The liberty then, and the jollity of their ancient spirits brought forth many different Sects of opinions, in Philosophy and humane Sciences: every one undertaking to judge and chuse, so he might raise a faction. But now that men walke all one way:
Qui certis quibusdam destinatisque sententiis addicti et consecrate sunt, ut etiam quae non probant, cogantur defendere.
Who are addicted and consecrated to certaine set and fore-decreed opinions, so as they are enforced to maintaine those things which they prove or approve not.
1 CIC. Tusc. Qu. 1. ii.
And that wee receive Arts by civill authority and appointment: so that Schooles have but one patterne, alike circumscribed discipline and institution; no man regardeth more what coines weigh and are worth; but every man in his turne receiveth them according to the value that common approbation and succession allotteth them: Men dispute no longer of the alloy, but of the use. So are all things spent and vented like. Physike is received as Geometry: and jugling tricks, encjantments, bonds, the commerce of deceased spirits, prognostications, domifications, yea even this ridiculous wit and wealth-consuming pursuite of the Philosophers stone, all is emploied and uttered without contradiction. It sufficeth to know that Mars his place lodgeth in the middle of the hands triangle; that of Venus in the thumme; and Mercuries in the little finger: and when the table-line cutteth the fore- finger's rising, it is a signe of cruelty: when it falleth under the middle finger, and that the naturall median-line makes an angle with the vitall, under the same side, it is a signe of a miserable death: and when a womans naturall line is open, and closes not its angle with the vitall, it evidenty denotes that she will not be very chast. I call your selfe to witnesse, if with this Science onely, a man may not passe with reputation and favour among all companies.
Theophrastus was wont to say that mans knowledge, directed by the sense, might judge of the causes of things unto a certaine measure, but being come to the extream and first causes, it must necessarily stay, and be blunted or abated, either by reason of its weaknesse or of the things difficulty. It is an indifferent and pleasing kind of opinion to thinke that our sufficiency may bring us to the knowledge of some things, and hath certaine measures of power beyond which it's temerity to employ it. This opinion is plausible and brought in by way of composition: but it is hard to give our spirit any limits, being very curious and greedy, and not tied to stay rather at a thousand then at fifty spaces. Having found by experience that if one had mist to attaine unto some one thing, another hath come unto it, and that which one age never knew, the age succeeding hath found out: and that Sciences and Arts are not cast in a mold, but rather by little and little formed and shaped by often handling and polishing them over: even as beares fashion their yong whelps by often licking them: what my strength cannot discover, I cease not to sound and try: and in handling and kneading this new matter, and with removing and chasing it, I open some faculty for him that shall follow me, that with more ease he may enjoy the same, and make it more facile, more supple and more pliable:
-----vt hymettia sole
Cera remollescit, tractataque pollice, multas
Vertitur in facies, ipsoque fit vtilis vsu.
As the best Bees wax melteth by the Sun,
And handling, into many formes doth run,
And is made aptly fit
For use by using it.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1. x. 284.
As much will the second do for the third, which is a cause that difficulty doth not make me despaire, much lesse my unability: for it is but mine owne. Man is as well capable of all things as of some. And if (as Theophrastus saith) he avow the ignorance of the first causes and beginnings, let him boldly quit all the rest of his knowledge. If his foundation faile him, his discourse is overthrowne. The dispute hath no other scope, and to enquire no other end but the principles: If this end stay not his course, he casteth himself into an infinite irresolution. Non potest aliud alio magis minusque comprehendi, quoiam omnium reram vna est definitio comprehendendi: 'One thing can neither more nor lesse be comprehended than another, since of all things there is one definition of comprehending. Now it is likely that if the soule knew any thing, shee first know her selfe: and if she knew any without and besides her selfe, it must be her vaile and body before any thing else. If even at this day the Gods of Physicke are seene to wrangle about our Anatomie,
Mulciber in Troiam, pro Troia stabat Apollo.
Apollo stood for Troy,
Vulcan Troy to destroy.
Ovid, Trist. 1. i. El. ii. 5.
When shall we expect that they will be agreed? We are neerer unto our selves, then is whitenesse unto snow or weight unto a stone. If man know not himselfe, how can hee know his functions and forces? It is not by fortune that some true notice doth not lodge with us but by hazard. And forasmuch as by the same way, fashion and conduct, errours are received into our soule, she hath not wherewithall to distinguish them, nor whereby to chose the truth from falshood.
The Academikes received some inclination of judgment and found it over raw, to say, it was no more likely snow should be white then blacke, and that wee should be no more assured of the moving of a stone, which goeth from our hand, then of that of the eighth Spheare. And to avoid this difficultie and strangenesse, which in truth cannot but hardly lodge in our imagination, howbeit they establish that we were no way capable of knowledge, and that truth is engulfed in the deepest Abysses, where mans sight can no way enter; yet avowed they some things to be more likely and possible then others, and receivd this faculty in their judgement that they might rather incline to one apparence then to another. They allowed her this propension, interdicting her all resolution. The Pyrrhonians advise is more hardy, and therewithall more likely. For this Academicall inclination, and this propension rather to one then another proposition, what else is it then a recognition of some more apparant truth, in this than in that? If our understanding be capable of the forme, of the lineaments, of the behaviour and face of truth, it might as well see it all compleat, as but halfe, growing and imperfect. For this apparance of verisimilitude which makes them rather take the left then the right hand, doe you augment it; this one ounce of likelihood, which turnes the ballance, doe you multiply it by a hundred, nay by a thousand ounces; it wil in the end come to passe that the ballance will absolutely resolve and conclude one choice and perfect truth. But how doe they suffer themselves to be made tractable by likelihood, if they know not truth? How know they the semblance of that whereof they understand not the essence? Either we are able to judge absolutely, or absolutely we cannot. If our intellectuall and sensible faculties are without ground or footing, if they but hull up and downe and drive with the wind, for nothing suffer we our judgment to be carried away to any part of their operation, what apparauce soever it seemeth to present us with. And the surest and most happy situation of our understanding should be that, where without any tottering or agitation it might maintaine it selfe setled, upright and inflexible.
Inter visa, vera, aut falsa, ad animi assensum, nihil interest.
There is no difference betwixt true and false visions concerning the mindes assent.
Cicero, Acad. Qu. 1. iv.
That things lodge not in us in their proper forme and essence, and make not their entrance into us of their owne power and authority, we see it most evidently. For if it were so, we would receive them all alike: wine should be such in a sicke mans mouth as in a healthy mans. He whose fingers are chopt through cold, and stiffe or benummed with frost, should find the same hardnesse in the wood or iron he might handle, which another doth. Then strange subjects yeeld unto our mercy, and lodge with us according to our pleasure. Now if on our part we receive any thing without alteration, if mans holdfasts were capable and sufficiently powerfull by our proper meanes to seize on truth, those meanes being common to all; this truth would successively remove it selfe from one to another. And of so many things as are in the world, at least one should be found, that by an universall consent should be beleeved of all. But that no proposition is seene, which is not controversied and debated amongst us, or that may not be, declareth plainly that our judgment doth not absolutely and clearly seize on that which it seizeth: for my judgment cannot make my fellowes judgment to receive the same: which is a signe that I have seized upon it by some other meane then by a naturall power in me or other men.
Leave we apart this infinite confusion of opinions, which is seene amonge Philosophers themselves, and this universal and perpetuall disputation, in and concerning the knowledge of things. For it is most truly presupposed that men (I mean the wisest, the best borne, yea and the most sufficient do never agree; no not so much that heaven is over our heads. For they who doubt of all, doe also doubt of this: and such as affirme that we cannot conceive any thing, say we have not conceived whether heaven be over our heads; which two opinions are in number (without any comparison) the most forcible.
