarch that before the revolution happening in Socrates's time it was not lawfull in Greece to advance any thing of Astrology to study the Mathematicks or professe Philosophy Thence we are now to consider what capacity may be allow'd those who suffering the best Authors to moulder away in

should have found more false than any of his Centuries And this it were the more easy to shew in that of all predictions and Prophecyes that ever came to our knowledge we have not met with any more particular then those of Nostradamus who precisely markes out all the accidents and severall Circumstances even to occurrences of litle or no concernment Whence in the first place I inferre that he could not compose those predictions by the assistance of Astrology the Authors whereof having not left us any rules whereby we might attain the knowledge of those particulars For these are no more under the juridiction of that Art by reason of the uncertain emergencies of their causes then things purely free and contingent such as are the actions that depend meerly on our will and which in regard they have not any determinate truth or falshood cannot be either known or foreseen by the help of any humane science till such time as they are present In the second place I inferre that he could not have done it by any revelation from Daemons because even they consider'd in their nature have not any knowledge of these actions which are free depend purely on our will as being not able to foresee them either in their causes or their effects Not in the former because they are uncertaine while they remaine buried in the several motions of our mind as being such as St. Paul speaks of to the Corinthians None knows the things of man but the spirit of man that is in him not in the latter as being such as cannot be known till they appear So that if we allow his prophecies any foundation it must be that of the third cause grounded on the naturall capacity men sometimes have to foretell things to come which yet is pertinently refuted by Cicero and the learned Valesius who digg up the very corner stones of this erroneous opinion To answer therefore in few words all those reasons alledged to confirme it we are indeed to acknowledge that Melancholy may by reason of its qualities make men more desirous and capable of Sciences more earnest in the disquisition of causes and more perseverant in the deepest contemplations upon any subject nay that it may cause certain motions in the soul whereby it makes sooner discoveries of the reason it would find out But we must deny that there can proceed from it this naturall Divination whereof there is not in it either the cause principles or beginnings Nor is it to be credited that old men are more likely to foretel things then others unlesse it be by way of Revelation as Jacob did or the Pope Pius V. the Archbishop Angelo Catto Of these two last the former knew by revelation that the Christians had gain'd the battel of Lepanto the other acquainted Lewis the Sixth with the death of the Duke of Burgundy at the very hour it happened And lastly for the foresight of certaine Creatures Leonard Vair will tell us that the gesture of their bodies does not portend any thing to come but only what is present that is the humid influx of the Aire which by a naturall instinct they feel in their bodies assoon as it gathers together in the Element And as to the Birds which shift Countries according to the severall seasons of the year it is not so much out of any foresight in them of Spring Winter or Autume as a certain knowledge of those vicissitudes according to the naturall alteration of their bodies proceeding meerly from heat and cold or some other quality unknown to us This premis'd I leave those to judge who are not over-easily drawn in to embrace opinions without any reason or gronnd what esteem should be had of these fine Centuries which are so ambiguous and contradictory so obscure and enigmaticall that it were no miracle if among a thousand tetrasticks whereof every one speakes commonly of five or six severall things and particularly such as ordinarily happen there comes in a Hemistick mentioning the taking of a Town in France or the death of a Grandee in Italy a plague in Spaine a Monster a great fire a victory or something of this nature as if those Emergencies were extraordinary and happen'd not at one time or other And yet this is the main motive of that little hope there is to see these prophecyes veryfi'd as being such as we cannot compare to any thing more fitly then to Therame●es's shooe which fitted all feet or that Lesbian rule which being of Lead bent it self to all figures concave oblique round and Cylindricall So may we say of this Authour that his maine designe was so to write as to avoid a clear and intelligible sense that Posterity might interpret his predictions as they pleas'd For though John Aime Chavigni one that of all others hath foolishly trifled away his paines upon all kinds of Prophecyes hath shewn in his French Janus that the greatest part of Nostradamus's predictions are accomplish'd near thirty years since yet are they still brought upon the stage when any thing remarkable falls out as for Instance those that are scatter'd abroad upon the death of the Marshall d' Ancre the great fortune of Monsieur de Luynes and the firing of the Palace and the Bridges of Paris And indeed that there are not