The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

FABLE OF CUPID. 441
No one dared, therefore, to feign a kind of matter means reduces things to pure and raw water.
entirely fantastic, but decided upon a principle But this was by far their greatest error, that they
according to perception, a certain true ens; but made an element of that which is corruptible and
yet (proceeding in this respect too far) the mode mortal. This they do, wihen they introduce an
of its distribution fantastic. For, they find element which lays down and leaves its own
nothing, nay, they do not feign any thing by nature in its compounds. For, "whatever by
which, by an appetite or incitement, or in any undergoing change departs from its proper limits,
way, method, or guidance, this their element may this iChange is forthwith the death of that thing
degenerate from itself and again return to itself. which it was before." But we shall need to
But when throughout the universe there appears take this into our account more when we have
so great an army of contrary powers, density, come to the proper place for considering the third
rarity, heat, cold, light, darkness, animation, sect, which held more elements than one, which
inanimation, and of many others which contend sect has at once more strength and more prejudice.
with each other and fall into privation or nothing- We will, therefore, treat of these opinions seveness, to suppose that all these flow from one and rally and not in the mass.
the same fount of a material nature, and yet not Of those, then, who asserted a plurality of eleto point out any way in which this can take place, ments, we will place by themselves such as make
is the part of a mind overcome by distraction, them also infinite. For the consideration of inand seems a departure from the spirit of true finity pertains to the parable of the heaven. But
inquiry. For if the thing were clearly made out of the ancients, Parmenides held two principles,
by sense, it were to be borne with, though the the fire and the earth, or heaven and earth. For
mode of it were involved in obscurity; again, if he asserted that the sun and stars were true fire,
by the strength of reason any suitable and credible pure and limpid, not degenerate as our fire, which,
mode could be searched out, one might learn per- like Vulcan after his fall, is the worse for its transhaps from appearances; but our assent is by no mission. These opinions were brought up again
means to be demanded to the existence of entities, in our age by Telesius, who was deeply versed in
neither evident to the senses, nor admitting of the peripatetic system, (if, indeed, there can be
any probable elucidation from reason. Besides, said to be system in it,) which yet he turned
if there were but one element of things, there against itself; but unhappy in the stating of proought to be seen in all things some signs of it, positions, and more able to pull down than to
and certain more excellent parts, and a certain build up. There are indeed but very slight and
pie-eminent quality in their nature. It ought sparing memorials left us of the conceptions of
moreover to be in open sight, that it might the Parmenides. But we see the foundations of a
more easily be accessible to all things, and might similar opinion obviously laid in Plutarch, ", De
diffuse itself throughout its orbit. But none of primo frigido," which seems to be taken from an
these things can be made out from their dogmas. ancient work then in being, but now lost. For
For, the earth, which is cut off from the honour they contain not a few opinions more acute and
of being deemed an element, appears to receive solid than the author's generally were; and by
and cherish natures opposite to these three princi- these Telesius seems to have been roused both to
pal, seeing that to the mobility and lucid nature catch them up with earnestness, and to pursue
of fire it opposes the natures of rest and dark- them with vigour, in his commentaries on the
ness; to the tenuity and softness of air, in like nature of things. These are the dogmas of this
manner, the natures of density and hardness; sect: that the first forms and first entities are acand to the humidity and yieldingness of water, tive, and that so the first substances also, cold and
a nature dry, stubborn, and rough, and the earth heat; that these nevertheless exist incorporeally,
occupies a middle rank, the rest being denied this but that there is subjoined to them a passive and
claim. Moreover, if it were the only principle potential matter, which has a corporeal magniof things, it ought to have a natural fitness equal tude, and is equally susceptive of either nature,
to both the generation and dissolution of things. itself at the same time void of all action: that
For it as much belongs to the nature of an ele- light is the budding forth of heat, but of heat scatment that things should be dissolved into it, as tered, which, beiiig multiplied by coition, is made
that they should be produced out of it. But this firm and sensible; that darkness is, in like manis not the case: but of those bodies air and fire ner, the destitution and commingling of nature
seem quite incapacitated from administering any radiating from cold; that rarity and density are
generating material, and only to be adapted to the textures, and, as it were, the webs of heat and
the receiving of bodies resolved into them. But, cold: but that heat and cold produce and manuon the other hand, water is very favourable and facture of them, as it were, cold by condensing
conducive to generation, but with respect to and thickening the work, heat by widening and
resolution or restoration of bodies the reverse; as extending it: that from such kind of textures is
would be easily perceptible, if showers cease a put into bodies a disposition of their parts toward
little while. Nay, putrefaction itself by no motion, either suitable to motion or somewhat
VOL,. I.-56