Besides this diversity and infinite division, by reason of the trouble which our owne judgement layeth upon our selves, and the uncertainty which every man findes in himselfe, it may manifestly be perceived that this situation is very uncertaine and unstaid. How diversely judge we of things? How often change we our phantasies? What I hold and beleeve this day I beleeve and hold with all my beleefe: all my implements, springs and motions, embrace and claspe this opinion, and to the utmost of their power warrant the same: I could not possibly embrace any verity, nor with more assurance keepe it, than I doe this. I am wholy and absolutely given to it: but hath it not beene my fortune, not once, but a hundred, nay a thousand times, nay daily, to have embraced some other thing with the very same instruments and condition which upon better advise I have afterward judged false? A man should, at the least become wise at his owne cost, and learne by others harmes. If under this colour I have often found my selfe deceived, if my Touch-stone be commonly found false and my ballance un-even and unjust; what assurance may I more take of it at this time than at others? Is it not folly in me to suffer my selfe so often to be beguiled and couzened by one guide? Neverthelesse, let fortune remove us five hundred times from our place, let her doe nothing but incessantly empty and fill, as in a vessell, other and other opinions in our mind, the present and last is alwaies supposed certaine and infallible. For this must a man have goods, honour, life, state, health and all:
-----posterior res illa reperta
Perdit; et immutat sensus ad pristina guaeque.
The latter thing destroies all found before;
And alters sense at all things lik'd of yore.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. v. 1424.
Whatsoever is told us, and what ever we learne, we should ever remember: it is man that delivereth and man that receiveth: it is a mortall hand that presents it, and a mortall hand that receives it. Onely things which come to us from heaven have right and authority of perswasion and markes of truth: which we neither see with our eyes nor receive by our meanes: this sacred and great image would be of no force in so wretched a Mansion except God prepare it to that use and purpose, unlesse God by his particular grace and supernaturall favor reforme and strengthen the same. Our fraile and defective condition ought at least make us demeane our selves more moderately and more circumspectly in our changes. We should remember that whatsoever we receive in our understanding we often receive false things, and that it is by the same instruments which many times contradict and deceive themselves.
And no marvell if they contradict themselves, being so easy to encline, and upon very slight occasions subject to waver and turne. Certaine it is that our apprehension, our judgement, and our soules faculties in generall, doe suffer according to the bodies motions and alterations, which are continuall. Have we not our spirits more vigilant, our memorie more ready, and our discourses more lively in time of health then in sicknesse? Doth not joy and blithenesse make us receive the subjects that present themselves unto our soule, with another kind of countenance, then lowring vexation and drooping melancholy doth? Doe you imagine that Catullus or Saphoes verses delight and please an old covetous chuff-penny wretch as they do a lusty and vigorous yong man? Cleomenes the sonne of Anaxandridas being sick, his friends reproved him, saying he had new strange humors and unusuall phantasies: 'It is not unlikely,' answered he, 'for I am not the man I was wont to be in the time of health; but being other, so are my fantasies and my humors. In the rabble case- canvasing of our plea-courts this byword, Gaudeat de bona fortuna: 'Let him joy in his good fortune" is much in use, and is spoken of criminall offenders, who happen to meete with Judges in some milde temper or well-pleased mood. For it is most certaine that in times of condemnation the Judges doome or sentence is sometimes perceived to be more sharpen mercilesse and forward, and at other times more tractable, facile, and enclined to shadow or excuse an offence, according as he is well or ill pleased in mind. A man that commeth out of his house troubled with the paine of the goute, vexed with jealousy, or angry that his servant hath robbed him, and whose mind is overcome with griefe, and plunged with vexation, and distracted with anger, there is not question to be made but his judgement is at that instant distempred, and much transported that way. That venerable senate of the Areopagites was wont to judge and sentence by night, for feare the sight of the suters might corrupt justice. The ayre it selfe, and the clearenes of the firmament, doth forbode us some change and alteration of weather, as saith that Greek verse in Cicero:
Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse
Iupiter auctifera lustravit lampade terras.
Such are mens mindes, as with increasefull light
Our father Jove survaies the world in sight.
Cicero, ex Incert.
It is not onely fevers, drinkes and great accidents, that over-whelme our judgement: the least things in the world will turne it topsie-turvie. And although we feele it not, it is not to bee doubted, if a continuall a ague may in the end suppresse our mind, a tertian will also (according to her measure and proportion) breed some alteration in it. If an Apoplexie doth altogether stupifie and extinguish the sight of our understanding, it is not to be doubted but a cold and rheum will likewise dazle the same. And by consequence, hardly shall a man in all his life find one houre wherein our judgement may alwaies be found in his right byase, our body being subject to so many continuall alterations, and stuft with so divers sorts of ginnes and motions, that, giving credit to Physitians, it is very hard to find one in perfect plight, and that doth not alwaies mistake his marke and shute wide.
As for the rest, this disease is not so easily discovered, except it be altogether extreame and remedilesse; forasmuch as reason marcheth ever crooked, halting and broken-hipt; and with falshood as with truth; and therefore it is very hard to discover her mistaking and disorder. I alwaies call reason that apparance or shew of discourses which every man deviseth or forgeth in himselfe: that reason, of whose condition there may be a hundred, one contrary to another, about one selfe same subject: it is an instrument of lead and wax, stretching, pliable, and that may be fitted to all byases and squared to all measures: there remaines nothing but the skill and sufficiency to know how to turne and winde the same. How well soever a Judge meaneth, and what good mind so ever he beareth, if diligent care be not given unto him (to which few ammuse themselves) his inclination unto friendship, unto kindred, unto beauty, and unto revenge, and not onely matters of so weighty consequence, but this innated and casual instinct which us to favour one thing more than another, and encline to one man more than to another, and which, without any leave or reason, giveth us the choice in two like subjects, or some shadow of like vanity, may insensibly insinuate in his judgment the commendation and applause, or disfavour and disallowance of a cause, and give the ballance a twitch.
I that nearest prie into my selfe, and who have mine eyes uncessantly fixt upon me as one that hath not much else to do else where,
Quis sub Arcto
Rex gelidae metuatur orae,
Quid Tyridatem terreat unice
Securus.
Only secure, who in cold coast
Under theNorth-pole rules the rost,
And there is feare or what would fright,
And Tyridates put to flight.
Horace, 1. i. Od. xxvi. 3.
Dare very hardly report the vanity and weaknesse I feele in myselfe. My foot is so staggering and unstable and I finde it so ready to trip and so easie to stumble and my sight is so dimme and uncertaine that fasting I find my selfe other than full fed. If my health applaud me, or but the calmenesse of one faire day smile upon me, then am I a lusty gallant; but if a corne wring my toe, then am I pouting, unpleasant and hard to be pleased. One same pace of a horse is sometimes hard and sometimes easie unto me; and one same way, one time short, another time long and wearisome; and one same forme, now more, now lesse agreeable and pleasing to me: sometimes I am apt to doe any thing, and other times fit to doe nothing: what now is pleasing to me within a while after will be paineful. There are a thousand indiscreet and casuall agitations in me. Either a melancholy humour possesseth me, or a cholericke passion swaieth me, which having shaken off, sometimes frowardilesse and peevishnesse hath predominancy, and other times gladnes and blithnesse overrule me. If I chance to take a booke in hand I shall in some passages perceive some excellent graces, and which ever wound me to the soule with delight; but let me lay it by and read him another time; let me turne and tosse him as I list, let me apply and manage him as I will, I shall finde it an unknowne and shapelesse masse. Even in my writings I shall not at all times finde the tracke or ayre of my first imaginations; I wot not my selfe what I would have said, and shall vexe and fret my selfe in correcting and giving a new sense to them, because I have peradventure forgotten or lost the former, which happily was better. I doe but come and goe; my judgement doth not alwaies goe forward, but is ever floting and wandering.
----- velut minuta magno
Deprensa navis in mari, vesaniente vento.
Much like a pettie skiffe, that's taken short
In a grand Sea, when winds doe make mad sport.
Catullus, Lyr. Epig. xxii. 12.
