those of a many others who would have Abraham and Jacob passe for great Astrologers Joseph for a Southsayer and Salomon for a Necromancer grounded only on certain passages of the Bible which many of our Doctors have interpreted much more superstitiously than ever did the Rabbins But it is almost demonstrable that this kind of Magick which was practis'd so universally over all Egypt was no other than the Naturall disguis'd haply with some vain and impertinent Ceremonies as may be easily judg'd in that Zoroastes Zamolxis Abbaris Oromasis Charondas and Damigeron who were most eminent therein as all Authours generally affirm are commended by Plato especially the two first as persons very intelligent and excellent for the knowledge of Nature rather then any command they had over those Genii Spirits and Robin-good-fellowes This may be further prov'd by the examples of Plato himself of Pythagoras Empedocles and Democritus who have ever been reputed Philosophers and not Magicians though by their travels into Egypt they had attain'd those Disciplines For indeed it were a strange thing as the Learned Bishop Mirandulanus observes that this Magick having been so much in vogue neither Aristotle nor any Philosopher of his rate took any paines to leave us the least account of it especially the former who having observ'd whatever was conformable to reason in his Books could not have forgot himself so far as to passe over the effects of this admirable doctrin in that little Book wherein he hath with so much prudence layd up together whatever he had discover'd that were secret and surpassing the Ordinary course of Nature It is therefore no hard conjecture to think that these transcendent Sciences this rare doctrin these admirable disciplines amounted to no more than the practice of our fourth and last kind of Magick called Naturall To discover and unmask which we are to remember that man being a Conversative creature capable of discipline and furnished with all instruments requisite for ratiocination and his instruction in the truth of all things he is able to put them in practice either for the attaining of an ordinary vulgar knowledge proportionable to that of others little or not exceeding that of his Equalls such as have nothing extraordinary or miraculous in it because n inaequalitas tantum est ubiâ— quae eniment notabilia sunt non est admirationi una arbor ubi i n eandem altitudinem tota sylva surrexit Or haply to raise himself to the highest and most transcendent speculations to avoid the common road and take a Noble flight into those azure vaults of the purest part of our soul to â—oare up into that terrestiall paradise of the Contemplation of Causes that so he may at length arrive at that supreme degree of felicity which onely opens a man the way into those places so much celebrated by Lucretius Edita doctrinâ Sapientum templa serena This is indeed the true effect of this kind of Magick which the Persians called anciently Wisdom the Greeks Philosophy the Jews Cabbala the Pythagoreans Science of the formall numbers and the Platonicks the Soveraigne Remedy which seats the soul in perfect Tranquillity and preserves the body in a good Constitution by the faculty it hath of being able to reconcile the passive effects to the active vertues and to make these elementary things here below comply with the actions of the Stars and celestiall Bodies or rather the Intelligences which guide them by materialls proper and convenient for that purpose We may therefore conclude with the Learned Verulam that this fourth kind of Magick Naturalem Philosophiam à veritate speculationum ad magnitudinem operum revocare nititur it being nothing else then a practical Physick as Physick is a contemplative Magick and consequently since what is subalternate to the one is the same to the other it will not be hard to disentangle it out of an infinite web of Superstitions confine it to that which it only hath to do with and appoint it its due bounds and limits Quos ultrà citraque nequit consistere rectum These are no other than what are assign'd to Physick by Wendelinus Combachius and the subtle Algazel and confirmed by p Avicenna who stating the parts of Naturall Philosophy attributes to it first Medicine then Chymistry Astronomy Physiognomy and Oneiroscopy to which may be added Chiromancy Metoposcopy Elioscopie and Geomancy that is the three former to Phisiognomy and the last as Albertus Magnus Vigenere Dr. Flood Pompanatius and Agrippa would have it to Astrologie All these parts in regard they have some foundation in naturall causes may be as these Authors affirm freely practised and that without the suspicion of any other Magick then the Naturall such as is allow'd and approved by all yet provided alwayes that the professors confine themselves the most strictly that may be within the Limits of their Causes without wandring into a million of ridiculous observations such as but too too easily creep in to their mindes who make it their employment CHAP. III. That many Eminent Persons have been accounted