He says that the air is by nature dark, and uses this as an argument of its being also the first cold; for that its darkness is opposite to the brightness, and its coldness to the heat of fire. Moving this in his First Book of Natural Questions, he again in his treatise of Habits says, that habits are nothing else but airs; for bodies are contained by these, and the cause that every one of the bodies contained in any habit is such as it is, is the containing air, which they call in iron hardness, in stone solidness, in silver whiteness. These words have in them much absurdity and contradiction. For if the air remains such as it is of its own nature, how comes black, in that which is not white, to be made whiteness; and soft, in that which is not hard, to be made hardness; and rare, in that which is not thick, to be made thickness? But if, being mixed with these, it is altered and made like to them, how is it a habit or power or cause of these things by which it is subdued? For such a change, by which it loses its own qualities, is the property of a patient, not of an agent, and not of a thing containing, but of a thing languishing. Yet they everywhere affirm, that matter, being of its own nature idle and motionless, is subjected to qualities, and that the qualities are spirits, which, being also aerial tensions, give a form and figure to every part of matter to which they adhere. These things they cannot rationally say, supposing the air to be such as they affirm it. For if it is a habit and tension, it will assimilate every body to itself, so that it shall be black and soft. But if by the mixture with these things it receives forms contrary to those it has, it will be in some sort the matter, and not the cause or power of matter.

It is often said by Chrysippus, that there is without the world an infinite vacuum, and that this infinity has neither beginning, middle, nor end. And by this the Stoics chiefly refute that spontaneous motion of the atoms downward, which is taught by Epicurus; there not being in infinity any difference according to which one thing is thought to be above, another below. But in his Fourth Book of Things Possible, having supposed a certain middle place and middle region, he says that the world is situated there. The words are these: "Wherefore, if it is to be said of the world that it is corruptible, this seems to want proof; yet nevertheless it rather appears to me to be so. However, its occupation of the place wherein it stands cooperates very much towards its immunity from corruption, because it is in the midst; since if it were conceived to be anywhere else, corruption would absolutely happen to it." And again, a little after: "For so also in a manner has essence happened eternally to possess the middle place, being immediately from the beginning such as it is; so that both by another manner and through this chance it admits not any corruption, and is therefore eternal." These words have one apparent and visible contradiction, to wit, his admitting a certain middle place and middle region infinity. They have also a second, more obscure indeed, but withal more absurd than this. For thinking that the world would not have remained incorruptible if its situation had happened to have been in any other part of the vacuum, he manifestly appears to have feared lest, the parts of essence moving towards the middle, there should be a dissolution and corruption of the world. Now this he would not have feared, had he not thought that bodies do by nature tend from every place towards the middle, not of essence, but of the region containing essence; of which also he has frequently spoken, as of a thing impossible and contrary to Nature; for that (as he says) there is not in the vacuum any difference by which bodies are drawn rather this way than that way, but the construction of the world is the cause of motion, bodies inclining and being carried from every side to the centre and middle of it. It is sufficient to this purpose, to set down the text out of his Second Book of Motion; for having discoursed, that the world indeed is a perfect body, but that the parts of the world are not perfect, because they have in some sort respect to the whole and are not of themselves; and going forward concerning its motion, as having been framed by Nature to be moved by all its parts towards compaction and cohesion, and not towards dissolution and breaking, he says thus: "But the universe thus tending and being moved to the same point, and the arts having the same motion from the nature of the body, it is probable that all bodies have this first motion according to Nature towards the centre of the world,—the world being thus moved as concerns itself, and the parts being moved as being its parts." What, then, ailed you, good sir (might some one say to him), that you have so far forgotten those words, as to affirm that the world, if it had not casually possessed the middle place, would have been dissoluble and corruptible? For if it is by nature so framed as always to incline towards the middle, and its parts from every side tend to the same, into what place soever of the vacuum it should have been transposed,—thus containing and (as it were) embracing itself,—it would have remained incorruptible and without danger of breaking. For things that are broken and dissipated suffer this by the separation and dissolution of their parts, every one of them hasting to its own place from that which it had contrary to Nature. But you, being of opinion that, if the world should have been seated in any other place of the vacuum, it would have been wholly liable to corruption, and affirming the same, and therefore asserting a middle in that which naturally can have no middle,—to wit, in that which is infinite,—have indeed dismissed these tensions, coherences, and inclinations, as having nothing available to its preservation, and attributed all the cause of its permanency to the possession of place. And, as if you were ambitious to confute yourself, to the things you have said before you join this also: "In whatsoever manner every one of the parts moves, being coherent to the rest, it is agreeable to reason that in the same also the whole should move by itself; yea, though we should, for argument's sake, imagine and suppose it to be in some vacuity of this world; for as, being kept in on every side, it would move towards the middle, so it would continue in the same motion, though by way of disputation we should admit that there were on a sudden a vacuum round about it." No part then whatsoever, though encompassed by a vacuum, loses its inclination moving it towards the middle of the world; but the world itself, if chance had not prepared it a place in the middle, would have lost its containing vigor, the parts of its essence being carried some one way, some another.

