to move in one Superficies No less contention there is among them about the distance and bigness of the Sun Moon and the rest of the Stars fixed and wandring Neither is there indeed any constancy of Opinions among them nor truth of Assertion and no wonder when the Heaven it self which they so much endeavour to search and dive into is the most inconstant of all and crowded with Fables and Fictions for all the Twelve Signes with the Northern and Southern Constellations got all into Heaven by the help of Fables and by these Fables Astrologers live cheat and get money while the Poets their Inventors are ready to starve for hauger CHAP. XXXI Of Judicial Astrology THere is another part of Astrology remaining which they call the Divining or Fore-telling Part otherwise call'd Judicial Astrology which Treats of the Revolutions of the Years of the World of Nativities of Horary Questions and by what sort of means to foretel and know Future Events and the Secrets of Divine Providence thereby to avoid ill Success and secure the undertaker of Prosperity Astrologers therefore borrow the Effects and Influences of the Stars from the most remote Ages of the World beyond the memory of things even before the days of Prometheus and from Conjunctions that were before the Flood pretending themselves able to display the hidden Natures Qualities and Effects of all sorts of Animals Stones Metals and Plants and whatever else being part of the Creation and to shew how the same do depend on the Skies and flow from the Stars and partake of their Influences A most credulous sort of People and no less impious not acknowledging this one thing That God made the Plants Herbs and Trees before the Heavens and the Stars The gravest Philosophers also as Pythagoras Democritus Bion Phavorinus Panetius Carneades Possidonius Timaeus Aristotle Plato Plotinus Porphyrius Avicen Averroes Hippocrates Galen Alexander Aphrodisius Cicero Seneca Plutarch and many others who have diligently laboured in the search of the Causes of Things through all Arts and Sciences never do remit us to these Astrological Causes which although they might be allow'd for Causes yet when they themselves do not rightly understand the Course of the Stars which is most evident to all wise men they can never be able to give a certain judgment of their Effects Neither are there others wanting among them as Eudoxus Archelaus Cassandrus Hoychilax Halicarnassaeus and many others of later date grave in esteem who confess That 't is impossible that any thing of certainty should be found out by the Art of Judicial Astrology by reason of the innumerable co-operating Causes that attend the Heavenly Influences and so Ptolomy is also of Opinion both for that there are many occasions of Obstruction as Customs Manners Education Vertue Empire Place Geniture Blood Diet Libertie of Will and Learning as also for that as they say the Influences do not compel but incline Furthermore they who have prescrib'd the Rules of Judgments set down their Maxims so various and contradictory that it is impossible for a Prognosticator out of so many various and disagreeing Opinions to be able to pronounce any thing certain unless he be inwardly Inspir'd with some secret and hidden instinct and Sence and of future things or unless by some occult and latent Communication of the Devil he be enabled with a discerning faculty which two means he that wants can never be a true Prophet in Astrological Judgments Astrological Prediction not depending upon Art but meerly upon obscure Chance And as young People light upon such or such verses in Fortune-Books not by Art but by Chance so Prophesies flow from the brest of an Astrologer by the same Chance and not by Art which Ptolomy witnesses saying The knowledge of the Stars is in thee and thence proceeds thereby intimating that the Prediction of hidden and future things is not attain'd to so much by Observation of the Stars as of the qualities and affections of the Mind There is no certainty therefore in this Art applicable to all things according to Opinion which Opinion is gathered and delivered from Conjectures through an unperceiveable Inspiration of the Devil or else by meer Chance therefore is this Art no more than a fallacious Conjecture of Superstitious men who by the Experience of long time have attain'd to some insight into uncertain things wherewith to such out a little money they many times deceive the ignorant and are as often deceiv'd for if their Art were true and rightly understood by them whence so many Errors and Deceits continually swimming in their Prognostications and if not true do they not vainly foolishly and wickedly profess the Knowledge of things which are not or are not rightly understood But the more cautious among them will not utter their Prognostications but in obscure and ambiguous terms and which may be apply'd to all things times Princes and Nations whatever If any thing which they have said do come to pass then they Collect together the Causes thereof confirming after the thing is apparent their old Prophesies by new Reasons that they may seem to have foreseen like your Interpreters of Dreams upon