Many times (as commonly it is my hap to doe) having for exercise and sport-sake undertaken to maintaine an opinion contrarie to mine, my minde applying and turning it selfe that way doth so tie me unto it, as I finde no more the reason of my former conceit, and so I leave it. Where I encline, thereeI entertains my selfe howsoever it be, and am carried away by mine owne weight. Every man could neer-hand say as much of himselfe would he but looke into himselfe as I doe. Preachers know that the emotion which surpriseth them whilst they are in their earnest speech doth animate them towards belief, and that being angrie we more violently give our selves to defend our proposition, emprint it in our selves, and embrace the same with more vehemencie and approbation than we did being in our temperate and reposed sense. You relate simply your case unto a Lawyer; he answers faltring and doubtfully unto it, whereby you perceive it is indifferent unto him to defend either this or that side, all is one to him. Have you paid him well, have you given him a good baite or fee to make him earnestly apprehend it, beginnes he to be enterested in the matter, is his will moved or his minde enflamed? Then will his reason be moved and his knowledge enflamed with all. See then an apparent and undoubted truth presents it self to his understanding, wherein he discovers a new light, and believes it in good sooth, and so perswades himselfe. Shall I tell you? I wot not whether the heate proceedingk of spight and obstinacie against the impression and violence of a magistrate and of danger: or the interest of reputation have induced some man to maintaine, even in the fiery flames, the opinion for which amongst his friends and at libertie he would never have beene moved nor have ventured his fingers end. The motions and fits which our soule receiveth by corporall passions doe greatly prevaile in her, but more her owne, with which it is so fully possest, as happily it may be maintained she hath no other or motion than by the blasts of her windes, and that without their agitation she should remaine without action, as a ship at sea which the winds have utterly forsaken. And he who should maintaine that following the Peripatetike faction should offer us no great wrong, since it is knowne that the greatest number of the soules actions proceede and have neede of this impulsion of passion; valor (say they) cannot be perfected without the assistance of choler.
Semper Aiax fortis, fortissimus tamen in furore.
Ajax every valor had,
Most then, when he was most mad.
Cicero, Tusc. Qu. 1. iv.
Nor doth any man run violently enough upon the wicked, or his enemies, except he be throughly angrie; and they are of opinion that an advocate or counsellor at the barre, to have the cause goe on his side, and to have justice at the judges hands, doth first endevor to provoke him to anger.
Longing-desires moved Themistocles and urged Demosthenes, and have provoked Philosophers to long travels, to tedious watchings, and to lingring peregrinations and leads us to honours, to doctrine, and to health: all profitable respects. And this demissenes of the soule in suffering molestion and tediousness, serveth to no other purpose, but to breed repentance and cause penitence in our consciences, and for our punishment to feele the scourge of God and the rod of politike correction. Compassion serveth as a sting unto clemencie, and wisdome to preserve and governe our selves, is by our owne feare rouzed up; and how many noble actions by ambition, how many by presumption. To conclude, no eminent or glorious vertue can be without some immoderate and irregular agitation. May not this be one of the reasons which moved the Epicureans to discharge God of all care and thought of our affaires: forsomuch as the very effects of his goodnesse cannot exercise themselves towards us without disturbing his rest by meanes of the passions which are as motives and solicitations directing the soule to vertuous actions? Or have they thought otherwise, and take them as tempests which shamefully lead astray the soule from her rest and tranquillitie?
Vt maris tranquillita intelligitur, nulla, ne minima quidem, aura fluctus, commovente: Sic animi quietus et placatus status cernitur, quam perturbatio nulla est, quw moveri queat.
As we conceive the seas calmnesse, when not so much as the least pirling wind doth stirre the waves, so is a peaceable reposed state of the mind then seene when there is no perturbation whereby it may be moved.
Cicero, Tusc. Qu. 1. v.
What differences of sense and reason, what contrarietie of imaginations doth the diversitie of our passions present unto us? What assurance may we then take of so unconstant and wavering a thing, subject by its owne condition to the power of trouble, never marching but a forced and borrowed pace? If our judgement be in the hands of sickenes itselfe and of perturbation; if by rashnesse and folly it be retained to receive the impression of things, what assurance may we expect at his hands?
Dares not Philosophie thinke that men produce their greatest effects, and neerest approaching to divinity when they are besides themselves, furious, and madde? We amend our selves by the privation of reason, and by her drooping. The two naturall waies to enter the cabinet of the Gods, and there to foresee the course of the destinies, are furie and sleepe.
This is very pleasing to be considered. By the dislocation that passions bring into our reason, we become vertuous; by the extirpation which either furie or the image of death bringeth us, we become Prophets and Divines. I never beleeved it more willingly. It is a meere divine inspiration that sacred truth hath inspired in a Philosophical spirit which against his proposition exacteth from him; that the quiet state of our soule, the best-settled estate, yea the healthfullesi that Philosophy can acquire unto it, is not the best estate. Our vigilancie is more drouzie then asleepe it selfe: our wisdome lesse wise then folly; our dreames of more worth then our discourses. The worst place we can take is in ourselves. But thinks it not that we have the foresight to marke, that the voice which the spirit uttereth when he is gone from man so cleare sighted, so great, and so perfect, and whilst he is in man so earthly, so ignorant, and so overclouded, is a voice proceeding from the spirit which is in earthly, ignorant, and overclouded man; and therefore a trustles and not to be-believed voice?
I have no great experience in these violent agitations, being of a soft and dull complexion, the greatest part of which, without giving it leisure to acknowledge her selfe, doe sodainely surprise our soule. But that passion, which in young mens harts is saied to be produced by idleness, although it march but leasurely and with a measured progress, doth evidently present to those that have assaid to oppose themselves against her endevour, the power of the conversion and alteration which our judgement suffereth. I have some times enterprised to arme my selfe with a resolution to abide, resist, and suppresse the same. For I am so farre from being in their ranke that call and allure vices, that unlesse they draw me I scarcely follow them. I felt it mauger my resistance, to breed, to growe, and to augment; and in the end, being in perfect health and cleare sighted, to seize upon and pollute me; in such sort that as in drunkennes the image of things began to appeare unto me otherwise then it was wont. I saw the advantages of the subject I sought after evidently to swell and grow greater, and much to encrease by the winde of my imagination; and the difficulties of my enterprise to become more easie and plaine, and my discourse and conscience to shrinke and draw backe. But that fire being evaporated all on a sodaine, as by the flashing of a lightning, my soule to reassume an other sight, an other state, and other judgement. The difficultie in my retreate seemed great and invincible, and the very same things of another taste and shew than the fervency of desire had presented them unto me. And which more truly, Pyrrho cannot tell. We are never without some infirmitie. Fevers have their heat and their cold: from the effects of a burning passion, we fall into the effects of a chilling passion. So much as I had cast my selfe forward, so much doe I draw my selfe backe.
Qualis ubi alterno procurrens gurgite pontus,
Nunc ruit ad terrar, scopilisque superjacit undam,
Spumeus, extremamque sinu prefundit arenam,
Nunc rapidus retro, atque aestu rvoluta resorbens
Saxa, fugit, littusque vado labente relinquit.
As th' Ocean flowing, ebbing in due course,
To land now rushes, foming throws his fource
On rocks, therewith bedewes the utmost sand,
Now swift returns the stones rowld backe from strand
By tide resucks, foord failing, leaves the land.
Virgil, AEneid, 1. xi. 508.