And these things indeed contain great contradictions to natural reason; but this is also repugnant to the doctrine concerning God and Providence, that assigning to them the least causes, he takes from them the most principal and greatest. For what is more principal than the permanency of the world, or that its essence, united in its parts, is contained in itself? But this, as Chrysippus says, fell out casually. For if the possession of place is the cause of incorruptibility, and this was the production of chance, it is manifest that the preservation of the universe is a work of chance, and not of Fate and Providence.

Now, as for his doctrine of possibles, how can it but be repugnant to his doctrine of Fate? For if that is not possible which either is true or shall be true, as Diodorus has it, but everything which is capable of being, though it never shall be, is possible, there will be many things possible which will never be according to invincible, inviolable, and all-conquering Fate. And thus either Fate will lose its power; or if that, as Chrysippus thinks, has existence, that which is susceptible of being will often fall out to be impossible. And everything indeed which is true will be necessary, being comprehended by the principal of all necessities; and everything that is false will be impossible, having the greatest cause to oppose its ever being true. For how is it possible that he should be susceptible of dying on the land, who is destined to die at sea? And how is it possible for him who is at Megara to come to Athens, if he is prohibited by Fate?

But moreover, the things that are boldly asserted by him concerning fantasies or imaginations are very opposite to Fate. For desiring to show that fantasy is not of itself a perfect cause of consent, he says, that the Sages will prejudice us by imprinting false imaginations in our minds, if fantasies do of themselves absolutely cause consent; for wise men often make use of falsity against the wicked, representing a probable imagination,—which is yet not the cause of consent, for then it would be also a cause of false apprehension and error. Any one therefore, transferring these things from the wise man to Fate, may say, that consents are not caused by Fate; for if they were, false consents and opinions and deceptions would also be by Fate. Thus the reason which exempts the wise man from doing hurt also demonstrates at the same time that Fate is not the cause of all things. For if men neither opine nor are prejudiced by Fate, it is manifest also that they neither act rightly nor are wise nor remain firm in their sentiments nor have utility by Fate, but that there is an end of Fate's being the cause of all things. Now if any one shall say that Chrysippus makes not Fate the absolute cause of all things, but only a PROCATARCLICAL (or antecedent) one, he will again show that he is contradictory to himself, since he excessively praises Homer for saying of Jupiter,

Receive whatever good or ill He sends to each of you;

as also Euripides for these words,

O Jove, how can I say that wretched we, Poor mortals, aught do understand? On thee We all depend, and nothing can transact, But as thy sacred wisdom shall enact. (Euripides, "Suppliants," 734.)

And himself writes many things agreeable to these. In fine, he says that nothing, be it never so little, either rests or is moved otherwise than according to the reason of Jupiter, which is the same thing with Fate. Moreover, the antecedent cause is weaker than the absolute one, and attains not to its effect when it is subdued by others that rise up against it. But he himself declaring Fate to be an invincible, unimpeachable, and inflexible cause, calls it Atropos, (That is, Unchangeable.) Adrasteia, (That is, Unavoidable.) Necessity, and Pepromene (as putting a limit to all things). Whether then shall we say, that neither consents nor virtues nor vices nor doing well nor doing ill is in our power? Or shall we affirm, that Fate is deficient, that terminating destiny is unable to determine, and that the motions and habits of Jupiter cannot be effective? For the one of these two consequences will follow from Fate's being an absolute, the other from its being only an antecedent cause. For if it is an absolute cause, it takes away our free will and leaves nothing in our control; and if it is only antecedent, it loses its being unimpeachable and effectual. For not once or ten times, but everywhere, especially in his Physics, he has written, that there are many obstacles and impediments to particular natures and motions, but none to that of the universe. And how can the motion of the universe, extending as it does to particular ones, be undisturbed and unimpeached, if these are stopped and hindered? For neither can the nature of man be free from impediment, if that of the foot or hand is not so; nor can the motion of a ship but be hindered, if there are any obstacles about the sails or the operation of the oars.