the relation of a Dream know nothing of certainty but apply their Interpretation to that which happens afterwards Furthermore seeing it is impossible in so great a number of Stars but that we must find some in bad some in good Positions they take occasion from thence of speaking to whom and what they please foretelling Life Death Health Honours Wealth Power Victory Off-spring Friends Marriage Magistracy and many other things To others from a bad Position foretelling Death Hanging Shame Overthrows Barrenness Sickness and Misfortunes not by the power of their wicked Art but by a wicked stupefaction of the Mind and forcing a necessity of Actions concurring to such Events drawing credulous people to their ruine causing also among Princes and Nations most severe Wars and Seditions Now if it happen that fortune jumps with any of their Prognostications that among so many ambiguous Vaticinations one or other happen to prove true how they strut and crow and fall into raptures and high admiration of themselves If they be found to lye continually and be still convinc'd of falshood then they excuse it with Blasphemy fortifying one Lye with another saying That a wise man has power over the Stars whereas in truth neither the Stars are govern'd by wise men nor wise men by the Stars but both are govern'd by God or else they cry That the unaptness of the subject or the solly of the party was an obstruction of the Influences but if ye require more of them they are angry Yet these Fortune-tellers do finde entertainment among Princes and Magistrates from whom they receive considerable Salaries whereas there is indeed no sort or generation of men more pernicious to a Commonwealth than those that undertake to prognosticate by the Stars by Dreams or any other Artifices of Divination and scatter their Prophesies
if Physick which ought to restore the temperament of Health consist in proportion and temperament of things both between themselves and also with the bodies to which they are attributed and that it was the most diligent care of the Physician to proportion and temper Medicaments and to leave um so temper'd by just and harmonical weight and proportion to the bodies and tempers of the sick what a strange arrogance and impudence is it for others not onely to change but to adde sometimes to neglect sometimes to know nothing thereof Whence it follows that as the agreeing temperament of a Medicament brings Health so the disproportionate mixture causes Pain increases the disease and brings death And therefore a Country-woman shall cure more safely with a Garden-receipt than a proud Physician with all his prodigious costly and conjectural Medicaments Many most excellent Physicians were of opinion that the best way of Curing was by simple Medicaments To which purpose having searcht into the qualities of Simples and found them out they have left us famous Volumes upon those Subjects as Chrysippus of the Colewort Pythagoras of the Onyon Marchion of the Raddish Diocles of the Turnep Phanias of the Nettle Apuleius of Betony and many others of other Herbs and Roots But your Shop-physicians so little regard these things that they contemn um call them Simpletons that take notice of Simples But those Physicians that make use of Simple Medicaments I aver are the persons to be both followed and consulted But for your Shop Doctors I wish all people to avoid um as meer Hocus-pocus's and Witches living upon our deaths by means of their prodigious Compositions and meerly making a Lottery of our lives For seeing that compounded Medicaments must of necessity consist of such things whose qualities are altogether disagreeing and repugnant it is very difficult if not altogether impossible to promise any thing of Certainty but onely by Thought Conjecture and Opinion and when there are innumerable things which singly might be advantageous the Physician onely jumbles those together which Chance and Fortune offer to his memory Whence it happens that that compounded Medicament receives its efficacie not from the qualities of the Simple Ingredients but from the Fancie and Unluckie choice of the Physician while he by some secret and hidden motive whether Natural Celestial Demoniacal or Fortuitous is prompted to chuse this or that thing before another And indeed this is the vulgar Saying and which they themselves confess that one Physician is more fortunate than another and that many times the Ignorant proves more successful than the Learned I my self have known and seen a most Learned Physician under whose Cure very few have escaped I have known another half-witted fellow that has happily cur'd not onely his own Patient but those who have been left in a desperate condition by others And I remember I have read of a Physician that cur'd all Noble-men and rich men that fell into his cure but all his Patients that were of a mean condition either dy'd or run very great hazards Hence we may easily see that this Shop-physick where the good Fortune rather than Learning of the Physician prevails is to be lookt upon onely as a piece of Fortune-telling and to be exploded and condemned onely as an art of Murther and Witchcraft