Magicians who were only Politicians WEre it lawfull to adde any thing to that excellent consideration upon which the French a Seneca built the first Chapter of his Essayes namely that it is possible by severall wayes and those absolutely different to attain the same end I know not any example contibutes more to the demonstration of this truth then that of the punishment of lying and fabulous Authors whose malice may be suppress'd by a meanes quite contrary to what was anciently practis'd by the Lycians against false witnesses and informers For whereas the custome among them was to treat such as slaves and to prostitute them in publick places we are on the contrary to establish a Law that all Histories should be like those contracts which the Civilians call Stricti juris and that the discovery of the first imposture should fairly entitle the whole body of the Book to the fire or at least hinder the sale and publishing of it Had this been as carefully lookt after heretofore as it is necessary to be put in practice now we should I must confesse have fewer precepts but more profitable fewer Books but more fraught with Learuing lesse History but more truth and consequently we should have something else to do than to tâ—ouble our selves for Apologies for all those excellent persons c tanquam artis sinistrae contagione pollutos Nay there is such a multitude of writers represent them as such that the Civilian Heraldus considering with himself that in these daies they are only pittifull wretches that are drawn into these pernicious and unlawfull practises took occasion to say that the trade was now absolutely fallen into the hands of cheats and the Ignorant d non amplius Philosophorum sed rusticorum et idoitarum Having therefore shewn in the first Chapter of this Apologie that the Propagation of all these vulgar errours happened by the
Libraries made use of no other Grammarians then Graecismuâ— Barbarismus and Alexander de Villa dei no other Rhetoricians then Aquilegius no other Philosophers then Gingolfus Rapoleus Ferrabrit and Petrus Hispanus no other Historians than the Fasciculus Temporum and the Mother of Histories nor other Books in Mathematicks than the Compot Manuel and the shepheard 's Kalender What could the Grammarians expect from these but Barbarisms like that of the Priest whom the Master of Sentences mentions baptizing of infants In nomine Patria Filia Spiritua Sancta What could Philosophers find there but suppositions ampliations restrictions sophisms obligations and a Labyrinth of fruitlesse niceties comprehended under the title of Parva Logicalia So also for those that read Histories what entertainment had they but that of ridiculous tales upon Merlin's prophecy Sâ— Patrickâ— Purgatory Pilate's Tower Ammon's Castle Pope Joan and abundance of such fabulous trash and trumpery as now Vix pueri credunt nisi qui nondum are lavantur Not indeed is it any thing extraordinary when they are commonly accounted Magicians that can produce Roses and Summer-Flowers in the depth of Winter That those gallant men who have been seen like so many Stars shining in that dark and Melancholy night and have darted the influences of their miraculous Learning in the coldest and frostiest season of Letters have pass'd to us under the same Title through the over easy belief of those who first mistook then represented them for such But alasse what shall we say of a sort of empty unballasted soules but that they may be easily weigh'd down any way by an erroneous perswasion which is as constant an attendant of ignorance as a shadow is of the body or envie of vertue And now we have but a step to the fourth cause of suspicion which fastens on these great persons that is from Ignorance to that of Credulity which easily admits abundance of such things as though improbable and superstitious ordinarily fall and follow one in the neck of another To make this more evident and apprehensible we must begin with what we find related in a little Treatise which St. Agobart Bishop of Lyons made in the year of Christ 833 against the extravagance of the people then who beleev'd that those could trouble the air and raise tempests who for that reason in the first chapter of the Capitularies of Charlemaigne and Lewis the Debonaire are called Tempestarii sive immissores Tempestatum It was it seems the common and by a many stiffely maintain'd opinion that there were in his time certain Conjurers that had the power to make it hail and thunder or to raise tempests as often and when they pleas'd so to spoil and destroy the fruits of the earth which so destroy'd they afterwards sold to certain Inhabitants of the Countrey of Magodia who every year brought ships thorow the air to carry away those provisions This was grown into such a vulgar article of faith that the good Bishop had much ado one day to deliver three men and a woman out of the clutches of the distracted multitude who were dragging them to execution as having fallen out of those ships The same Authour relates further in the same book that there being a