Besides all this, if the fantasies are not according to Fate, neither are they causes of consents; but if, because it imprints fantasies leading to consent, the consents are said to be according to Fate, how is it not contrary to itself, imprinting in the greatest matters different imaginations and such as draw the understanding contrary ways? For (they say) those who adhere to one of them, and withhold not their consent, do amiss: if they yield to obscure things, they stumble; if to false, they are deceived; if to such as are not commonly comprehended, they opine. And yet one of these three is of necessity,—either that every fantasy is not the work of Fate, or that every receipt and consent of fantasy is faultless, or that Fate itself is not irreprehensible. For I do not know how it can be blameless, proposing to us such fantasies that not the resisting or going against them, but the following and yielding to them, is blamable. Moreover, both Chrysippus and Antipater, in their disputes against the Academics, take not a little pains to prove that we neither act nor are incited without consent, saying, that they build on fictions and false suppositions who think that, a proper fantasy being presented, we are presently incited, without having either yielded or consented. Again, Chrysippus says, that God imprints in us false imaginations, as does also the wise man; not that they would have us consent or yield to them, but only that we should act and be incited with regard to that which appears; but we, being evil, do through infirmity consent to such fantasies. Now, the perplexity and discrepancy of these discourses among themselves are not very difficult to be discerned. For he that would not have men consent but only act according to the fantasies which he offers unto them—whether he be God or a wise man—knows that the fantasies are sufficient for acting, and that consents are superfluous. For if, knowing that the imagination gives us not an instinct to work without consent, he ministers to us false and probable fantasies, he is the voluntary cause of our falling and erring by assenting to incomprehensible things.

END OF SEVEN—————-



THE EATING OF FLESH.

TRACT I. You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much wonder in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste, while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and juices of deadly wounds.

Crept the raw hides, and with a bellowing sound Roared the dead limbs; the burning entrails groaned. ("Odyssey," xii. 395.)

This indeed is but a fiction and fancy; but the fare itself is truly monstrous and prodigious,—that a man should have a stomach to creatures while they yet bellow, and that he should be giving directions which of things yet alive and speaking is fittest to make food of, and ordering the several kinds of the seasoning and dressing them and serving them up to tables. You ought rather, in my opinion, to have inquired who first began this practice, than who of late times left it off.

And truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was scarcity and want of other food; for it is not likely that their living together in lawless and extravagant lusts, or their growing wanton and capricious through the excessive variety of provisions then among them, brought them to such unsociable pleasures as these, against Nature. Yea, had they at this instant but their sense and voice restored to them, I am persuaded they would express themselves to this purpose:

"Oh! happy you, and highly favored of the gods, who now live! Into what an age of the world are you fallen, who share and enjoy among you a plentiful portion of good things! What abundance of things spring up for your use! What fruitful vineyards you enjoy! What wealth you gather from the fields! What delicacies from trees and plants, which you may gather! You may glut and fill yourselves without being polluted. As for us, we fell upon the most dismal and affrighting part of time, in which we were exposed by our production to manifold and inextricable wants and necessities. As yet the thickened air concealed the heaven from our view, and the stars were as yet confused with a disorderly huddle of fire and moisture and violent fluxions of winds. As yet the sun was not fixed to a regular and certain course, so as to separate morning and evening, nor did the seasons return in order crowned with wreaths from the fruitful harvest. The land was also spoiled by the inundations of disorderly rivers; and a great part of it was deformed with marshes, and utterly wild by reason of deep quagmires, unfertile forests, and woods. There was then no production of tame fruits, nor any instruments of art or invention of wit. And hunger gave no time, nor did seed-time then stay for the yearly season. What wonder is it if we made use of the flesh of beasts contrary to Nature, when mud was eaten and the bark of wood, and when it was thought a happy thing to find either a sprouting grass or a root of any plant! But when they had by chance tasted of or eaten an acorn, they danced for very joy about some oak or esculus, calling it by the names of life-giver, mother, and nourisher. And this was the only festival that those times were acquainted with; upon all other occasions, all things were full of anguish and dismal sadness. But whence is it that a certain ravenousness and frenzy drives you in these happy days to pollute yourselves with blood, since you have such an abundance of things necessary for your subsistence? Why do you belie the earth as unable to maintain you? Why do you profane the lawgiver Ceres, and shame the mild and gentle Bacchus, as not furnishing you with sufficiency? Are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood and slaughter? You are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and come nothing behind them in cruelty. What they kill is their ordinary nourishment, but what you kill is your better fare."