Which made the Romans when Cato was Câ—nsor to expel all Physicians not onely cut of Rome but out of all Italy as abominating their Cruelty and Lying for that they kill'd more than they heal'd and for that being very dextrous at poysoning by Hatred Ambition or Gain they were easily hir'd to administer Poyson with their Physick and for Reward to entrap the lives of men Thus the Physician of Pyrrhus whether Timocharis according to Gellius or Nacias as others report who promis'd Fabricius to poyson his Lord and King but Fabricius detesting the fact admonisht Pyrrhus in a Letter to have a care of his Physician of which Clandian thus writes The Romans for their vertue ever fam'd The traytor and his treason still condemn'd Fabricius nobly to his foe declares What his own servant 'gainst his life prepares He fairly taught to vanquish that his War All acts of secret treason did abhor Cato in Pliny writes to his son about the Physicians of the Greeks They have sworn to kill all the Barbarians with their Physick but this they do for Money to gain Credit that they may make the quicker dispatch And a little after the addes Whence then proceeded so many cheats in Wills the same means they have now to hide Adulteries as by the example of Eudemus in Livia wife of Drusus Caesar. Socates also in Plato advises not to let Physicians multiply in a Citie It were very convenient for the Commonwealth that there were none or very few and that there were a Law to make their Unskilfulness and Negligence capital For it is a Capital crime and it matters not whether a Physician have endangered a mans life by Folly or Negligence by Ignorance or Malice unwittingly or designedly and that there should not be such an Impunity for Physicians to destroy Mankinde who have onely this common honour with the Hangman to be hired to kill men and onely to be rewarded for Murther for which all other men are condemn'd without mercy This is the difference between the one and the other That the Hangman puts none to death but what have receiv'd sentence of death by the Judges the Physician destroys the Innocent without any sentence past Therefore the Pontifical Constitutions forbid Clergie-men to practise Physick as if they might be as lawfully Hang-men as Clergie-men Not imprudently also Cato prosecuted them as being such as strive to increase the Fame of their Art by Novelty and when they have nothing new try their Experiments with the hazard of our lives and learn their Art by prolonging and increasing our distempers to their own profit and advantage also Therefore to remedy this mischief the Aegyptians had a Law that the first three days the Physician was to cure the sick with the hazard of the Patients life after three days at the peril of his own CHAP. LXXXIV Of Apothecaries ANd now for their Cooks whom they call Apothecaries the Titles of whose Boxes contain Remedies the Boxes themselves Poyson or as Homer signs Compounded Medicines many hurtful many good For when they themselves will be aâ— no loss they compel us to purchase our deaths at great prices while they causing us to take one thing for another or mixing some old rotten Druggs whose vertues are quite lost they many times give us a deadly Drink in stead of a Restorative Potion while they buy old Emplaisters Unguents Collyries and Pill-messes made for gain of the dregs of the Druggs and not able to discern otherwise are cheated with the Sophistications of the barbarous Merchants I could here shew their most pernicious Quarrels about the simple Medicines which they use and their Errours about the Names
spoken to contentious Theosophists but to the true Divines Apostles Evangelists and Messengers of the Word of God who say I dare not utter any thing which Christ doth not work by me Therefore the Traditions of these Divines concerning Faith and Godliness are truely Theological To the Writings and sayings of these men we give credit as being founded not upon contentious Syllogisms or Opinions of men but as S. Paul saith being divinely inspired not in defining compounding dividing contemplating after the manner of Philosophers but in an essential contact of Divinity apprehended through a clear vision in the divine light it self of which vision we finde several sorts in the holy Scripture as the Prophets had several dispositions to receive For we read how some saw God or Angels in the forms of men others in the shape of Fire others in the similitude of Air or Wind others in the shape of Rivers or Water others in the form of Birds Precious Stones or Metals others in the forms of Letters or Characters others in the sound of a Voice others in Dreams others in a Spirit residing within themselves others in the work of the Understanding And therefore the Scripture calls all Prophets Seers Thus we read of The Visions of Isaias The Visions of Jeremy The Visions of Ezekiel and the rest And under the New law S. John faith I was in the Spirit upon the Lords day On the wings whereof he was carried and beheld the Throne of God And Paul witnesses that he saw those things which it is not lawful for men to utter And this Vision is called a Rapture or Ecstasie or