generall mortality among Cattle especially Oxen whereof there died such a number over all Europe that Belleforest thought fit to take notice of it in his Additions upon Nicholas Gilles the more superstitious sort of people presently imagin'd that one Grimoald Duke of Benevent and a great enemy of Charlemaigne had sent a many men with venomous powders which they should scatter up and down the sens fields and into springs Insomuch that this holy and judicious person seeing abundance of innocent people daily hanged drown'd and extreamly persecuted for this simple fable ends his book full of indignation with this excellent sentence Tanta jam stultitia oppressit miserum mundum ut nunc sic absurdè res credantur à Christianis quales nunquam antea ad credendum poterat quisquam suadere Paganis These and the like Fables were but the Prologue to Romances which came upon the stage immediately after in the reigne of Lewis the Debonaire in whose time the Bishop was still alive and multiply'd so strangely by the ignorance of that age easily it seems lay'd asleep by an y absurdities though ever so extravagant that all thoâ— who meddled with the history of that time would needs to render it more pleasant interweave it with abundance of such relations This is very pertinently observ'd by a certain Divine who ingenuously confesses that Hoc â—rat antiquorum plurium vitium vel potius quaedam sine judicio simplicitas ut in clâ—rorum virorum gestis scribendis se minus existimarent elegantes nisi ad ornatum ut putabant sermonis poetic as fictiones vel aliqâ—id earum simile admiscerent consequenter vera fâ—lsis committerent Nay such reputation did these books gain that in the year 1290 James de Voragine Bishop of Gennes Homo as Vives and Melchior Canus call him ferrei oris plumbei cordis animi certe parum severi prudentis yet whose intention was certainly good thought fit to introduce that style into the Ecclesiasticall History and so writ a Golden Legend whereby many devout and pious souls were edified till the late Hereticks began to metamorphose it in a soveraigne Pantagruelisme purposely to affront the Catholicks and undermine the foundations of the reverence they pay those holy but pernicious Relicks To the vanity of these Romances we are further obliged for all the false relations which were soon after scattered among the people of the miraculous stratagems of Sylvester Gregory Michael Scotus Roger Bacon Peter d' Apono Thebit and in a manner all the most learned of that time These proved excellent entertainments till the year 1425 when an infinity of other superstitions began to swarm giving as it were a cessation to the precedent And these we have thought fit to particularize to shew it is no miracle if the great knowledge of a many of that time occasioned millions of ridiculous stories and fictions when the zeal and good life of the greatest Saints the conduct courage of the greatest Captains and Commanders have met with the same fate Nor does it amount to much that some of their books have been condemn'd as conjuring books when a many others whereof the very reading sufficiently clears their innocence have met with as little favour We may instance in the three propositions made by the famous Chancellour of the University of Paris Gerson upon the Romance of the Rose and the judgement of John Raulin a famous Doctor of the same University upon that of Oger the Dane wherein they affirm the Authours as certainly damn'd as ever Judas was if they died without repentance for the making and venting of such pieces Lastly though it be alwayes more rationall and commendable so to interpret as to give the
may answer to the first that there is not any one can assure us that this laughing of Zoroastes happened precisely on the day of his nativity whether when he was asleep or awake whether by the percussion of the Aire or only an agitation of his lips all which one should know to judge aright of it But to take away the prodigy strangenesse of this accident Hippocrates tells us that Children assoon as they are born seeme to laugh or cry as they sleep and that waking there is a constant vicissitude of laughing and crying till they have passed forty dayes This might have happened more particularly to Zoroastes through abundance of Spirits and consequently heat which rescuing him from that humidity that is common to others caus'd that action in him which might well signifie that he should one day prove a very great man but not a Magician It is indeed a Circumstance hath ever been thought very fortunate so that it gave Virgil occasion to say Cui non risere parentes Nec deus hunc mensa Dea nec dignata cubili est For those who laugh so soon are ordinarily more active and lively or as Hippocrates calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is such as have a certaine nimblenesse and vivacity of spirit and accordingly give greater hopes of their future good fortune then those who are stupi'd slow and whose spirits are dull and heavy Nor shall we need if we may trust Pliny trouble our selves