Now by the knowledge of my volubilitie, I have by accident engendred some constancy of opinions in my selfe; yea have not so much altered my first and naturall ones. For, what apparance soever there be in novelty, I do not easily change for feare I should lose by the bargaine: and since I am not capable to chuse, I take the choice from others; and keepe my selfe in the seate that God hath placed me in. Else could I hardly keepe my selfe from continuall rowling. Thus have I by the Grace of God preserved my selfe whole (without agitation or trouble of conscience) in the ancient beliefe of our religion, in the middest of so many sects and divisions which our age hath brought forth. The writings of the ancient fathers (I meane the good, the solide, and the serious) doe tempt, and in a manner remove me which way they list. Him that I heare seemeth ever the most forcible. I finde them everie one in his turne to have reason, although they contrary one another. That facility which good witts have to prove any thing they please likel; and that there is nopthing so strange but that they will undertake to set so good a gloss on it, as it shall easily deceive a simplicity like unto mine, doth manifestly shew the weaknesse of their proofe. The heavens and the planets have moved these three thousand yeares, and all the world beleeved as much, untill Cleanthes the Samian, or else (according to Theophrastus) Nicetas the Syracusian tooke upon him to maintaine, it was the earth that moved, by the oblique circle of the Zodiake, turning about her axell tree. And in our daies Copernicus hath so well grounded this doctrine, that hee doth orderly fit it to all astrologicall consequences. What shall we reape by it but only that wee neede not care which of the two it be? And who knoweth whether a thousand yeares hence a third opinion will rise, which happily shall overthrow these two precedents?
Sic volvenda aetas vommutat tempora rerum,
Quodque fuit pretio, fit nullo denique honore,
Porro aliud succedit, et contemptibus exit,
Inque dies magis appetitur, floretque repertum
Laudibus, et miro est mortales inter honore.
So age to be past-over alters times of things:
What earst was most esteem'd,
At last nought-worth is deem'd:
Another then succeeds, and from contempt upsprings,
Is daily more desir'd, flowreth as found but then
With praise and wondrous honor amongst mortall men.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. v. 1286.
So when any new doctrine is represented unto us, we have great cause to suspect it, and to consider how, before it was invented, the contrary unto it was in credit; and as that hath beene reversed by this latter, a third invention may peradventure succeed in afterages, which in like sort shall front the second. Before the principles which Aristotle found out were in credit, other principles contented mans reason as his doe now content us. What learning have these men, what particular priviledge, that the course of our invention should rely only upon them, and that the possession of our beliefe shall for ever hereafter belong to them? They are no more exempted from being rejected than were their fore-fathers. If any man urge me with a new argument, it is in me to imagine that, if I cannot answere it, another can. For, to believe all apparences which we cannot resolve, is meere simplicitie. It would then follow that all the common sort (whereof we are all part) should have his beliefe turning and winding like a weather-cocke: for, his soule being soft and without resistance, should uncessantly be enforced to receive new and admit other impressions: the latter ever defacing the precedents trace. He that perceiveth himselfe weake, ought to answer, according to law termes, that he will conferre with his learned counsel, or else referre himselfe to the wisest, from whom he hath had his prentiseship. How long is it since physicke came first into the world? It is reported that a new start-up fellow, whom they call Paracelsus, changeth and subverteth all the order of ancient and so long received rules, and maintaineth that untill this day it bath only served to kill people. I thinke he will easily verify it. But I suppose it were no great wisedome to hazard my life upon the triall of his newfangled experience. 'We must not beleeve all men,' saith the precept, since every man may say all things. It is not long since that one of these professours of novelties and physical reformations told me that all our forefathers had notoriously abused themselves in the nature and motion of the winds, which, if I should listen unto him, he would manifestly make me perceive. After I had with some patience given attendance to his arguments, which were indeed full of likelyhood, I demanded of him whether they which had sailed according to Theophrastus his lawes, went westward when they bent their course eastward? Or whether they sailed sideling or backward? 'It is fortune,' answered he, 'but so it is, they tooke their marke amisse:' To whom I then replied that I would rather follow the effects than his reason. They are things that often shock together: and it hath beene told mee that in geometry (which supposeth to have gained the high point of certainty amongst all sciences) there are found unavoidable demonstrations, and which subvert the truth of all experience: as James Peletier told me in mine owne house, that he had found out two lines bending their course one towards another, as if they would meet and joyne together; neverthelesse he affirmed that, even unto infinity, they could never come to touch one another. And the Pyrrhonians use their arguments, and reason but to destroy the apparance of experience: and it is a wonder to see how far the supplenesse of our reason hath in this design followed them to resist the evidence of effects: for they affirme that we move not, that we speake not, that there is no weight, nor heat, with the same force of arguing that we averre the most likeliest things. Ptolomey, who was an excellent man, had established the bounds of the world; all ancient philosophers have thought they had a perfect measure thereof, except it were certaine scattered ilands which might escape their knowledge: it had beene to Pyrrhonize a thousand yeares agoe, had any man gone about to make a question of the art of cosmography: and the opinions that have beene received thereof, of all men in generall: it had beene flat heresie to avouch that there were Antipodes. See how in our age an infinite greatnesse of firme land hath beene discovered, not an iland onely, nor one particular country, but a part in greatnesse very neere equall unto that which we knew. Our moderne geographers cease not to affirme that now all is found, and all is discovered:
Nam quod adest praesto, placet, et pollere videtur.
For what is present here,
Seemes strong, is held most deare.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. v. 1422.
The question is now, if Ptolomey was heretofore deceived in the grounds of his reason, whether it were not folly in me to trust what these late fellowes say of it, and whether it be not more likely that this huge body which we terme the world is another manner of thing than we judge it.
Plato saith that it often changeth his countenance, that the heaven, the starres, and the sunne do sometimes re-enverse the motion we perceive in them, changing the east into the west. The Aegyptian priests told Herodotus that since their first king, which was eleaven thousand and odde yeares (when they made him see the pictures of all their former kings, drawne to the life in statues) the sun course had changed his course foure times: that the sea and the earth doe enterchangeably change one into another; that the worlds birth is undetermined: the like said Aristotle and Cicero. And some one amongst us averreth that it is altogether eternall, mortal, and new reviving againe, by many vicissitudes, calling Solomon and Esay to witnesse: to avoid these oppositions, that God hath sometimes been a Creator without a creature; that he hath beene idle; that he hath unsaid his idlenesse by setting his hand to this worke, and that by consequence he is subject unto change. In the most famous schooles of Greece, the world is reputed a God framed by another greater and mightier God, and is composed of a body and a soule, which abideth in his centre, spreading it selfe by musicall numbers unto his circumference, divine, thrice happy, very great, most wise and eternall. In it are other Gods, as the sea, the earth, and planets, which with an harmonious celestiall dance; sometime meeting, other times farre-sundering themselves; now hiding, them shewing themselves; and changing place, now forward, now backward. Heraclitus firmly mainitained that the world was composed of fire, and by the destinies order it should one day burst forth into flames, and be so consumed into cinders, and another day it should be new borne againe. And Apuleius of men saith:
Sigillatim mortales; cunctim perpetui.
Severally mortall; altogether everlasting.
Apul. De Deo; SOCRAT.
Alexander writ unto his mother the narration of an AEgyptian priest, drawne from out their monuments, witnessing the antiquitie of that nation, infinite; and comprehending the birth and progresse of their countries to the life. Cicero and Diodorus said in their daies that the Chaldeans kept a register of foure hundred thousand and odde yeares; Aristotle, Plinie, and others, that Zoroaster lived sixe thousand yeares before Plato. And Plato saith that those of the citty of Sais have memories in writing of eight thousand yeares, and that the towne of Athens was built a thousand yeares before the citty of Sais. Epicurus, that at one same time all things that are looke how we see them, they are all alike, and in the same fashion, in divers other Worlds, which he would have spoken more confidently had he seene the similitudes and correspondencies of this new-found world of the West Indiaes with ours, both present and past, by so many strange examples.