spiritual death Concerning this death it is said No man shall see God and live And in another place Precious in the sight of God is the death of his Saints And it is more clearly expressed by the Apostle where he says You are dead and your life is hid with Christ. And it is necessary for him to die this death that will pierce into the secrets of Prophetick Theologie Now there is a double sight of this Deifick vision One when God is seen face to face and then the Prophets see what S. Paul faith Things which are not fit for men to utter and which no tongue of men or Angels can express nor Pen unfold There is also a certain contact or union of the Divine Essence and an illustration or enlightning of the pure and separate Intellect without appearance of any shape or likeness This Divines call The Meridional Understanding Of which S. Augustin upon Genesis and Origen against Celsus largely dispute The other sort of Seeing is that by which we see the hinder parts of God when the creatures which are the hinder parts or effects of God are understood with a more exalted judgement as by the knowledge whereof the Creator the chief workman and the First Cause that moves all things is the better known as the Wiseman faith From the bigness of the kinde and of the creature may be known the Creator of things And Paul also about the same subject The invisible things of God are known being understood by these things which are made And it is an usual Saying among the Peripateticks that they who argue from the Effects to the Causes are said to argue à posteriori from the hinder part Moses enjoyed both these Visions as the Scriptures witness Of the first we read that Moses saw God face to face As to the other we read what God spake to him Thou shalt see my hinder parts And by the means of this later Vision Moses made a Law instituted Sacrifices and Ceremonies built a Tabernacle and other Mysteries according to the most elaborate Exemplar of the whole world comprehending all the secret works of God and Nature therein This Vision is again twofold for we either behold the creature in God himself which Divines call The Morning-vision or else we behold God himself in the creatures There is also another Prophetick Vision in Dreams thus we read in Matthew how the angel of God appeared to Joseph in a dream And in another place that the Magi who ador'd Christ were admonisht in a dream that they should return another way into their own Country There are in the Old Testament many Examples thereof Now what this Vision is Job expounds where he says In the horrour of nocturnal visions when sleep falleth upon men and they sleep in their beds then he opens their ears and teaching them instructs them with learning And this being a fourth species of Vision is called Nocturnal There are also two other kindes of Prophecie the one receiv'd by word of mouth and thus was Moses enlightened and taught in Mount Sinai Abraham Jacob Samuel and many other Prophets under the Old Law Under the New Law the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were taught by the mouth of Christ he being alive among them There is another sort of Prophecie which consists in the agitation of the Spirit while the soul ravisht away by some Deity then joyn'd to that and abstracted from the body of man is by the same Spirit fill'd with Knowledge beyond humane strength or wit Which ravishment is not performed always by Angels but sometimes by the Spirit of God as we read of Saul that the Spirit of God came upon him and he prophesied and was changed into a new man and numbered among the Prophets And in the Acts of the Apostles the Spirit of God came upon them that were baptized in flames of fire Which Spirit also many times seizes upon men that are liable to sin so that there were many Prophets among the Gentiles as Cassandra Helenus Calchas Ampharans Tiresias Mopsus Amphilochus Polybius Corinthus also Galanus the Indian Socrates Diotyma Anaximander Epimenides the Cretan Also the Magi among the Persians Brachmans among the Indians Gymnosophists among the Aethiopians Druids among the Gauls and Sibyls among the Romans To which Prophetick seizure of the Spirit many times certain previous Ceremonies authority of Function and communion of sacred Mysteries do very much conduce as the Scripture amply declares concerning Balaam and in other places by the application of the Ephod And the Evangelist witnesses concerning Caiaphas that he prophesied being high priest that year Hence the Mecubals among the Hebrews adventured to counterfeit their Artificial Prophecie I omit what the Hebrews have written concerning the Two and thirty paths of Wisdom and what S. Austin has toucht upon concerning the Degrees or Albertus in his reception of Forms of which he reckons up seven Apparitions in Dreams and as many waking So we read in Plato and Proculus of Socrates that he was not inspired by an intelligible influx but by voice and familiar speech But these things come to pass more easily in Dreams But let us return to our purpose Now therefore Prophetick Theologie is that which by an Intuitive Inspiration teaches the unshaken Word of God But the Authority and Arguments by which that Truth is confirm'd are