â—o derive any greater presage from the motion of his Braine it being ordinary in all Children newly born to have a certain cavity about the brain-pan where the sagittall future meets with the coronall which is cover'd with a grosse and thick membrane about which at least till it be converted into bone a man may easily perceive visu tactu as the most Learned Anatomist Riolanus hath observed in his Osteologie the constant beating of the brain which haply was preceiv'd more strong and vehement in Zoroastes then it is usually in other Children by reason of the abundance of Spirits and naturall heat which we have shewn to have been particular in him Lastly if any one will inferre that Zoroastes was a Magician because Pliny tells us that he remain'd 20. years in the Wildernesse and that Suidas and Volaterranus affirme that he dy'd struck with a Thunderbolt he must also with the same breath conclude that Epimenedes who stay'd therein 50. years that Moses who spent the third part of his age in it and that all the Fathers of Thebais were far greater Magicians then he since they bestow'd all their life time there And that Tullus Hostilius Pompeius Strabo Aurelius Carus Anastasius and Simeon Stilites were great Sorcerers and enchanters because they all dy'd thunderstuck And yet this is not a little in jurious to the truth of the History and to what is expresly observ'd of the last in the Spirituall Meadow of Sophronius where it is said that the Abbot Julian Stilites incensing at an unseasonable hour answer'd those who ask'd him the reason of it quia modo frater meus Simeon à fulgure dejectus interiit ecce transit anima ejus in tripudio exultatione Whence may be easily observ'd their want of judgment who upon the dis-security of such vain conjectures would perswade us that Zoroastes was the first inventer of Magick and the greatest enchanter of his time Which confidence I have the rather taken the trouble to refute to make way for that light of truth which we are to follow in the account we have of him and with the same breath blow away the proofs and grounds of certain Authors who believe that all the Learning the ancient Philosophers acquir'd in Aegypt was no other then that of the Magick and Invocations of this excellent person CHAP. IX That Orpheus was no Magician HUmane nature is so limited and confin'd that it cannot judge of things spirituall but by the sensible and materiall nor of substances but by their Accidents nor indeed of any thing it knows but by appearances The only way then me thinks to disengage Truth out of all these maskes and disguises is to take as strict and near a view of them as may be and when we come to the weight and tryall of them never to admit that prejudicate opinion which often obliges us to choose and preferre shadows before bodies darknesse before Light and the most extra-regular fables before certain and authentick Histories This we are to do with so much the more diligence and circumspection in this Chapter by how much that there is not any thing as Plutarch affirmes slides more insensibly into our soules or hath so much charme and force to attract and insinuate as the disposition of certain tales handsomely couch'd and interwoven such as for instance those of the miraculous Musick of Orpheus at which we see that Mirantur justique senes trepidaeque puellae Narrantis conjux pendet ab ore viri To proceed then to a strict and dispassionate examination of all the grounds which men have had to suspect this Great man and first Professor of divinity guilty of magick we must build upon the foundations layd in the former Chapter and say with Patricius that according to the testimony of Philo Josephus and all the best Authors the Sciences and disciplines which had been lost by the Flood having been re-establish'd in the Schooles of Sem and Heber the first erected as the Rabbins and Thalmudists affirme Zoroastes who had been instructed in them and who might be one of the Sons or Nephews of Cham endeavour'd so much to dilate and make them flourish in his Country of Chaldaea and among those of this Nation that besides the knowledge which Apuleius allows him of Medicine and that of Astrology attributed to him by St. Hierome Origen Properâ—ius Cicero Philelphus and most Writers and upon the account whereof they pass'd anciently for Astrologers as the Canaanites for Merchants and the Arabians for Robbers we have the Authority of Averroes cited by Patricius who sayes that Philosophy was sometime in as much esteem in Chaldaea as it was in his time in Spaine by the meanes of the University of Corduba All these Disciplines were afterwards translated into Aegypt when Abraham as is observ'd in the Scripture went down into Aegypt to sojourne there because the famine was sore in the Land For Josephus sayes plainely and Plato seems to agree with him that during his abode in that Country he taught the Aegytian Priests the Mathematicks and gave them as it were the first rudiments of all the other Sciences which thereupon so thriv'd and were so much improv'd that it became the spring-head whence the Greeks by long draughts got all their wisdom and Learning by the travells and pilgrimages of Orpheus Thales Democritus and Pythagoras whereof the first brought thence Theology the second the Mathematicks the