found some upon all occasions is only because men will not be at the paines to search them out since they met with something about that imaginary monstrous fish which some years since was sold up and down in effigie and that the Author of a little book called The Chymist or French Conserver sayes very ingenuously pag. 15. that Nostradamus had spoken of him above thirty four years before he was born quoting him by his name and Armes in the 31. tetrastick of the 6th Century La Lune au plein de Nuict sur le haut mont Le nouveau Sophe d' un seul cerveau l' a veuë This he is so confident of that he affirmes it cannot possibly be meant of any other then himself for certain reasons by him layd down in the said Book But because it may be objected that the Author of the French Janus who translated divers of the Centuries into Latine verse does by the explication he makes of them evince the truth at least of some of those tetrasticks consequently that I ought not so farre to discredit them especially those whose events are yet uncertain I shall briefly answer and withall conclude this Chapter with that excellent passage of Seneca Patere etiam aliquando Mathematicos vera dicere tot sagittas cum emittant unam tangere aberrantibus caeteris To which adde that of Phanorinus in Gellius that ista omnia quae aut temerè aut astutè vera dicunt prae caeteris quae mentiuntur pars ea non sit millesima CHAP. XVII Of St. Thomas Roger Bacon Bungey Michael the Scot Johannes Picus and Trithemius I Have sometimes wondered there

according to the principles of Chymistry which put similitude and resemblance for causes of an action it is a thing may be done and demonstrated by naturall reasons In the mean time let no man perswade himself from hence that Pythagoras ever made use of this Elixir of Beans or humane blood to write upon his hollow glasse for besides the little reason there is he should rather use blood in that businesse than any other liquor Campanella proves by sound reasons that operation absolutely impossible And whereas Agrippa boasted that he knew the secret of it and Natalis Comes hath written that in the times of Francis the First and Charles the Fifth men knew at Paris in the night whatever had passed the day before in the Castle of Milan the former onely said it to gain reputation as shall be shewn more particularly in his vindication and the relation of the latter is a pure Fable and Romance advanced by those who would needs joyn Magick to the Arms of those two great Princes as hath been affirmed before of Ninus and Zoroastes Pyrrhus and Croesus Nectanebus and Philip of Macedon Whence may be inferr'd that what ever is said of this Looking-glasse of Pythagoras is as unjustly attributed to him as the superstitious Arithmetick and the wheel of Onomancie or if he ever made use of it it was certainly some game imposture or juggling trick and to conclude with Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We may well passe the same sentence on the the relation of Laertius concerning the golden thigh of this Philosopher since Plutarch openly acknowledges that it was a pure stratagem of Pythagoras to gain him the reputation of some Heros or Demy-God among the infinite number of people that came to the Olympick exercises Which yet does not prejudice the probability there is that that golden thigh was not attributed to him by the Ancients but in some allegoricall and morall sense yet not such as Alchymists imagine who think that Pandora's box Jason's fleece Sisiphus's stone and Pythagoras's golden thigh are the true Hieroglyphicks of their Philosophers stone But much more likely it was as Calcagnin makes it when he sayes in the explication of the particular marks of all the old Philosophers that Phythagorae rerum abditarum pretium excellens indicatura femur aureum fecit Nor indeed is there any reason this thigh should be taken literally or that we should beleeve it was of massie gold as the tooth of the Silesiun youth who liv'd within these fourty yeers not onely by reason of the impossibility of it both in Nature and Art but also for the disagreement of Authours speaking of it some cited by Delrio affirming it to be a golden river which he made to run at the Olympick games others that it was his reall thigh according to Aelian Plutarch Laertius and Lucian But the more probable opinion is that of Origen that it was of Ivory it being easie to imagine that it was the naturall thigh of Pythagoras which being fair white and smooth was haply celebrated by some of his friends with a similitude to Ivory a comparison we find Solomon makes use of when he commends his Spouse Thy belly is of Ivory thy neck is as a Tower of Ivory Adde to this that the Gods could not think of a fitter materiall to make Pelops a shoulder than this because of the colour and other relations there are between Ivory and a delicate and smooth fleshinesse such as haply was that of this so much talk'd of thigh of Pythagoras The reputation of all these miraculous operations gave occasion to say he was saluted by the genius of a river which Laertius sayes was that of Nessus Apollonius Dyscolus that of Samus and Porphyrius that of Caucasus which diversity shews what account we should make of such a salutation as cannot but be fabulous unlesse to save the credit of these Authors we should say it was another politick sleight of Pythagoras such as I have read of