moderate Banquet unless he were mad Dancing being always the Companion and Attendant upon immoderate Feasts and inordinate Plays We must therefore necessarily conclude that Dancing brings up the rere of all Vices Neither is it hard to tell what evils come many times to pass through idle Discourse and Toying At such time as Youth in the heat of Dancing uses antick Gestures and makes a hideous stamping noise skipping to wanton Tunes and the sound of obscene Airs then are Virgins and Matrons handled with shameless hands tempted with immodest Kisses and lustful Embraces then what Nature hides and Modesty vails Wantonness discovers and civil sport becomes the pretence of wickedness An Exercise not sprung from Heaven but invented by the Devil in defiance of Divinity so that when the Children of Israel had erected themselves a Calf in the Wilderness they sacrific'd thereto eating and drinking and afterwards rising up to play they fell to Singing and Dancing CHAP. XIX Of Gladiatory Dancing NEither must I here omit to tell ye that there are many other sorts of Dancing the greatest part whereof are now laid aside others still in use for example Dancing in Arms proper onely to Gladiators and Souldiers a Tragical invention to kill the Innocent in sport making it a great infamy for a man to receive his deaths wound for want of Agility A hateful Invention Folly and Impiety mix'd together And indeed all sorts of Dancing as they are full of vanity and shamelesness are not onely to be disprais'd but utterly abominated seeing they teach nothing but a wonderful mystery how to run mad CHAP. XX. Of Stage-Dancing STage-dancing was design'd for Imitation and Demonstration whereby to explain things conceiv'd in the minde by the gestures of the body so cleerly and perspicuously representing manners and affections that the Spectator shall understand the Player by the motion of his body though he say not a word So far the excellency of this Art appears that without the help of an Interpreter while the Actors by motion represent an Old Man a Young Man a Woman a Servant a Drunkard an angry Person or of any other condition or affection whatsoever the Spectator at a distance hearing nothing of the story shall be able to understand the subject of the Play This brought Stage-players into great request as Macrobius witnesseth so that Cicero was wont to contend with Roscius who was also very intimate with Sylla the Dictator who should plainest and soonest and with most variety express the same Sentence whether the one by Gesticulation or the other in set Language which encourag'd Roscius to write a Treatise wherein he compares Stagemotion or Action with Eloquence But the Massilienses great preservers of serious Gravity would not endure a Stage-player among them for that most of their Arguments consisting in the repetition of Rapes and Adulteries they thought the often seeing thereof would accustom men to the practise of such things In fine it is not onely a dishonest and wicked Calling to exercise Stage-playing but also a matter of great dishonour to behold them for the pleasure of lascivious minds often degenerates into wickedness So that of old there was no name so ignominious as that of a Stage-player who by the Laws was made incapable of all Honour and honourable Society CHAP. XXI Of Rhetorism THere was also a Rhetorical Gesticulation not much differing from Stage-action but more careless which Socrates Plato Cicero Quintilian and most of the Stoicks have deem'd most necessary and commendable in a Rhetorician and an Orator as teaching a graceful gesture of the Body and composure of the Countenance seeing that the vigour of the Eye the sound of the Voice accommodated to the signification of Words and Sentences together with a decent motion of the Body and managment of the Countenance adde much to the force and efficacy of Oration But this Histrionical-Rhetorical Gesticulation began at length to be little us'd while Tiberius admonishes Augustus That he should speak with his Mouth and not with his Fingers and is now quite laid aside unless it be among some Mimmick Friers whom you â—hall see now adays with a strange labour of the Voice making a thousand faces looking with their Eyes like men distracted throwing their Arms about dancing with their Feet lasciviously shaking their Loyns with a thousand sundry sorts of wreathings wrestings turnings this way and that way of the whole Body proclaiming in their Pulpits their frothy Declamations to the People mindful perhaps of that Answer of Deâ—nosthenes reported in Valerius Maximus who being ask'd what was most efficacious in speaking reply'd Hypocrisie and Counterfeiting and being asked over and over again still made the same Answer as before testiâ—ying thereby that the whole force of Perswasion lay therein But that we may not digress too far from the Mathematicks let us return to Geometry CHAP. XXII Of Geometry THis is that Geometry which Philo the Jew calls the Principle and Mother of all Arts and has this Excellency above the rest that whereas there are manifold Contentions among the