for him aâ—d outvy one another in his commendations as Gellius observes that one of them did when he writ his Institutions of Cyrus out of aemulation to the other who had published ten Books of Common-Wealth But these are desperate Sallyes of a dangerous sort of spirits who purposely to expose him to generall contempt so freely discredit the Authority of these two great Philosophers as also those of Apuleius Maximus Tyrius Cicero Plutarch and the best Authours out of no other motive then that of meer vanity and a groundless hope of being thought more criticall and quick-sighted then others for breaking and battering this ancient image I should for my part rather be of their number who reverence it out of a belief that so many Authors would not bestow such Elogies on Socrates or call him as Martial did magnum Senem as Persius barbatum Magistrum as Val. Maximus palliatum animum virilitatis robore or lastly as Apuleius Divinae prudentiae senem if he had not been so famous for his wisdome that they are rather to be excus'd then condemn'd who with some reason thought he had acquired it by the favour and assistance of his Daemon With this misfortune neverthelesse that there is as much uncertainty in the explication of the nature of it according to this opinion as there was malice and calumny in the precedent For Apuleius will have it to be a God Lactantius and Tertullian a Devil Plato invisible Apuleius affirmes that it might be visible Plutarch that it was a certain sneezing on the left or right side according to which Socrates presag'd good or bad successe in the thing undertaken Maximus Tyrius sayes it was only a remorse of conscience against the violence of his naturall inclination which was neither heard nor seen whereby Socrates was restrain'd from doing what was ill Pompanatius that it was the ascendent of his Nativity lastly Montaigne that it was a certain impulsion of the will that presented it self to him beyond the direction of his discourse But for my part I think it may be truely and rationally said that this familiar Daemon of Socrates which was to him in rebus incertis prospectator dubiis prâ—monitor periculosis viator was only the good regulation of his life the wise conduct of his Actions his experience of things and the result of all his Vertues which wrought in him that prudence which may justly be termed the salt and seasoning of all actions the rule and line of all affaires the eye which sees directs and disposes all and in a word the Art of life as Medicine is the Art of health So that there is much more reason to believe that the soul of this Philosopher not only refin'd from its violent passions but inrich'd with all sorts of Vertues was the true Daemon of his carriage than toimagine him entangled in the delusions and conversing with Hobgoblins crediting them or following their directions an imagination so absurd that Plutarch thought himself concern'd to endeavour to weed it out of our belief For in his Book upon Socrates's Daemon he saies that Socrates slighted not celestiall things as the Athenians would have it believ'd at his condemnation but that abundance of imaginary apparitions fables and superstitions having crept into the Philosophy of Pythagoras and his disciples whereby it was become absolutely ridiculous and contemptible he endeavour'd to regulate it by prudence to cleanse it from all those Stories and not to believe any more then what he thought rationall To this we may adde a generall Goodnesse shining through all his actions and that he had no other designe then to lead his neighbour in the paths of vertue and thence perceive the little ground we have to conclude this Genius to have been a bad Daemon Which yet we should rather believe than that it was a good Angel since that he must either have it voluntarily and by divine permission a secret hath not been yet reveal'd or by the force of his conjurations But these must needs be vain at that time wherein Angels rather commanded men and were not courted with so much facility as since the passion of Jesus Christ who hath deliver'd us from the slavery of sin to make us equalls and companions to Angels who would not be ador'd by St. John as they had sometimes been by Abraham This foundation layd there remaines only to resolve three difficulties which may happen concerning this Daemon The first is why he never perswaded him to do any thing but only not to undertake something and to take heed and avoid it To this it may be answered that Socrates needed it not in as much as being naturally enclin'd to whatever were vertuous his particular endeavour was by a long habit to arrive to that reservednesse which the greatest persons even in their most violent passions and notwithstanding their courage either have or ought to have This is true prudence which