Truly, when I consider what hath followed our learning by the course of this terrestriall policies I have divers times wondered at my selfe, to see in so great a distance of times and places, the simpathy or jumping of so great a number of popular and wilde opinions, and of extravagant customes and beliefes, and which by no meanes seeme to hold with our naturall discourse. Man's spirit is a wonderfull worker of miracles. But this relation hath yet a kind of I wot not what more Heteroclite: which is found both in names and a thousand other things. For there were found Nations which (as far as we know) bad never heard of us, where circumcision was held in request; where great states and commonwealths were maintained onely by women, and no men: where our fasts and Lent was represented, adding thereunto the abstinence from women; where our crosses were severall waies in great esteeme. In some places they adorned and honored their sepulchres with them, and elsewhere especially that of Saint Andrew, they employed to shield themselves from nightly visions, and to lay them upon childrens couches, as good against enchantments and witchcrafts. In another place they found one made of wood, of an exceeding height, worshipped for the God of raine; which was thrust very deepe into the ground. There was found a very expresse and lively image of our Penitentiaries: the use of Miters, the Priestes single life; the Art of Divination by the entrailes of sacrificed beasts; the abstinence from all sorts of flesh and fish for their food; the order amongst Priests, in saying of their divine service, to use a not vulgar but a particular tongue; and this erroneous and fond conceipt, that the first God was expelled his throne by a younger brother of his: that they were at first created with all commodities, which afterward, by reason of their sinnes, were abridged them: that their territory hath beene changed; that their naturall condition hath beene much impaired: that they have heretofore beene drowned by the inundation of Waters come from heaven; that none were saved but a few families, which cast themselves into the cracks or hollows of high Mountaines, which crackes they stoped very close, so that the Waters could not enter in, having before shut therin many kinds of beasts: that when they perceived the Raine to cease and Waters to fall, the first sent out certaine doggs, which returned cleane-washt and wet, they judged that the waters were not yet much falne; and that afterward sending out some other, which seeing to returne all muddy and foule, they issued forth of the mountaines, to repeople the world againe, which they found replenished onely with Serpents. There were places found where they used the perswasion of the day of judgement, so that they grew wondrous wroth and offended with the Spaniards, who in digging and searching of riches in their graves, scattered here and there the bones of there deceased friends, saying that those dispersed bones could very hardly be reconjoyned againe. They also found where they used traffic by exchange, and no otherwise; and had Faires and Markets for that purpose; they found dwarfes, and such other deformed creatures, used for the ornament of Princes tables: they found the use of hawking and fowling according to the nature of their birdes: tyrannical subsidies, and grievances upon subjects; delicate and pleasant gardens; dancing, tumbling, leaping, and lugling, musicke of instruments, armories, dicing-houses, tennisse-courts, and casting lottes, or mumne-chaunce, wherein they are often so earnest and moody, that they will play themselves and their liberty: using no other physicke but by charmes: the manner of writing by figures: beleeving in one first man, universall father of all people. The adoration of one God, who heretofore lived man in perfect Virginitie, fasting, and penance, preaching the law of Nature, and the ceremonies of religion; and who vanished out of the world without any naturall death: The opinion of Giants; the use of drunkennesse, with their manner of drinkes and drinking and pledging of, healths; religious ornaments painted over with bones and dead mens sculs; surplices, holy Water, and holy Water sprinckles, Women and servants which thrivingly presnt themselves to be burned or enterred with their deceased husbands or masters: a law that the eldest or first borne child shall succeed and inherit all: where nothing at all is reserved for Punies, but obedience: a custome to the promotion of certaine officers of great authority, and where he that is promoted takes upon him a new name, and quiteth his owne: Where they used to cast lime upon the knees of new borne children, saying unto him:
From dust then camest, and to dust then shalt returne againe: the Arts of Augures or prediction. These vaine shadowes of our religion, which are seene in some of these examples, witnesse the dignity and divinity thereof. It hath not onely in some sort insinuated it selfe among all infidell Nations on this side by some imitations, but amongst those barbarous Nations beyond, as it were by a common and supernaturall inspiration: For amongst them was also found the beliefe of Purgatory, but after a new forme: for, what we ascribe unto fire, they impute unto cold, and imagine that soules are both purged and punished by the vigor of an extreame coldnesse. This example putteth me in mind of another pleasant diversity: For, as there were some people found who tooke pleasure to unhood the end of their yard, and to cut off the fore-skinne after the manner of the Mahometans and Jewes, some there were found that made so great a conscience to unhood it, that with little strings they caried their fore-skin very carefully out-streched and fastened above, for feare that end should see the aire. And of this other diversity also, that as we honour our Kings and celebrate our Holy-daies with decking and trimming our selves with the best habilliments we have; in some regions there, to shew all disparity and submission to their King, their subjects present themselves unto him in their basest and meanest apparrell; and entring unto his pallace they take some old torne garment and put it over their other attire, to the end all the glory and ornament may shine in their Soveraigne and Maister.
But let us goe on: if Nature enclose within the limits of her ordinary progresse, as all other things, so the beliefes, the judgments and the opinions of men; if they have their revolutions, their seasons, their birth, and their death, even as cabbages: if heaven doth move, agitate and rowle them at his pleasure, what powerfull and permanent authority doe we ascribe unto them? If by uncontroled experience we palpably touch, that the forme of our being depends of the aire, of the climate, and of the soile wherein we are borne and not onely the hew, the stature, the complexion and the countenance, but also the soules facilities: Et plagae coeli non serum ad robor corporum, sed etiam animorum facit: 'The climate helpeth not onely for strength of body, but of minds,' saith Vegetius: And that the Goddesse, foundresse of the Citie of Athens, chose a temperature of a country to situate it in, that might make the men wise, as the AEgyptian Priests taught Solon:
Athenis tenue eoclum: ex quo etiam acutiores putantur Attici: crassum Thebis: itague pingues Thebani, et valentes.
About Athens is a thin aire, whereby those Country-men are esteemed the sharper witted: about Thebes the aire is grosse, and therefore the Thebans were grosse and strong of constitution.
Cicero. De Fato.
In such manner that as fruits and beasts doe spring up diverse and different; so men are borne either more or lesse warlike, martiall, just, temperate, and docile: here subject to wine, there to theft and whoredome: here inclined to superstition, addicted to misbehaving; here given to liberty; there to servitude; capable of some one art or science; grosse-witted or ingenious: either obedient or rebellious; good or bad, according as the inclination of the place beareth, where they are seated; and being removed from one soile to another (as plants are) they take a new complexion: which was the cause that Cirus would never permit the Persians to leave their barren, rough, and craggie Country, for to transport themselves into another, more gentle, more fertile, and more plaine: saying, that 'fat and delicious countries make men wanton and effeminate; and fertile soiles yeeld infertile spirits. If sometime wee see one art to flourish, or a beliefe, and sometimes another, by some heavenly influence: some ages to produce this or that nature, and so to encline mankind to this or that base: mens spirits one while flourishing, another while barren, even as fields are seene to be; what become of all those goodly prerogatives wherewith we still flatter ourselves. Since a wise man may mistake himselfe; yea, many men, and whole nations; and as wee say, mans nature either in one thing or other, hath for many ages together mistaken her selfe. What assurance have we that at any time she leaveth her mistaking, and that she continueth not even at this day, in her error?
Me thinkes amongst other testimonies of our imbecilities, this one ought not to be forgotten, that by wishing it selfe, man cannot yet finde out what he wanteth; that not by enjoying or possession, but by imagination and full wishing, we cannot all agree in one that we most stand in need of, and would best content us. Let our imagination have free liberty to cut out and sew at her pleasure, she cannot so much as desire what is fittest to please and content her.
-----quid enim ratione timemus
Aut cupimus? quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
Conatus non paeniteat, votique peracti?
By reason what doe we feare, or desire?
With such dexteritie what doest aspire,
But thou eftsoones repentest it,
Though thy attempt and vow doe hit?
Juvenal, Sat. x. 4.
That is the reason why Socrates never requested the gods to give him anything but what they knew to be good for him. And the publike and private prayer of the Lacedemonians did meerely implie that good and faire things might be granted them, remitting the election and choise of them to the discretion of the highest power.
Coniugium petimus partumque uxoris, at illis
Notum qui pueri, qualisque futura sit uxor.
We wish a wife, wifes breeding: we would know,
What children; shall our wife be sheep or shrow.
Juvenal, Sat. x. 352.