Professors of all other Arts the Masters of this Science generally agree in their Problems neither is there any great matter of debate among them but only as to Points Lines and Superficies whether they be divisible or no but they differ not from one another either in Doctrine or Tradition only every one strives to excel the other in the Invention of new Subtilties and in making additions to what is already found out Yet there is no Geometrician that could ever find out the right Quadrature of a Circle or the Line truly Equal to the side though Archimedes of Syracuse and after him many even to our times pretended to have found the same out This we may say That there are very few or none that do acquiesce in the Traditions and Axioms of their Predecessors and therefore while they go about to be still adding something which their Masters left Imperfect they run themselves into such an extremity of Madness which all the Hellebore in the World is not able to Purge away To this Geometry which instructs us in Lineaments Forms Intervals Magnitudes Bodies Dimensions Weights belongs the Art of making all Mechanick Engines and Instruments appertaining to the Mechanick Arts all Engines of War and Architecture as Battering Rams Tortoises Catapults Scaling-Ladders moving Towers Ships Gallies Bridges Carts Carriages Wheels Bars together with all those Engines by which great and massie Weights are moved and lifted up with little help and much ease Besides these all those pieces of Art that move by the assistance of Weight Wind Water Ropes or Lines as Clocks Hydraulick Organs By this Art Mercury is said to have made certain Idols among the Egyptians that made an Articulate noise with their Tongues and could walk several Paces Architas the Tarentine is also said to have made a Dove so exactly by rules of Geometry that the Figure would move and fly of it self And Archimedes is
Principal Part of the substance of the Soul Aristotle believes the Intellect to be present only Potentially in the Soul and that Actually it works from without neither that it conduces to the Essence or Nature of Man but only to the Perfection of Knowledge and Contemplation Therefore he affirms That few Men and those only Philosophers are endu'd with Actual Understanding And indeed there is a great Dispute among Divines whether according to the Opinion of Plato the Souls of Men after they are Departed from the Body do retain any Memory of things done while the Body was alive or whether they altogether want the Knowledge thereof which the Tomists together with their mighty Aristotle firmly assert And the Carthusians confirm it from the Testimony of a certain Parisian Divine returning from Hell who being ask'd what Knowledge he had left him return'd Answer That he understood nothing but Pain and then citing the words of Solomon There is no understanding no knowledge no wealth in Hell he seem'd to them to make it out that after Death there was no Knowledge of any thing which notwithstanding is not only manifestly against the Opinion of the Platonicks but repugnant to the Authority and Truth of the Scripture it self also which teaches That the wicked shall see and know that he is God and that they shall give an account not only of aâ—l their Deeds but of all their idle Words and Thoughts Moreover there are some that have adventur'd to write and report many things concerning the Apparition of separated Souls and those oft-times repugnant both to the Doctrine of the Gospel and the sacred Text. For whereas the Apostle teaches us That we ought not to believe the Angels from heaven if they should preach otherwise than what is delivered yet the Gospel is so much out of date with them that they will rather believe one come from the Dead than the Prophets Moses Apostles or Evangelists Of this Opinion was the Rich Man in the Gospel who believed that his Brothers and Kindred living would give credit to any one that were sent from the Dead To whom so vainly Conjecturing Abraham made answer If they will not believe Moses and the Prophets neither will they believe any one that should be sent from the dead However I do not absolutely deny some Holy Apparitions Admonitions and Revelations of the Dead but yet I admonish ye to be very wary knowing how easie it is for Satan to Transform himself into an Angel of Light Therefore they are not absolutely to be believ'd but to be entertain'd as things which are Apocryphal and without the Rule of the Scripture There are many Fabulous stories to this purpose written by one Tundal in his Consolation of Souls and also by some others of which your Cunning Priests and Friars make use to terrifie the Vulgar sort and get Mony A certain French Notary hath also lately put forth a Relation of a Spirit walking at Lyons a Person of no Credit and less Learning But the most approved Authors that write of these things is Cassianus and James of Paradise a Carthusian But there is nothing in them of solid Truth or secret Wisdome tending to the encrease of Charity or edifying of the Soul only they thereby perswade people to Alms Pilgrimages Prayers Fastings and such other Practical Works of Piety which the