OF THE

PRINCIPLES AND ORIGINS OF NATURE,

ACCORDING TO THE FABLES OF CUPID AND HEAVEN:

OR, THE

PHILOSOPHY OF PARMENIDES, TELESIUS, AND PARTICULARLY OF DEMOCRITUS, AS EXHIBITED IN THE FABLE CONCERNING CUPID.

THE fables of the ancients repecting Cupid or certain light of the Divine Word has shone Love, cannot be made to agree in one and the upon men. That chaos therefore which was same person. They indeed profess to speak of coeval with Cupid, signified the confused and two Cupids of two different periods, the one the disordered mass or collection of matter. But most ancient of the gods, the other of a much matter itself, with its power and nature, in a later era. At present we will treat of the ancient word, the elements of things were shadowed out Cupid. They relate that this Cupid was the in Cupid himself. He is introduced without a most ancient of the gods, and therefore of all parent, that is, without a cause: for cause is, as things, excepting chaos, which is said to have it were, the parent of effect; and in tropical disbeen coeval with him. This Cupid had no pa- course nothing is therefore more usual than for rent, but being united to heaven, was the father the parent to stand for cause, and the offspring of the gods and of all things. Some indeed for effect. But there cannot be in nature (for we would derive him from an egg over which Night always except God) any cause of the first matbrooded. Different atttributes are ascribed to ter, and of its proper influence and action, for him, so that he is represented as a boy blind, there is nothing prior in time to the first matter. naked, winged, and armed with darts. His Therefore there is no efficient nor any thing more chief and especial influence is over the uniting known to nature; there is therefore neither genus of bodies. To him were given the keys of the nor form. Wherefore whatever primitive matter earth, the sea, and the sky. Another and younger is, together with its influence and action, it is sui Cupid is also celebrated in fable, the son of Ve- generis, and admits of no definition drawn from perception, and is to be taken just as it is found, and not to be judged of from any preconceived idea. For the mode of it, if it is given to us to know it, cannot be judged of by means of its cause, seeing that it is, next to God, the cause of causes, itself without a cause. For there is a certain real limit of causes in nature, and it would argue levity and inexperience in a philosopher to require or imagine a cause for the last and positive power and law of nature, as much as it would not to demand a cause in those that are subordinate.

nus.

To him are ascribed the attributes of the ancient Cupid, besides many peculiar to himself. This fable, with the sequel respecting heaven, seems to embrace in a concise parable the doctrine of the elements of things and of the origin of the world, and to agree with that of Democritus, except that it appears somewhat closer, more reasonable, and clearer. For the observations of that confessedly acute and accurate philosopher nevertheless were of a too diffusive nature, and did not seem to keep their proper limit, and to confine and support themselves sufficiently. And indeed these dogmas, which lie veiled in the parable, although better regulated, are yet of such a nature as to appear to have come from the mind left to itself, and not uniformly and gradually assisted by experience; for this seems to have been the common fault of antiquity. But it must first be remarked, that the opi-philosophers have not received and embraced the nions brought forward in this part of my treatise were the conclusions and productions of unassisted reason, and rested on perception alone, the failing and imperfect oracles of which are deservedly rejected, now that the higher and more

On this account the ancients have fabled Cupid to be without a parent, that is, without a cause. And they did so not without design. Nay, perhaps there is not any thing more important; for nothing has more corrupted philosophy than the seeking after the parents of Cupid; I mean, that

elements of things as they are found in nature, as a certain fixed and positive doctrine, and as it were by an experimental trust in them; but have rather deduced them from the laws of words, and from dialectics and slight mathematical conclu

sions and common notions, and similar wander- fire, nor any other thing, the body of which is

