CHAP. LV.
THunders are nothing else but a sound of the drie aire,* 1.1 which can∣not be done, but when it is either broken, or breaketh. And if the clouds, saith he, be beaten one against another, that nois•• is made which is now in question, but not vniuersally, because there is no generall conflict, but in certaine places only. Soft things yeeld no sound, except they be strucken against those things that are hard. As a waue of the sea maketh no noise, except it meet with some hard thing that stayeth it. The fire being cast into the water maketh a noise in the quenching. Be it so: All this maketh for me, for the fire at that time maketh not the noi••e, but the aire that flieth a thwart, that which extinguisheth the fire: and if I should grant thee that fire doth it, and is extinguished in the cloud, I say that it groweth from the exhalation and the shock. What then (saith he) may not one of these flitting starres fall into a cloud, and be extinguished therein? Let vs presuppose that it may, and that it happeneth sometimes. For the present we seeke for a naturall and continuall cause, not for a rare and casuall euent. Put case that I acknowledge all that to be tru•• which thou speakest, that sometimes fires doe shine after it hath thundered, resembling shooting and falling starres, yet is not this the cause of thunder, but this hapneth, because it hath thunde∣red. What is fulguration? Clidemus denieth that it is a fire, maintaining this that it is but an apparance: euen as by night, after the stroake of the oare we see some brightnesse. This example is not answerable, for this shining appeareth in the water, that which is made in the aire flasheth and issueth forth.