And the Christian beseecheth God, that his will may be done, least he should fall into that inconvenience which poets faine of King Midas, who requested of the Gods that whatsoever he toucht might be converted into gold: his praiers were heard, his wine was gold, his bread gold, the feathers of his bed, his shirt, and his garments were turned into gold, so that he found himselfe overwhelmed in the injoying of his desire, and being enricht with an intolerable commoditie, he must now unpray his prayers:
Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,
Effugere optat opes, et quae modo voverat, odit.
Wretched and rich, amaz'd at so strange ill,
His riches he would flie, hates his owns will.
Ovid, Met. 1. xi. 128
Let me speake of my selfe; being very yong I besought fortune above all ibings that she would make me a knight of the order of Saint Michael, which in those daies was very rare, and the highest tipe of honour the French nobilitie aymed at; she very kindly granted my request; I had it. In lieu of raising and advancing me from my place for the attaining of it, she hath much more graciously entreated me, she hath debased and depressed it, even unto my shoulders and under. Cleobis and Biton, Trophonius and Agamedes, the two first having besought the Goddesse, the two latter their God, of some recompence worthy their pietie, received death for a reward. So much are heavenly opinions different from ours, concerning what we have need of. God might grant us riches, honours, long life and health, but many times to our owne hurt. For, whatsoever is pleasing to us, is not alwaies healthfull for us. If in lieu of former health he send us death, or some worse sicknesse:
Virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa me consolata sunt.
Thy rod and thy staffe hath comforted me.
Psalm. xxiii. 4.
He doth it by the reasons of his providence, which more certainly considereth and regardeth what is meet for us then we ourselves can doe, and we ought to take it in good part as from a most wise and thrice-friendly hand.
---- si consilium vis,
Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid
Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit vtile nostris:
Charior est illis homo quam sibi.
If you will counsell have, give the Gods leave
To weigh what is most meet we should receive,
And what for our estate most profit were:
To them, then to himselfe man is more deare.
Juvenal, Sat x. 346.
For, to crave honours and charges of them, is to request them to cast you in some battle, or play at hazard, or some such thing, whereof the event is unknowen to you, and the fruit uncertaine. There is no combate amongst philosophers so violent and sharpe as that which ariseth upon the question of mans chiefe felicitie, from which (according to Varroe's calculation) arose two hundred and foure score Sects. Qui autem de summo hono dissentit, de tota Philosophiae ratione disputat: 'But he that disagrees about the chiefest felicitie, cals in question the whole course of Philosophie.
Tres mihi convivae prope dissentire videntur,
Poscentes vario multit diversa palato.
Ouid dem? quid non dem? renuis tu quod iubet alter:
Quod petis, id sane est invisum acidumque duobus.
Three guests of mine doe seeme allmost at ods to fall,
Whilest they with divers taste for divers things doe call:
What should I give? What not? You will not, what he will;
What you would, to them twaine is hatefull, sowre and ill.
Horace, 1. ii. Epist. ii. 61.
Nature should thus answer their contestations and debates. Some say our felicitie consisteth and is in vertue, others in voluptuousnesse, others in yeelding unto Nature, some others in learning, others in feeling no manner of paine or sorrow, others for a man never to suffer himselfe to be carried away by appearances, and to this opinion seemeth this other of ancient Pithagoras to incline,
Nil admirari, propre res est una,
Numici, Solaque, quae possit facere et servare beatum.
Sir, nothing to admire, is th' only thing,
That may keepe happy, and to happy bring.
Horace, 1. i. Epist. vi. 1.
which is the end and scope of the Pyrrhonian Sect. Aristotle ascribeth unto magnanimitie, to admire and wonder at nothing. And Archesilaus said that sufference and an upright and inflexible state of judgement were true felicities; whereas consents and applications were vices and evils. True it is, that where he establisheth it for a certaine Axiome, he started from Pyrrhonisme. When the Pyrrhonians say that ataraxy is the chiefe felicitie, which is the immobilitie of judgement, their meaning is not to speake it affirmatively, but the very wavering of their mind, which makes them to shun downefalls, and to shrewd themselves under the shelter of calmenesse, presents this phantasie unto them, and makes them refuse another.
Oh how much doe I desire that whilest I live, either some other learned men, or Iustus Lipsius, the most sufficient and learned man now living; of a most polished and judicious wit, true Cosingermane to my Turnebus, had both will, health, and leisure enough, sincerely and exactly, according to their divisions and formes, to collect into one volume or register, as much as by us might be seene, the opinions of ancient philosophy, concerning the subject of our being and customes, their controversies the credit, and partaking of factions and sides, the application of the authors and sectators lives, to their precepts in memorable and exemplarie accidents. O what a worthy and profitable labour would it be!
Besides, if it be from our selves that we draw the regiment of our customes, into what a bottomles confusion doe we cast our selves? For what our reason perswades us to be most likely for it, is generally for every man to obey the lawes of his country, as is the advise of Socrates, inspired (saith be) by a divine perswasion. And what else meaneth she thereby, but only that our devoire or duety hath no other rule but casuall? Truth ought to have a like and universall visage throughout the world. Law and justice, if man knew any, that had a body and true essence, he would not fasten it to the condition of this or that countries customes. It is not according to the Persians or Indians fantazie that vertue should take her forme. Nothing is more subject unto a continuall agitation then the laws. I have, since I was borne, seene those of our neighbours, the English- men, changed and re-changed three or foure times, not only in politike subjects, which is that some will dispense of constancy, but in the most important subject that possibly can be, that is to say, in religion: whereof I am so much the more ashamed, because it is a nation with which my countriemen have heretofore had so inward and familiar acquaintance, that even to this day there remain in my house some ancient monuments of our former alliance. Nay, I have seene amongst our selves some things become lawfull which erst were deemed capitall: and we that hold some others, are likewise in possibilitie, according to the uncertainty of warring fortune, one day or other, to be offenders against the Majestie both of God and man, if our justice chance to fall under the mercy of justice; and in the space of few yeares possession, taking a contrary essence. How could that ancient God more evidently accuse, in humane knowledge, the ignorance of divine essence, and teach men that their religion was but a peece of their owne invention, fit to combine their societies then in declaring, as he did, to those which sought the instruction of it, by his sacred Tripos, that the true worshipping of God was that which he found to be observed by the custome of the place where he lived? Oh God, what bond or dutie is it that we owe not to our Soveragne Creators benignitie, in that he hath beene pleased to cleare and enfranchise our beliefe from those vagabonding and arbitrary devotions, and fixt it upon the eternall base of his holy word? What will Philosophie then say to us in this necessity? that we follow the lawes of our country, that is to say, this waveing sea of a peoples or of a Princes opinions, which shall paint me forth justice with as many c6oours, and reforme the same into as many visages as there are changes and alterations of passions in them. I cannot have my judgement so flexible. What goodnesse is that which but yesterday I saw in credit and esteeme, and to morrow to have lost all reputation, and that the crossing of a river is made a crime? What truth is that which these Mountaines bound, and is a lie in the world beyond them?
But they are pleasant, when to allow the lawes some certaintie, they say that there be some firme, perpetuall and immoveable; which they call naturall, and by the condition of their proper essence, are imprinted in mankind: of which some make three in number, some foure, some more, some lesse: an evident token that it is a marke as doubtfull as the rest. Now are they so unfortunate (for how can I terme that but misfortune, that of so infinit a number of lawes there is not so much as one to be found which the fortune or temeritie of chance hath graunted to be universally received, and by the consent of unanimitie of all Nations to be admitted?) they are (I say) so miserable that of these three or four choice-selected lawes there is not one alone that is not impugned or disallowed, not by one nation, but by many. Now is the generalitie of approbation the onely likely ensigne by which they may argue some lawes to be naturall; for what nature had indeed ordained us, that should we doubtlesse follow with one common consent; and not one onely nation, but every man in particular should have a feeling of the force and violece which he should urge him with, that would incite him to contrarie and resist that law. Let them all (for example sake) shew me but one of this condition. Protagoras and Ariston gave the justice of the lawes no other essence, but the authority and opinion of the law giver, and that excepted, both good and honest lost their qualities, and remained but vaine and idle names of indifferent things. Thrasymachus, in Plato, thinkes there is no other right but the commoditie of the superior. There is nothing wherein the world differeth so much as in customes and lawes. Some things are here accompted abominable, which in another place are esteemed commendable; as in Lacedemonia, the slight and subtlety in stealing marriages in proximity of blood are amongst us forbidden as capitall, elsewhere they are allowed and esteemed:
----gentes esse feruntur,
In quibus et nato genitrix, et nata parenti
Iungitur, et pietas geminato crescit amore.