regulates their conduct and makes them do all things wisely quae ratio saith Cicero Poetas maximeque Homerum impulit ut principibus Heroum Ulyssi Agamemnoni Diomedi Achilli certos deos discriminum periculorum comites adjungerent The second is a proof taken from the Ecstasies which were ordinary to this person whence some conclude they could not happen to him but by the means of a Daemon more powerfull then that of the perfection of his Soul As if it were not more rationall with Aristotle and Marsilius Ficinus who represent Socrates as a man extreamly melancholy to imagine these ecstasies as naturall in him as those of Charles de Bouille mentioned by Gesner and Trithemius For Melancholy may for a long time entertaine the Soul in a deep meditation and when the Spirits attend the soule to that place where it retreats as it were into its centre to do it some service there the other parts are depriv'd of their influent heat and seem not to have any spark of life and this is properly what is called Ecstasie The last depends upon the great number and certainty of the praedictions of this Philosopher whence is drawn the same inference as from the precedent as that Socrates was certainly the instrument of that Daemon which not content to have declar'd him the wisest of all men would needs add a further respect to him by the meanes of his Oracles and answers To this may be said that besides that it were an open breach of Horace's commandment Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit to attribute these predictions of Socrates and the advice he gave his Friends to some Divinity it were more rationall to conceive that as he was absolutely enclin'd to morall actions so had he so particularly consider'd all the accidents that happen to men that any thing almost gave him some light to judge of and foresee what was to come Hence it also came that he
Minerva that is the conversation of learned and prudent men For indeed it were more rationall to acknowledge with Arnobius Quae nequeunt sciri nescire nos confitemur neque ea conquirere aut investigare curamus quae comprehendi liquidissimum est non posse quamvis mille per corda suspicio se rigat atque intendat humana than to waste our spirits in the pretended mysteries of the Cabala the superstitious invocations of Magick the fruitlesse study of the Philosophers stone and the fantasticall predictions of certain Figure-flingers and Cunning-women since they are extravagancies that find no entertainment but in the imaginations of vulgar and reptile souls easily taken in such cobwebs as a mind any thing masculine cannot be ensnar'd in without an absolute losse of reputation and prudence For two reasons have I brought in Savanorola and Merlin into the number of the great persons for whom I make this Apologie one is that they were the Prophets of their Countries as they say Nostradamus was of France Lolhardus of Germany and Telesphorus and the Abbot Joachim of Calabria The other that it is a kind of justice to make a true discovery of them so to raise them from under those heaps of calumnies which cover both them and what we should know of them As to the famous Merlin all Authours hitherto have thought him gotten by an Incubus who was a little too familiar with a certain Kings daughter then a Nun in a Monastery at Carmarthen What credit can be expected for all the other stories of his life when we must be lesse prudent and more credulous than Godfrey of Monmouth from whom we have them to beleeve such a nativity as this any way possible Whence we may safely infer that the foundation of such a prodigious relation being so ill laid it must needs be absolutely false and forg'd as we shall without any difficulty demonstrate For if our Daemonographers will not admit the generation of Merlin to have been by the ordinary way they must needs acknowledge that whatever is said of him is nothing but pure fiction and consequently the surest and safest way to answer them is to deny what they say as confidently as they affirm it I shall not therefore at the present make it any question whether there are such Daemons as the Incubi and Succubae but onely with Wierus Sibilla Cardan Casmannus Ulric Molitor Guibelet Eugubinus Nicholas Remy Maldonat and divers others deny that their copulations with mankind can produce any generation whether they do it by eluding the imagination or make use of humane bodies Not because as Nicholas Remy would have it man and the Devil differ in specie for a Mule is engendered between a Horse and an Asse nor yet because God will not co-operate with such an action by the infusion of a soul for Adulterers Fornicators and incestuous persons should never ingender for the same reason but for that if they ingender it is necessary it should be of their own seed or a borrow'd To think they have any of their own were too palpable an absurdity since that as they are immateriall substances they cannot possibly have that excrement and as it were quintessence extracted out of abundance of nourishment and consisting of blood and