Mahomet who having hid one of his Companions under ground had instructed him when he heard him passing by with a great multitude of people to cry out through a Trunk that Mahomet was the great Prophet sent from the Living God Which having done with care he was very ill rewarded for it for Mahomet desirous the cheat of the miracle should never be discover'd entreated those that were about him to marke the place where they had had so strange a revelation by raising there a great heap of stones which they immediately did with such devotion that the poor subterranean Angell was presently buried under the weight of such a masse and Pyramid Were I not affraid while I would deliver Pythagoras out of one danger to make him fall into another and represent him as an impostor and crafty Polititian to take away from him the imputation of a Magician I should with the same explication answer what is said of his appearance on the same day at the same hour in the two several Cities of Crotona and Metapont For it being a thing absolutely impossible as to men whose essence requires no lesse union as to their own particular then seperation from all other and not happening by divine permission as the apparitions of some Saints in severall places at the same time as those of St. Ambrose Agatha Nicholas and Benedict we must conclude that either it is a pure Chimera and fiction which I think the most probable or that it was effected by the Subtlety of Pythagoras who caus'd his gestures and person to be acted by one of his Disciples or Companions whom he sent in his name to talke with some simple man or woman of either of those two Cities Nor indeed needed there any more to raise the report of that miraculous apparition which ought rather to be thus reconcil'd then to have any recourse to spirits and Daemons For it brings with it no difficulty or inconvenience besides that Laertius gives such another interpretation of what Hermippus affirmes of Pythagoras's descent into Hell and Plutarch of the tales were made of his Golden thigh and the Eagle which he had so well instructed that he made him descend when he would upon his head as they say Mahomet did his Pidgeon Yet it should seeme by his story of the Eagle that Pythagoras was well acquainted with that part of Magick which consists in Ligatures if we had not sufficient reasons to answer whatever may be said of the power he had over certain creatures For if it be objected that he brought up a Bear familiarly in his lodgings what reason is there to conclude he had tam'd it by Magick since that not to mention that which was Paris's Nurse or another which St. Corbinian made to carry his Luggage instead of the Asse whom it had devour'd the two Bears called Mica aurea and Innocentia which the Emperour Valentinian caus'd to be brought up

treated only of the offices and duties of the Priests and the Philosophy of the Greeks such as it had been in Numa's time to that of Cassius Hemina they treated only of the Philosophy of Pythagoras and to that of Lactantius Varro and Tuditanus they contain'd only the order and causes of the sacrifices and ceremonies he had instituted amongst the Romans Which last opinion I think the more probable beause it discovers the reason why the Senate thought it not convenient they should be divulg'd for since we find in Plutarch that Numa forbad the Romans to believe that God had the forme either of Man or Beast and to make any image or Statue of him which was observ'd for the space of 70. years and permitted not they should do sacrifice but with the powring out of wine milk and a litle flower it is probable he had given reasons at large in his Books of that new kind of worship These coming to light and acknowledg'd for his four thousand years after as Plutarch affirmes or according to Cassius Hemina 535. when the City of Rome was so full of Idols ut facilius esset Deum quàm hominem invenire and that all the temples continually sweltered in the blood of the Victims it is I say easily conjectur'd that the Books of this Roman Trismegistus who in Juvenal passes for the example of a great Priest were burnt by order of the Senate for fear lest some great change might happen in Religion if by the perusall of those Books it had been known what reasons Numa insisted on both to establish the purity of his Sacrifices and to cleanse men's mind from Idolatry which had taken such root there at the time of this discovery that the best expedient was to destroy those Books which were otherwise likely to put the whole Roman Monarchy into disturbance it being a maxime among Politicians that the troubles dissentions in the State are ever consequential to those that happen in Religion This in my judgment was the true cause of the condemnation of these books and not that which le Loyer and other modernes have endeavoured to find out in Magick or yet what Cassius Hemina who might haply live in Augustus's time seems to relate of their treating of the Philosophy of Pythagoras For as to the former his opinion being without any ground or Authority eâdem facilitate contemnitur quâ affertur For that of the latter it is sufficiently refuted not only in what we have shew'd before that Pythagoras was latter then Numa and that this last came not into Italy according to Gellius till the raign of Tarquin the proud but also by the testimony and contrary opinion of Livy who saies that one