There are some people where the another weddeth
Her sonne the daughter her owne father beddeth,
And so by doubling love, their kinduesse spreddeth.
Ovid, Metam. 1. x. 331.
The murthering of children and of parents; the communication with women; traffic of jobbing and stealing; free licence to all manner of sensuality; to conclude, there is nothing so extreme and horrible, but is found to be received and allowed by the custome of some nation.
It is credible that there be naturall lawes, as may be seene in other creatures, but in us they are lost: this goodly humane reason engrafting it self among all men, to sway and command, confounding and topsi-turving the visage of all things according to her inconstant vanitie and vaine inconstancy.
Nihil itaque amplius nostrum est, quod nostrum dico, artis est.
Therefore nothing more is ours: all that I call ours belongs to art.
Subjects have divers lustres, and severall considerations, whence the diversity of opinion is chiefly engendred. One nation vieweth a subject with one visage, and thereon it staies; an other with an other.
Nothing can be imagined so horrible as for one to eate and devour his owne father. Those people which anciently kept this custome hold it neverthelesse for a testimonie of pietie and good affection: seeking by that meane to give their fathers the worthiest and most honourable sepulchre, harboring their fathers bodies and reliques in themselves, and in their marrow; in some sort reviving and regenerating them by the transmutation made in their quicke flesh by digestion and nourishment. It is easie to be considered what abomination and cruelty it had beene, in men accustomed and trained in this inhumane superstition, to cast the carcases of their parents into the corruption of the earth, as food for beasts and wormes.
Lycurgus wisely considereth in theft, the vivacitie, dilignce, courage, and nimblenesse that is required in surprising or taking any thing from ones neighbour, and the commoditie which thereby redoundeth to the common- wealth, that every man heedeth more curiously the keeping of that which is his owne, and judged that by this twofold institution to assaile and to defend, much good was drawne for military discipline (which was the principall Science and chiefe verue wherein he would enable that nation) of greater respect and more consideration than was the disorder and injustice of prevailing and taking other mens goods.
Dionysius, the tyrant offered Plato a robe made after the Persian fashion, long, damask, and perfumed: but he refused the same, saying, 'That being borne a man, he would not willingly put on a womans garment. But Aristippus tooke it, with this answer, 'That no garment could corrupt a chaste mind. His friends reproved his demissenesse in being so little offended, that Dionysius had spitten in his face. 'Tut (said be) fishers suffer themselves to be washed over head and eares to get a gudgion. Diogenes washing of coleworts for his dinner, seeing him passe by, said unto him, 'If thou couldest live with coleworts, thou wouldest not court and fawne upon a tyrant;' to whom Aristippus replied, 'If thou couldest live among men, thou wouldest not wash coleworts. See here how reason yeeldeth apparance to divers effects. It is a pitcher with two eares, which a man may take hold on, either by the right or left hand.
----- bellunt o terra hospita portas,
Bello armantur equi, bellum haec armenta minantur: Sed tamen
iidem olim curru succedere sueti
Quadrupedes, et froena jugo concordia ferre,
Spes est pacis.
O stranger-harbring land, thou bringst us warre;
Steeds serve for war;
These heards doe threaten jarre.
Yet horses erst were wont to draw our waines,
And harnest matches beare agreeing raines,
Hope is hereby that wee
In peace shall well agree.
Virgil. AEn. 1. iii. 559.
Solon being importuned not to shed vaine and bootles teares for the death of his sonne; 'Thats the reason (answered hee) I may more justly shed them, because they are bootlesse and vaine. Socrates, his wife, exasperated her griefe by this circumstance. 'Good Lord (said she) how unjustly doe these bad judges put him to death. ' What! wouldest thou rather they should execute me justly? replied he to her. It is a fashion amongst us to have holes bored in our eares: the Greekes held it for a badge of bondage. We hide our selves when we will enjoy our wives: the Indians doe it in open view of all men. The Scithians were wont to sacrifice strangers in their Temples, whereas in other places Churches are Sanctuaries for them:
Inde furor vulgi, quodnumina vicinorum
Odit quisque locus, cum solos credat habendos
Esse Deos quos ipse colit.
The vulgar hereupon doth rage, because
Each place doth hate their neighbours soveraigne lawes,
And onely Gods doth deeme,
Those Gods, themselves esteeme.
Juvenal. Sat. xv. 36.
I have heard it reported of a Judge who, when he met with any sharp conflict betweene Bartolus and Baldus, or with any case admitting contrarieties was wont to write in the margin of his book, 'A question for a friend,' which is to say, that the truth was so entangled and disputable that in such a case he might favour which party he should thinke good. There was no want but of spirit and sufficiency, if he set not every where through his books, 'A question for a friend. The Advocates and Judges of our time find in all cases byases too-too-many to fit them where they think good. To so infinite a science, depending on the authority of so many opinions, and of so arbitrary a subject, it cannot be but that an exceeding confusion of judgements must arise. There are very few processes so cleare but the Lawiers advises upon them will be found to differ: What one company hath judged another will adjudge the contrary, and the very same will another time change opinion. Whereof we see ordinarie examples by this licence which wonderfully blemisheth the authoritie and lustre of our law, never to stay upon one sentence, but to run from one to another judge, to decide one same case.
Touching the libertie of Philosophicall opinions concerning vice and vertue, it is a thing needing no great extension, and wherein are found many advises which were better unspoken then published to weake capacities. Arcesilaus was wont to say that in pailliardize it was not worthy consideration, where, on what side, and how it was done.
Et obcaenas voluptates, si natura requirit, non genera, aut loco, aut ordine, sed forma, aetate, figura metiendas Epicurus putat. Ne amores quidem sanctos a sapiente atienos esse arbitrantur. Quaeramus ad quam usque, aetatem iuvenes amandi sint.
Obscene pleasures, if nature require them, the Epicure esteemeth not to be measured by kind, place, or order: but by forme, age, and fashion. Nor doth he thinke that holy loves should be strange from a wise man. Let us then question to what years yong folke may be beloved.These two last Stoicke places, and upon this purpose, the reproch of Diogarchus to Plato himselfe, shew how many excessive licences and out of common use soundest Philosophy doth tolerate. Lawes take their authoritie from possession and custome. It is dangerous to reduce them to their beginning: In rowling on they swell and grow greater and greater, as doe our rivers: follow them upward into their source, and you shall find them but a bubble of water, scarce to be discerned, which in gliding on swelleth so proud and gathers so much strength. Behold the ancient considerations which have given the first motion to this famous torrent, so full of dignitie, of honour and reverence, you shall finde them so light and weake that these men which will weigh all and complaine of reason, and who receive nothing upon trust and authoritie, it is no wonder if their judgments are often far distant from common judgement. Men that take Natures first image for a patterne it is no marvaile if in most of their opinions they miss the common- beaten path. As for example few amongst them would have approved the false conditions of our marriages, and most of them would have had women in community and without any private respect. They refused our ceremonies: Chrysippus said that some Philosophers would in open view of all men shew a dozen of tumbling-tricks, yea, without any slops or breeches, for a dozen of olives. He would hardly have perswaded Calisthenes to refuse his faire daughter Agarista to Hippoclides, because he had seen him graft the forked tree in her upon a table. Metrocles somewhat indiscreetly, as he was disputing in his Schole, in presence of his auditory, let a fart, for shame whereof he afterwards kept his house and could not be drawen abroad untill such time as Crates went to visit him, who to his perswasions and reasons, adding the example of his liberty, began to fart a vie with him and to remove this scruple from off his conscience; and moreover won him to his Stoicall (the more free) Sect, from the Peripateticall (and more civill) one, which the-therunto he had followed. That which we call civilitie not to dare to doe that openly, which amongst us is both awfull and honest, being done in secret, they termed folly: And to play the wilie Foxe in concealing and disclaiming what nature, custome, and our desire publish and proclaims of our actions, they deemed to be a vice. And thought it a suppressing of Venus her mysteries to remove them from out the private vestry of her temple, and expose them to the open view of the people. And that to draw her sports from out the curtaines was to loose them. Shame is matter of some consequence. Concealing, reservation and circumspection are parts of estimation. That sensuality under the maske of Vertu did very ingeniously procure not to be prostituted in the midst of highwaies, not trodden upon and seen by the common sort, alledging the dignity and commodity of her wonted Cabinets. Whereupon some say that to forbid and remove the common brothel-houses is not only to spread whoredome every where, which only was allotted to those places, but also to incite idle and vagabond men to that vice by reason of the difficultie.