spirits Besides that if this were granted their productions would be like themselves or rather some mediate substance between a man and a Daemon than an absolute man Burdonem ut sonipes generat commixtus asellae Mulus ut Arcadicis ab equina matre creatur Tityrus ex ovibus oritur hircoque parente Musinonem capra ex vervegno semine gignit Apris atque sue setosus nascitur ibris Ut lupus catula formant coeundo liciscam On the other side to attribute to the Daemons a power to transport the seed from one place to another without diminishing the generative vertue and the principle which it contains is a tenent hath no reason at all to support it when even those that have the instrument of generation of an over-great length are not so able for the act because the conduit being so long the seed cools and the principle is weakened And that it must be much more thus in the seed of the Incubi is not to be question'd since that Witches cottidianae istae as they are called in Lipsius genialiam libidinum victimae infelices mulierculae do all unanimously confesse in their depositions that they find it extreamly cold and receive it without either pleasure or satisfaction as having not those spirits without which there cannot be any nor indeed generation be effected Further as Gold being the most perfect of Metals is accordingly of the most difficult production so must it be thought that man the noblest of all Creatures hath by the same reason a more difficult a more perfect and a more accomplish'd generation than any other Adde to this that the most considerable authority which may be brought against this negative out of Genes 6. is no more advantageous to our Adversaries than the great number of experiences they endeavour to collect from Apollonius Alexander Romulus Servius Tullius Simon Magus Geffrey Great-tooth Balderus Luther the Huns and Counts of Cleveland or the Corocoton of new Spain and the Nefesoglians of the Turks For that passage of Genesis where it is said After the sons of God went in to the daughters of men c. is to be understood according to Eugubinus and Maldonat of the sons of Seth who was a holy man and esteem'd by God and the daughters of Cham the most corrupt man of his age Or as some interpret it by the Sons of God are meant Judges whom the Scripture often cals by the name of Elohim And lastly for the said experiences no doubt but they are fabulous and the meer fictions of such as thought to make those persons more recommendable by such Romances which indeed while the world was yet in swadling clouts were good to cover and conceal Adulteries and to preserve the reputation of those Ladies who were more than ordinarily desirous of their pleasure But now that the world 's grown up to yeers of discretion and more than ever refin'd Mart. Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis habent such inventions are thought as vain and triviall as all the stories of the Magicall Romances of Maugis d' Aigremont Dr. Faustus or our Merlin Of this latter all I think may be truly and rationally said is that he was not the son of one of these Incubi and that according to the description we have of him from Lelandus and Balaeus he was the most excellent Philosopher and Mathematician of his time Disciple to Telesinus and a great Favourite to four Kings of England viz. Vortigern Ambrose Utherpendragon and Arthur whom all Romancists make the first Institutor of the Knights of the Round Table with whom agrees the Poet Annevillanus Arthurus teretis mensae
in the first book of Kings concerning the Image which Michol put into the bed in David's place For R. Eleazar holds that it was made of the head of a male child the first born and that dead-born under whose tongue they applyed a Lamen of Gold whereon were engrav'd the Characters and Inscriptions of certain Planets which the Jews superstitiously wandred up and down with instead of the Urim and Thummim or the Ephod of the high Priest And that this Original is true and well deduc'd there is a manifest indicium in that Henry d' Assia and Bartholomaeus Sibillus affirm that the Androides of Albertus and the Head made by Virgil were compos'd of flesh and bone yet not by Nature but by Art But this being judged impossible by modern Authors and the vertue of Images Annulets and Planetary Sigills being in great reputation men have thought ever since taking their opinion from Trismegistus affirming in his Asclepion that of the Gods some were made by the Soveraign God and others by men who by some Art had the power to unite the invisible Spirits to things visible and corporeal as he is explain'd at large by by St. Augustine that such Figures were made of Copper or some other Mettal whereon men had wrought under some favourable Aspects of Heaven and the Planets Which opinion since it is the more common it is fit we earnestly buckle with and shew that it was not without reason refuted by St. Thomas William of Paris Niphus as false absurd and erronious To prove this the more easily we are to presuppose that speech is the action of some thing