darkness; and let us see what light the parable | mostly present to the human understanding which can throw upon it. And here I am aware that it most imbibes, and with which itself is most opinions of this sort the most incredible have moved. Hence it is that forms, as they are called, entered men's mind. Certainly was this danger seem to exist more than either matter or action, incurred here by the philosophy of Democritus because the one is hid, the other glides before us; itself upon atoms, which, from its seeming acute- the one is not so strongly impressed, the other ness and profundity, and for its remoteness from constantly inheres. But forms, on the other hand, common notions, was childishly entertained by are deemed evident and lasting, so that the primithe vulgar, but unsettled, and nearly overthrown tive and common matter seems as it were an by the arguments of other philosophies which accessory, and to be in the place of a support to came nearer to the vulgar comprehension: and yet them; but every sort of action only an emanation he was the admiration of his age, and was styled from the form, and forms, therefore, to be in every Pentathlus for his multifarious erudition, and was respect worthy of the higher rank. And hence, deemed by universal consent the greatest of also, seems to be derived the kingdom of forms natural philosophers, and obtained the name of a and ideas in essences, by the addition of a kind wise man. Nor could even the opposition of of fantastic matter. Some things moreover have Aristotle (who, like the Ottomans, could not feel grown out of this superstition; (from want of firm upon his throne until he had murdered his judgment having, as might have been expected, brother philosophers; and who was solicitous, as followed this error;) abstract ideas and their powers appears from his own words, that posterity should have been introduced with such confidence and not doubt his dogmas) effect by his violence, nor authority, that this troop of dreamers had nearly the majesty of Plato effect by reverence the demo- overpowered the more sober class of thinkers. lition of this philosophy of Democritus. But these follies have for the most part disapwhilst the dicta of Aristotle and Plato were cele-peared, although one person in our age, with more brated with applause and professorial ostentation in the schools, the philosophy of Democritus was in great repute amongst the wiser sort, and those who more closely gave themselves to the depths and silence of contemplation. It kept its ground and was approved in the era of Roman letters; for Cicero every where makes mention of him with perfect approbation; and soon after we read the panegyric of the poet, who appears to echo after the manner of the poets the sentiment of his times, whose wisdom shows that in a land of dulness and beneath a Baotian sky, the greatest and the most illustrious men can spring up. (Juv. Sat. 10, v. 48.)

But

Neither Aristotle, therefore, nor Plato, but Genseric, Attila, and the barbarians were the ruin of this philosophy. For, then, after that human learning had suffered shipwreck, those records of the Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy, as being lighter and more inflated matter, were preserved and came down to our times, whilst the more solid sank and went into oblivion. I cannot but consider, on the other hand, the philosophy of Democritus worthy of being rescued from neglect, especially since it agrees in most things with the authority of antiquity. In the first place, then, Cupid is described as a certain person, and to him are attributed infancy, wings, arrows, and other attributes, concerning which we will afterward speak separately. But this we assume in the mean while, that the ancients laid down the primitive matter (such as can be the origin of things) with a form and properties, not abstract, potential, and informal. And certainly that matter which is stripped and passive seems altogether an invention of the human mind, and to have sprung thence, for those things are

daring than advantage, made it his endeavour to raise and prop them up when they were of themselves on the decline. I think, however, that it can to an unprejudiced person be easily shown how, contrary to reason, abstract matter was made into an element. It arose thus; men supposed that forms endued with action subsisted by themselves, but none thought that matter thus subsisted by itself; not even those who considered it an element; and it seemed unreasonable and contrary to the nature of an inquiry upon the elements of things to make entities out of mere imaginations. And it is not our object to search how we can most conveniently conceive of the nature of entities or distinguish them, but what are in truth the first and simplest possible of all entities, from which all others are derived. But the first ones ought no less to possess a real existence than those which flow from it; rather more. For it has its own peculiar essence, and from it come all the rest. But the assertions that have been made respecting abstract matter are as absurd as it would be to say that the universe and nature were made out of categories and such dialectic notions, as out of elements. For the difference is by no means important between asserting that the world sprang from matter and form and privation, and asserting that it arose out of substance and the contrary qualities. But almost all the ancients, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Democritus, though disagreeing in other respects upon the prime matter, joined in this, that they held an active matter with a form, both arranging its own form and having within itself the principle of motion. Nor can any one think otherwise without leaving experience altogether. All these, then, submitted their mind to nature.