Antius Valerius gave the same judgment of these Books Vulgatae opinioni as he adds quâ creditur Pythagorae auditorem fuisse Numam mendacio probabili accommodatâ fide After all which answers and solutions all I have to wish is that our Daemonographers would own either more modesty or more judgment that they may not hereafter so indiscreetly forge such Monsters and Chimeras as afrerwards frighten them and make them run away and cry like little Children who are many times startled at the dirt they cast in the faces of their companions quasi quicquam infelicius sit homine cui sua figmenta dominantur CHAP. XII Of Democritus Empedocles and Apollonius I Should never have presum'd to remove the precious and venerable bounds of Antiquity which the God Terminus in the fabulous Theologie of the Romans signify'd to us immoveable did I not somewhat rely on its being called by Arnobius errorum plenissima mater so far at least as to be satisfi'd it was no sacriledge to bring that to the test which hath been held for true And this I do after so many ages as by their long and various revolutions are wont as well in Civill History as naturall to dragge after them along traine of fables and from time to time to give them new force and vigour by the multitude of those who out of meer respect to Antiquity are ensnar'd by them And indeed it were too great a severity to be oblig'd to follow the superstitious track of those who will not do the least violence to Antiquity which as if our eyes were not able to endure a full light puts a cobweb before them and burdens all things especially the memory and lives of great persons with fables and fictions as it does the Statues erected to them with dust and filth This our designe leades us to maintain by the examples of these three great Philosophers or rather Daemons of knowledge vers'd in all Sciences and the chiefest and of greatest Authority among their people that is Democritus Empedocles and Apollonius These have undergone such a change and Metamorphosis by those who make it their businesse to write without minding that precept of Horace Quid de quoque viro cui dicas saepe caveto that besides that they are delivered over to us all three for Sorcerers and enchanters it is further believ'd that Democritus was such a foole as to put out his own eyes after he had blown away his estate in a fruitlesse search of the Philosophers stone and that Empedocles as an ambitious Desperado cast himself into the burning furnaces of Mount Gibel Deus immortalis haberi Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Aetnam Insiluit But these calumnies are so far from being true or well grounded that on the contrary there 's nothing easier then to shew how they are absolutely false if we may bestow but a few lines on them before we come to joyn issue with the most materiall part of the Charge put in against the reputation and Learning of these excellent Persons For first as to the Book of the Sacred Art and the knowledge and practice of Alchymy attributed to Democritus it is a symptome that signifies the deprav'd imaginations of our Furnace-Imps who know no other project to gaine any credit to the Books of their Art than to father them on Moses Salomon Trismegistus Aristotle nay such is their stupidity and want of judgment Adam ut authoritatem videlicet sumat ab homine quae non habet ex veritate But to make an absolute discovery of this imposture sufficiently laugh'd at by Riolanus Guibert and Semertus we may affirme that this Book was never made by Democritus since the learned Mercurial assures us that Chymistry was not known at all in Aristotle's time and that Delrio shewes there is no track of it in any good Author till from Caligula's time when it first broke the shell till that of Dioclesian under whom lived one Zozimus who as Delrio thinks is the most ancient Greek that hath written of it To which may be added that Casaubon saies he saw in the K. of France his Library a manuscript treating of the making of Gold entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

excellently learned and well vers'din the Alcoran undertook without any other assistance than that of an Astrologer that seconded him with his predictions and the great opinion men had of his life to crowne King of Africk the Son of a Potter a poor and necessitous man called Abdelmon To effect which with more ease he first got some followers by the introduction of a new Heresy and then perceiving himself sufficiently seconded so far as to engage in the publick Affairs and to reforme them at his pleasure he began to propose that Abdelmon was a person rai●'d up by God who through his meanes would plant the holy Alphurcanistick Law through all the world His next businesse was to preach down the race of the Almoravides calling them Tyrants and Usurpers as such as had driven out the family of the Alabeci and the blood of their Prophet Mahomet This done he set upon the person of the Caliph of Baldac high Prist of their Law and did so well by the force of his perswasions that having gottten this Abdelmon the assistance of the greatest part of the Nobility there happened a great battle between them wherein the King Albohaly Aben Tessin being kill'd in the year 1147. this Noble Potter Abdelmon was made King and Miramomelin of Africk From this story I leave men to judge whether Savonarala might not governe at Florence quando as Paulus