Scripture nevertheless with far greater Reason and Authority enjoyns But of these Apparitions we have discours'd at large in a Dialogue which we have Written of Man as also in our Occult Philosophy But now let us return to the Philosophers All the Heathen who affirm the Soul to be Immortal by common consent also uphold the Transmigration of the Soul and farther That rational Souls do sometimes Transmigrate into Plants and Creatures void of Reason Of this Opinion of Transmigration Pythagoras is said to be the first Author of which thus Ovid Souls never die but in Immortal state From dead to living bodies transmigrate I now my self can call to minde how I When long since Troy the strength of Greece did try Was then Euphorbus that my life sold dear To crown the Conquest of Atrides Spear Which then my left hand bâ—re I knew the Shield Which late in Juno's Temple I beheld Much more has been written concerning this Pythagorical Transmigration by Timon Xenophanes Cratinus Aristophon Hermippus Lucianus and Diogenes Laertius But Iamblicus who has many other Abettors asserts That the Soul does not Transmigrate out of Man into Brutes nor return from Creatures Irrational into Men but that there are Transmigrations of Souls that is of the Souls of Beasts into Beasts and of the Souls of Men into Men he does not deny There are also Philosophers of which number Eâ—â—ripides is one a greatfollower of Anaxagoras together with Archelaus the Naturalist and after them Avicen who report the first Men to have sprung out of the Earth like Herbs in that not less ridiculous than the Poets who feign certain Men to have sprung from the Teeth of a Serpent sown in the Earth Some there are who deny that the Soul is Generated and others who deny that it has any Motion CHAP. LIII Of Metaphysicks BUT let us go a little farther and make it appear that these Philosophers are not only at a loss about those things that seem to have a Being in Nature but that they are also at great variance among themselves concerning such as have no Principle or Foundation at all it being altogether uncertain whether they be or no and which they believe to subsist without Body or Matter and which they call Separated forms which because they are not in Nature but thought to be above Nature therefore they are call'd Metaphysicks and said to be beyond Nature from thence sprang those Infinite every way contradictory and not less impious and unlearned Opinions concerning the Gods For Diagoras Milesius and Theodorus Cyrenaicus altogether deny that there was any God Epicurus held that there was a God but that he took no care of things below Protagoras said that whether they were or no they had little or no Power Anaximander thought that there were Gods Native of Countries some in the East and some in the West at great distances one from another Xenocrates held that there were Eight Gods Antisthenes that there were many popular Gods but one Supream the Creator of the rest Others have precipitated themselves into such a profundity of Madness as to make with their own hands the Gods which they intended to Worship such was the Image of Bell among the Assyrians which made and carved Gods Hermes Trismegistus does notwithstanding very much applaud in his Aesculapius But Thales Milesius discoursing of the Divine Essence asserted the Understanding to be God who Form'd all things out of Water Cleanthes and Anaximenes held the Air to be God Chrysippus Deified the Natural Ability endu'd with Reason or Divine Necessâ—â—y Zeno ascribes Divinity to the Divine Law of Nature Anaxagoras to
same Authority the Emperour claims over Philosophy Physick and all the other Sciences giving no countenance to any Art till first all'owed by the skill of his Law to which all sorts of Arts and Sciences compar'd are of no use or value This makes Vlpian say The Law is King of all humane and divine things whose Office it is as Modestinus saith to command forbid punish permit than which there are no greater marks of Superiority Pomponius defines the Law to be the invention and gift of God and the Maximes of Wise-men Because all the ancient Law-givers that their Laws might gain the greater reverence among the Vulgar feigned that the Laws they wrote were clictated to them by the Gods Thus Osiris among the Aegyptians seigned to have received his from Mercury Zoroastes among the Persians from Oromazus Chariundas among the Carthaginians from Saturn Solon among the Athenians from Minerva Zamolxis among the Scythians from Vesta Lycurgus from Apollo Numa from the Nymph Egeria Thus you see how this knowledge of the Law arrogates to it self a Power and Soveraignty over all the Sciences and Arts exercising a Tyranny over them and advancing it self above all other Sciences as the First-born of Heaven despises and contemns all the rest being it self constituted out of the frail and infirm Positions and Opinions of men of all things the most slender and subject to alteration upon every change of State Time or Prince and which deduces its original from the sin of our First parents the cause of all our evils From whence also the corrupt Law of Nature which is called Jus