But Plato subjected the world to his contempla- ties in the unfixed and distributable nature of the tions, and Aristotle his contemplations to terms: same element. The second is of those who for the studies of men were at that time verging maintain an element one in substance, and fixed toward logomachies and disputations, and leaving and invariable, but derive a diversity of entities the severer investigation of truth. Wherefore through the various magnitudes, figures, and podogmas of this nature are rather to be condemned sitions of this kind of element. The third is of in the mass than refuted in detail. For they those who maintain more elements, and a divercome not from a desire of knowledge, but of much sity of entities, on the ground of their temperaspeaking and that abstract matter is not the ment and commixture. The fourth, of those who matter of the universe, but matter for disputation. lay down an infinite, or, at least, very numerous For a true philosopher will dissect, not sever body of elements of things, but with their species nature, (for they who will not dissect, must pull and forms; and these have no need of inventing her asunder,) and the prime matter is to be laid something to lead things to a various principle, down joined with the primitive form, as also with seeing they already separate nature from a primithe first principle of motion, as it is found. For tive element. Among these, only the second sect the abstraction of motion has also given rise to seems to me to set forth Cupid as he is, native innumerable devices concerning spirits, life, and and unclothed. The first introduces him as veiled, the like, as if there were not laid a sufficient the third with a coat, the fourth with a cloak and ground for them through matter and form, but mask. they depended on their own peculiar elements. But these three are not to be separated, but only distinguished, and matter is to be so treated (whatever it be) in regard of its adornment, ap- | pendages, and form, as that all kind of influence, essence, action, and natural motion may appear to be its emanation and consequence. Nor need we fear that from this that inquiry should stagnate, or that variety which we perceive should become incapable of explanation, as will be shown hereafter. And that the first matter is possessed of form, the parable teaches in making Cupid a definite person. Yet so that matter in the mass was at first without form: for chaos is without form, Cupid is a person. And this perfectly agrees with Holy Scripture. For it is not written that God created in the beginning the matter of chaos, but the heavens and the earth.

For the better explication of the parable, I will make a few remarks on each. In the first place, then, of those who have laid down but one first element, I find none who affirm that of the earth. The nature of the earth, indeed, was against it; quiet, and senseless, and inactive, but yielding to the influence of the heavens, of fire, and other things; so that none thought of asserting this of the earth. Yet, the wisdom of the ancients assigned to the earth the next place after chaos, making it first the parent, then the bride of the heaven, from which union proceed all things. But we are not to suppose from this, that the ancients ever thought of the earth as the principle of essence, but as the element, or rather origin of the system. We, therefore, leave this subject to the parable on heaven that follows; where we will inquire into the origin of things, which in. quiry comes after that of their elements.

There is also subjoined a description of the state of things as it was before the work of the Thales made water the prime element. For, days, in which distinct mention is made of the he saw that matter was mostly disposed in moisheaven and earth, which are the names of forms, ture, and that in water. But he deemed that it but yet, that the mass according to the whole was was right to make that the element of things in without form. But Cupid is introduced into the which the virtues and powers of entities, espeparable personified, yet so as that he is naked. cially the elements of generations and renovations, Therefore, after those who speak of matter as ab- were mostly found. He remarked that the genestract, they err next (though in a contrary way) rating of animals was by moisture, and that the who speak of matter as not unclothed. And, on seeds and kernels of plants, as long as they this topic I have inserted some remarks, in treat- vegetated and were not dried up, were moist and ing upon what kind of proofs are suited to the sub-tender. He remarked that metals melted and ject of the first matter, and upon the heterogene- flowed, and were, as it were, the thickened juices ous nature of the first matter. But the proper place for this subject, upon which we shall now

enter.

We will examine, therefore, who of those who attributed the origin of things to matter endowed with form, held a native and bare form of matter, and who, on the other hand, a form spread over it and shapen. There are, in all, four sects of those who have hazarded opinions on this subject. The first is of those who maintain one element of things, but set up a diversity of enti

of the earth, or rather a kind of mineral waters. He remarked that the earth itself was enriched and renewed by showers or the irrigation of rivers; and that the earth and loam seemed nothing but the dregs and sediments of water; but that the air was very evidently the expiration and expansion of water, and that fire was not conceived of itself, nor altogether continued, or was kept alive of itself, but from and through moisture; and, moreover, that that fat of moisture, in which the fire and flame are supported and live,