that is living and is not perform'd but by the voice which is defin'd by St. Thomas after Aristotle Sonus ab ore animalis prolatus For it must needs be granted that if these Heads spoke it was either because they were living and animate or that the Daemons spake in them If the former the Soul whereby they did it must be vegetative sensitive or rational It could not be vegetative because according to the faculties of the said Soul such bodies should be ranked among Plants be nourish'd increase and produce their like It could not be sensitive for that besides the faculties of the vegetative Soul it presupposes two more which are particular to it and never granted to those Statues Much lesse then can it be rational unlesse we grant withal that they could apprehend the Species of things discourse remember them and in a word be like us Moreover if these Heads and Statues were really such that is living and animate it was either by an accidental form or a substantiall not the first at least according to the opinion of all Philosophers who will never grant that to discourse to speak to teach to foresee what is to come and such effects can depend on an accident and not on a Substance The latter is lesse possible because such Statues could not receive that substantial form till they had been devested of what they had before which there is no colour to imagine they should have done by a simple transmutation of figure since the form of the copper and of their matter was still such as it was wont to be Further I would gladly know where was their motion the first indicium of life where their senses the sluces of all knowledge and in a word not to ravel our selves into thousands of difficulties arising from the original and operation of that Soul where were the Parts and Organs necessary for their discourse and ratiocination Nor does it availe any thing to grant that the Daemons have spoken in them for it must be done either as the Soul does in our Body by the assistance of its Organs or as one should do that answers in a Chest or some broken pot The former way is impossible such Statues being not furnish'd with Muscles Lungs an Epiglottis and what is requisite to a perfect articulation of the Voice The latter is as ridiculous for if it be true why should those men take such pains to make a Man rather than a Trumpet or a Head rather than a Bottle since the Devil might as well answer by the one as the other and that if he hath heretofore uttered his Oracles in Statues it was to engage men to adore them to the contempt of their Creator whereas there is not the least mention of any Idolatry in the Stories of this Androides and these fine Heads So that we may well conclude with the Royal Prophet The Idols of the Gentiles are Silver and Gold they have mouths and speak not nor is there any breath in their nostrils all we have to do the reasons of Trismegistus being fully refuted by Niphus being to satisfy the Authority of Tostatus one of the most ancient and most authentick Patrons of Albertus's Androides that so we may at length give a final sentence against the vanity of all these Fables and pernicious falsities I must indeed confesse that Tostatus was the most learned nay the miracle if I may so expresse my self of the learned men of his age since that being Counsellour to the King great Referendary of Spain and Professour in Salamanca of Philosophy Divinity Civil and Canon Law and all at the same time he hath neverthelesse written such large and laborious Commentaries that were we not certain he dy'd at forty they were enough to perswade us he had liv'd an entire age But when I find him affirming therein many things justly accounted fabulous by the World as for instance what is said concerning the birth of the Prophet Merlin the Magick of Virgil a brasen head that discover'd the Jewes in Spain a certain earth in Hebron that was good to eat the Androides of Albertus Magnus and abundance of the like I cannot but look on them as so many black patches of his humanity nay if we appeal to Scaliger we must ingenuously acknowledge that hoc ostentationis vitium fuit magnis viris ut globatim congererent omnia non ut nihil reliquisse sed ut nihil nescivisse viderentur To re-inforce which Argument if any shall with Aristotle insist that common report cannot be absolutely false and consequently that so many Authors would not have spoken of the Androides of Albertus if something had not been in the wind I shall finally answer That my design is only to shew that he could not by the help of superstitious Magick make a Statue that should give him answers in an intelligible and articulate voice upon all the doubts and difficulties he propos'd thereto as well of things present as to come and not absolutely to deny that he might compose some Head or Statue of man like that of Memnon from which proceeded a small sound and pleasant noise when the rising Sun came by his heat to rarify and force out by certain small Conduits the aire which in the cold of the night was condens'd within it Or haply they