Maechus es Aufidiae qui vir Corvine fuisti,
Rivalis fuerat qui tuus, ille vir est.
Cur aliena placet tibi, qua, tua non placet uxor?
Nunquid securas non potes arrigere?
Martial. 1. iii. Epig. lxx.This experience is diversified by a thousand examples.
Nullus in vrbe fuit tota, qui tangere vellet
Uxorem gratis Caeciliane tuam,
Dum licuit: sed nunc positis custodibus, inqens
Turba fututorum est, ingeniosus homo es.
Ibid, 1. i. Epig. lxxiv.A Philosopher being taken with the deed, was demaunded what he did, answered very mildly, 'I plant man,' blushing no more being found so napping than if he had beene taken setting of Garlike.
It is (as I suppose) of a tender and respective opinion that a notable and religious Author holds this action so necessarily-bound to secrecy and shame, that in Cynike embracements and dalliances he coulidnot be perswaded that the worke should come to her end; but rather that it lingred and staid only to represent wanton gestures and lascivious motions, to maintaine the impudency of their schooles profession: and that to powre forth what shame had forced and bashfullnesse restrained, they had also afterward need to seeke some secret place. He had not seene far enough into their licenciousnesse: for Diogenes in sight of all, exercising his Masturbation, bred a longing desire in the bystanders, that in such sort they might fill their bellies by rubbing or clawing the same. To those that asked him why he sought for no fitter place to feed in than in the open frequented highway he made answer, 'It is because I am hungry in the open frequented high-way. The Philosophers Women, which medled with their Sects, did likewise in all places and without any discretion medle with their bodies: And Crates had never received Hipparchia into his fellowship but upon condition io follow all the customes and fashions of his order. These Philosophers set an extreme rate on vertue and rejected al other disciplins except the mortall; hence it is that in all actions they ascribed the Soveraigne authority to the election of their wise, yea, and above all lawes: and appointed no other restraint unto voluptuousness, but the moderation and preservation of others liberty.
Heraclitus and Protagoras, forsomuch as wine seemeth bitter unto the sicke and pleasing to the healthy; and an oare crooked in the water and straight to them that see it above water, and such-like contrary apparances which are found in some subjects; argued that all subjects had the causes of these apparances in them, and that there was some kind of bitternes in the wine which had a reference unto the sick mans taste; in the oare a certain crooked qualitie, having relation to him that seeth it in the water. And so of all things else. Which implieth, that all is in all things, and by consequence nothing in any: for either nothing is, or all is.
This opinion put me in mind of the experience we have, that there is not any one sense or visage, either straight or crooked, bitter or sweet, but mans wit shall find in the writings which he undertaketh to runne over. In the purest, most unspotted, and most absolutely perfect word that possibly can be, how many errors, falshoods and lies have beene made to proceed from it? What heresie hath not found testimonies and ground sufficient, both to undertake and to maintaine itself? It is, therefore, that the Authors of such errors will never goe from this proofe of the testimony of words interpretation. A man of worth going about by authority to approve the search of the Philosophers stone (wherein he was overwhelmed) alleadged at least five or six several passages out of the holy bible unto me, upon which (he said) he had at first gounded himselfe for the discharge of his conscience (for he is a man of Ecclesiastical profession), and truly the invention of them was not only pleasant, but also very fitly applied to the defence of this goodly and mind-enchanting science.
This way is the credit of divining fables attained to. There is no prognosticator if he have but this authority that any one wil but vouchsafe to read him over, and curiously to search all the infoldings and lustres of his words, but a man shall make him say what he pleaseth, as the Sibils. There are so many means of interpretation that it is hard, be it flat-long, side-long, or edge-long, but an ingenious and pregnant wit shal in all subjects meet with some aire that wil fit his turn. Therefore is a clowdy, darke and ambiguous stile found in so frequent and ancient custome, that the Author may gaine to draw, allure, and busie posterity to himselfe, which not only the sufficiency but the casuall favour of the matter may gaine as much or more. As for other matters let him, be it either through foolishnes or subtilty, shew himself somewhat obscure and divers, it is no matter, care not he for that. A number of spirits sifting and tossing him over will finde and express sundry formes, either accordinfg, or collaterally, or contrary to his owne, all which shall do him credit. He shal see himselfe enriched by the meanes of his Disciples, as the Grammer Schools Maisters. It is that which hath made many things of nothing, to pass very currant, that hath brought divers books in credit, and charged with all sorts of matter that any hath but desired: one selfsame thing admitting a thousand and a thousand, and as many severall images and divers considerations, as it best pleaseth us.
Is it possible that ever Homer meant all that which some make him to have meant? And that he prostrated hiniselfe to so many, and so severall shapes, as, Divines, Lawiers, Captaines, Philosophers, and all sort of people else, which, how diversely and contrary soever it be they treat of sciences, do notwithstanding wholy rely, upon him, and refer themselves unto him as a Generall Maister for all offices, workes, sciences, and tradesmen, and an universall counsellor in all enterprises; whosoever hath had need of Oracles or Predictions, and would apply them to himselfe, hath found them in him for his purpose. A notable man, and a good friend of mine, would make one marvel to beare what strange far-fetcht conceits and admirable affinities, in favor of our religion, he maketh to derive from him; and can hardly be drawne from this opinion, but that such was Homers intent and meaning (yet is Homer so familiar unto him, as I thinke no man of our age is better acquainted with him). And what he finds in favour of our religion, many ancient learned men have found in favour of theirs. See how Plato is tossed and turned over, every man endevoring to apply him to his purpose, giveth him what construction he list. He is wrested and inserted to all newfangled opinions that the world receiveth or alloweth of, and according to the different course of subjects is made to be repugnant unto himselfe. Every one according to his sense makes him to disavow the customes that were lawfull in his daies, inasmuch as they are unlawfull in these times. All which is very lively and strongly maintained, according as the wit and learning of the interpreter is strong and quicke. Upon the ground which Heraclitus had, and that sentence of his, that all things had those shapes in them which men found in them. And Democritus out of the very same drew a cleane contrarie conclusion, id est, that subjects had nothing at all in them of that which we found in them. And forasmuch as honny was sweet to one man and bitter to another, he argued that honny was neither sweet nor bitter. The Pyrrhonians would say they know not whether it be sweet or bitter, or both or neither: for, they ever gain the highest point of doubting. The Cyrenaicks held that nothing was perceptible outwardly, and only that was perceivable which by the inward touch or feeling touched or concerned us, as griefe and sensuality, distinguishing neither tune nor collours, but onely certaine affections that came to us of them; and that man had no other seate of his judgment. Protagoras deemed that to be true to all men, which to all men seemeth so. The Epicurians place all judgment in the senses, and in the notice of things, and in voluptuousnesse. Platoes mind was, that the judgment of truth, and truth it selfe drawne from opinions and senses, belonged to the spirit and to cogitation.