discriminates the impressions and notes of harmonic, and, what is by far more remarkable, of articulate sounds, which enters without confusing the differences of scents, not only those general ones of pure and fetid, of dull, acute, and the like, but also the peculiar and specific, as of the rose or the violet; which accommodates itself equally to those remarkable and very powerful qualities of hot and cold, also of wet and dry, in which aqueous vapours, dense fogs, spirits of salts, fumes of metals, fly suspended in the height; lastly, in which the rays of light and the closer agreements and variances of things move and make a noise; so that the air is, as it were, a second chaos, in which so many seeds of things move, wander, try their powers, and are tried. Lastly, if you consider its genial and vivifying power, which conducts you to the elements of things and manifests them, they seem to be also the more excellent parts of the air, so that the words air, spirit, and life, are often used as if they were synonymous. And, with reason, since some degree of respiration seems the inseperable companion of life a little more advanced, (excepting those little beginnings of life in embryos and in eggs,) so that fishes are suffocated by the congealing of water. Also, fire itself, unless kept alive by the surrounding body of air, is extinguished, and seems only worn-out air irritated and inflamed; as water, on the other hand, can appear to be the conjunction and reception of air. Nor is there any necessity to maintain that the earth constantly exhales the air, nor that it passes through water into the form of air. But Heraclitus, who was more acute, but not so much to be relied upon, held fire to be the element of things. For it was not a middle nature, which is wont to be extremely uncertain and corruptible, but the highest and most perfect nature, which is a considerable bound, as it were, to corruption and change, which Heraclitus sought for instituting the origin of things.

appeared a kind of maturity and concoction of water; and, that a body and mass of water was spread through the whole as a common fuel; that the sea surrounded the land; that there was a very vast and subterraneous force of sweet waters, whence come springs and rivers, which, like veins, carry the waters through both the face and bowels of the earth; and that, in the heights above were immense congregations of vapours and waters, and, as it were, another universe of waters, for the reparation and renovation of the waters below, and of the sea. He, moreover, thought that those waters and vapours fed the heavenly fires, for that those worlds could not subsist without some nourishment, and that this was the only nourishment that they could possess. He remarked that the figure of water, as seen in drops or particles of water, was that of the universe, round and spherical, and that the undulation of water was apparent even in air and fire; lastly, that the motion of water was suited to its nature, neither too slow nor too quick, and of all generations the most numerous was the generation of fishes and water animals. But Anaximenes chose air for the one sole element. For, if bulk is to come into consideration in treating upon the elements of things, air seems by far the most bulky, and to occupy the greatest space. For, unless a separate vacuum be given, or the superstition of the heterogeneous nature of the heavenly and sublunary bodies be resorted to, whatever is extended from the globe of the earth to the furthest region of the heavenly expanse, and is neither star nor meteor, seems to be filled with aerial substance. And the abode of this earthly globe is thought to be as a point, in comparison of the circuit of the heavens. But in the ether itself, how very small a portion is besprinkled with stars, when in the nearer spheres they are seen single, in the last, although there is a great number of them, yet, considering the interstellar spaces, but a small part of space seems to be occupied by stars; so that they all appear to swim in one immense sea he saw that the greatest variety and perturof ether. Nor is that part of ether and spirit in-bation of things was found in solid and conconsiderable, which has its seat and settlement sistent bodies. For such bodies can be organic, in the waters and the hollow places of the earth, and, as it were, a kind of machines, which acquire whence the waters receive their tides. They are, innumerable variations according to their shape, moreover, extended, and swell; but not only has as the bodies of animals and plants. Even among the earth its porousness, but also its tremors and these, such as are not organic upon a closer agitations, evident signs of wind and air pent up inspection, are found to be very dissimilar. For, within it. But if a middle nature is proper to how great is the dissimilarity between those very elements, in order to the being susceptible of so parts of animals which are called similar! the great a variety, that is certainly found in air. For brain, the crystalline humour, the white of the air is, as it were, the common bond of things, not eye, the bones, membranes, cartilages, nerves, only because it is everywhere close at hand, and veins, flesh, fat, marrow, blood, sperm, breath, takes the place of other things, and possesses chyle, and the rest; also between the parts of itself of void spaces, but so much the more from vegetables, roots, barks, stalks, leaves, flowers, its appearing to have a middle and a diaphorous seeds, and the like! But fossils are not certainly nature. For this is that body which receives and organic, but yet are variously mixed together in conveys light, darkness, and the tints of all colours one kind, and show mutually a very great variety. and shades, which, by its admirably nice motion, Wherefore, that base of the diversity of entities

Now,