Naturale first descended of which behold the chief Maximes Keep off force by force Break faith with him that breaks faith To deceive the deceiver is no deceit A deceiver is not bound to a deceiver in ought A fault may be recompensed by a fault Those that deserve ill ought to enjoy neither justice nor faith No injury can be done to the willing He that buys may deceive himself A thing is worth so much as it may be sold for A man may provide for his safety with the damage of another No man is oblig'd to impossibilities Thou or I are to be ruined it is better that thou be ruin'd than I. With many more of the same nature Moreover the Law of Nature is Not to hunger not to thirst to suffer cold or destroy ones self with Watching and Labour which overthrowing all works of Piety and Penance establishes Epicurean Pleasure for Supreme Happiness The first occasion of War Bloudshed Bondage Separation of Dominions was also the first occasion of the Law of Nations after that came the Civil or Popular Law which every Nation approâ—priates to it self From whence have arisen so many Contentions among men that there are not words enough to express the subjects and matter which they contain For seeing that men were so prone to quarrel it was necessary that there should be an observation of Justice according to Law that so the arrogancies of Impiety might be suppressed and that Innocence might be in safety amongst the Wicked and that the Good might live quietly among the Bad these are the grounds of Law of which there have been Legislators innumerable The first whereof was Moses who gave Laws to the Je'ws at which time Cecrops gave Laws to the Algyptians after whom Pheroneus gave Laws to the Greeks Mercury Trismegist gave Laws to the Aegyptians Draco and Solon to the Athenians Lycurgus to the Laâ—edemonians Palamedes first made Military Laws for the governing of Armies Romulus first of all gave Laws to the Romans which were called Curiatae After whom Numa invented the Ceremonies of their Religion and all the rest of the succeeding Kings added their particular Laws which being all vvritten afterwards in the Books of Papyrius were afterwards called the Papyrian Laws After that came the Laws of the Twelve Tables the Flavian Law the Helian Law the Hortensian Law the Honorarian Law the Praetors Law Decrees of the Senate Edicts of the People Law of the Magistrates and Custom and the power of Law-giving given to every Supreme Prince I pass over all those Lawyers good part whereof are repeated in the second Law of the original of Right Among those who endeavoured to reduce the Civil Law into a Volume the first was Cneus Pompey next Caesar but both were prevented by Civil War and untimely death At length Constantine renewed those old Laws and Theodosius the younger reduced them into one Volume which he called a Codex and after him Justinian set forth the Codex now in use But all the authority of the Civil Law rests in the People and Princes neither is there any other Civil Law but what the people establish by Common consent Hence Julian avers That the Laws binde us for no other reason but onely for that they are received by the Common Consent of the people who by universal consent transferred the power and whole authority upon the Prince so that whatsoever is ordained by the consent and approbation of the Prince and People has thereupon partly by Constitution partly by Custom the force of a Law though it be an Errour or a Falshood for Vniversal Errour makes a Law and matter adjudged becomes Truth Which Vlpian teacheth us in these words He ought to be taken for a free-man born who is so adjudged by Sentence though he were onely manumitted because a matter once adjudged is to be taken for Truth The same person tells that one Barbarius Philippus who was a fugitive at Rome demanded the Praetorship and had it and when he came to be known who he was yet was it taken for granted that all whatsoever he had done by vertue of his Office should stand good though he were but a servant The same person confesses that no reason can be given for all the Decrees and Laws which were set forth by our Ancestors Whence we finde that all the Wisdom of the Civil Law depends upon onely Will and Opinions of men no other Reason urging than the Regulation of Manners conveniency of Converse power of the Prince or force of Arms. So that if the Law preserve the Good and punish the Bad 't is then a just Law if otherwise the worst of evils by reason of the evils ensuing either through the Toleration Approbation or Negligence of the Supreme magistrate And it was the Opinion of Demonax That all unprofitable Laws were superfluous as being intended neither for the Good nor the Bad since the former want them not the later are never the better for um Furthermore seeing that Cato confesses that there is no Law that can be adapted to all Emergencies but such where Equity and Rigor are at a continual variance and that Aristotle also calls Equity the Correction of a just Law wherein that part is defective which was generally agreed to doth it not hence plainly appear that all the force of Law and Justice depends not so much upon the Law