Jovius speaking of him well observes nihil validius esset ad persuadendum spec●e ipsa pietatis in qua etiam tuendae Libertatis studium emineret I should have left Michael Nostradamus out of this Apology were it not to adde some lustre to so many excellent persons by the temerarious ignorance and little merit of this upstart prophet as the sparkling of a Diamond is heightned by a little foile Or rather to imitate that great Julius Caesar Scaliger who having pass'd his judgment on the most famous Poets would needs give the same upon Rhodophilus and Dolet alledging by way of excuse that it was in imitation of Aristotle who in the same Book treats of living Creatures and their ordure and excrements This may I much more apply to this Monster of abuses whose li●e I shall not set forth according to its principall circumstances since they are so flat and pittifull that no Historian hath yet medled with them but the Author of the French Janus and the Pleiades it being my businesse only to observe the vanity of his Designes For not content to have cheated us in his praedictions which he printed at the beginning of every year from 1550. till 1567. he further im●gin'd that he might easily blast the memory of Merlin Telesphorus Cataldus Lolhardus Joachim Savonarola Laurentio Miniati Antonio Torquatö and all those that had dabled in predictions by the reputation he was in hope to gaine by publishing a Decad of Centuries upon the future state of all things in the world These were no sooner abroad but they immediately got him a quite contrary repute some as Ro●sard and Monluc not knowing what to say to their falling out true sometimes and others looking on them as lyes fooleries and impostures and containing such a diversity of crafty ambiguities that it were in a manner impossible not to find something among so many thousands of tetrasticks upon any occasion a man can propose to himself Accordingly did some take thence occasion to make sport with those falsities among whom the most ingenious was he who without charging him with contradictions or calling him Monstre d' abus and Monstra-damus as divers did onely sent him this Distick Nostra damus cum verba damus nam fallere nostrum est Et cum verba damus nil nisi nostra damus But as there is no Cause so desperate which in time meets not with some that will patronise it so much it be acknowledg'd that there are a many hollow braines and minds fit only to receive any thing that is extravagant and that without any examination who think their pockets empty without these Centuries which they idolise as Humanists do Petronius and Politicians Tacitus looking on them as more infallible then the Gospell and making it appear on all occasions that happen daily though ever so triviall Virg. geor 4. Novit namque omnia vates Quae sint fuerint quae mox ventur● trahantur Yet does not this Idolatry hinder but that among those who admire them so much it is a controversy by what meanes the Authour could arrive to such a certain knowledge of things to come Some hold he got it by the practise of judiciall Astrology others that it was reveal'd to him by the meanes of some familiar Daemon and a third sort that he had no other assistance then that of the capacity of the humane Soul to foretell things to come For according to the opinion of Avicenna when she is disengag'd from the government of the body she suffers a certain paralysis and leaves it as it were buried in the masse of its terrestriall Element that so she may be free to consider what is at the greatest distance from her Then it is that shee sees things to come as present which she could not have done while the exigencies of the body divert her from this contemplation And this happens for the most part when being forc'd against her naturall motion by the violent agitation of Melancholly she displayes and discovers what is most hidden in her that is her divine and celestiall forces and faculties so that there is nothing hinders her from exceeding her ordinary Limits and arriving to the knowledge of things to come Of this we have some experience in old men who being in the utmost declination of their age do often foretell what afterwards comes to passe as if the soul by a certain anticipation were already at Liberty To strengthen this last opinion they adde that were some reason to charge Nature with a certaine discare of mankind if she deny'd this perfection to man when we see the birds call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messengers of the Gods as Euripides terms them and severall other Creatures foretel by the disposition of the Aire the changes of seasons wind raine fair weather tempests and all this without any other instruction than that of their naturall instinct I have been more particular in this last cause then in the other two because Nostradamus himself confesses in his Epistle to the three Centuries dedicated to Henry the second of France that he uttered his predictions rather through a naturall instinct attended by a Poeticall fury then by any assistance of the rules of Poesy though he had reconcil'd them to astronomicall Calculations But since the truth reputation of that so Mysterious book cannot subsist but by one of these three reasons they certainly are to be blam'd for their over-credulity who would ground the Authority of this Fortune-teller upon causes which if they had well examined them they