For we eat not lions and wolves by way of revenge; but we let those go, and catch the harmless and tame sort, and such as have neither stings nor teeth to bite with, and slay them; which, so may Jove help us, Nature seems to us to have produced for their beauty and comeliness only. [Just as if one seeing the river Nilus overflowing its banks, and thereby filling the whole country with genial and fertile moisture, should not at all admire that secret power in it that produces plants and plenteousness of most sweet and useful fruits, but beholding somewhere a crocodile swimming in it, or an asp crawling along, or mice (savage and filthy creatures), should presently affirm these to be the occasion of all that is amiss, or of any want or defect that may happen. Or as if indeed one contemplating this land or ground, how full it is of tame fruits, and how heavy with ears of corn, should afterwards espy somewhere in these same cornfields an ear of darnel or a wild vetch, and thereupon neglect to reap and gather in the corn, and fall a complaining of these. Such another thing it would be, if one—listening to the harangue of some advocate at some bar or pleading, swelling and enlarging and hastening towards the relief of some impending danger, or else, by Jupiter, in the impeaching and charging of certain audacious villanies or indictments, flowing and rolling along, and that not in a simple and poor strain, but with many sorts of passions all at once, or rather indeed with all sorts, in one and the same manner, into the many and various and differing minds of either hearers or judges that he is either to turn and change, or else, by Jupiter, to soften, appease, and quiet—should overlook all this business, and never consider or reckon upon the labor or struggle he had undergone, but pick up certain loose expressions, which the rapid motion of the discourse had carried along with it, as by the current of its course, and so had slipped and escaped the rest of the oration, and, hereupon undervalue the orator.]

But we are nothing put out of countenance, either by the beauteous gayety of the colors, or by the charmingness of the musical voices, or by the rare sagacity of the intellects, or by the cleanliness and neatness of diet, or by the rare discretion and prudence of these poor unfortunate animals; but for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them, as it were saying thus to us: "I deprecate not thy necessity (if such there be), but thy wantonness. Kill me for thy feeding, but do not take me off for thy better feeding." O horrible cruelty! It is truly an affecting sight to see the very table of rich people laid before them, who keep them cooks and caterers to furnish them with dead corpses for their daily fare; but it is yet more affecting to see it taken away, for the mammocks remaining are more than that which was eaten. These therefore were slain to no purpose. Others there are, who are so offended by what is set before them that they will not suffer it to be cut or sliced; thus abstaining from them when dead, while they would not spare them when alive.

Well, then, we understand that that sort of men are used to say, that in eating of flesh they follow the conduct and direction of Nature. But that it is not natural to mankind to feed on flesh, we first of all demonstrate from the very shape and figure of the body. For a human body no ways resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But even from hence, that is, from the smoothness of the tongue, and the slowness of the stomach to digest, Nature seems to disclaim all pretence to fleshy victuals. But if you will contend that yourself was born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. But do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet, or axe,—as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. Rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do. But if thou hadst rather stay until what thou greatest is become dead, and if thou art loath to force a soul out of its body, why then dost thou against Nature eat an animate thing? Nay, there is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing as it is; but they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare. It was indeed a witty expression of a Lacedaemonian, who, having purchased a small fish in a certain inn, delivered it to his landlord to be dressed; and as he demanded cheese, and vinegar, and oil to make sauce, he replied, if I had had those, I would not have bought the fish. But we are grown so wanton in our bloody luxury, that we have bestowed upon flesh the name of meat [Greek omitted], and then require another seasoning [Greek omitted], to this same flesh, mixing oil, wine, honey, pickle, and vinegar, with Syrian and Arabian spices, as though we really meant to embalm it after its disease. Indeed when things are dissolved and made thus tender and soft, and are as it were turned into a sort of a carrionly corruption, it must needs be a great difficulty for concoction to master them, and when it hath mastered them, they must needs cause grievous oppressions and qualmy indigestions.

Diogenes ventured once to eat a raw pourcontrel, that he might disuse himself from meat dressed by fire; and as several priests and other people stood round him, he wrapped his head in his cassock, and so putting the fish to his mouth, he thus said unto them: It is for your sake, sirs, that I undergo this danger, and run this risk. A noble and gallant risk, by Jupiter! For far otherwise than as Pelopidas ventured his life for the liberty of the Thebans, and Harmodius and Aristogiton for that of the Athenians, did this philosopher encounter with a raw pourcontrel, to the end he might make human life more brutish. Moreover, these same flesh-eatings not only are preternatural to men's bodies, but also by clogging and cloying them, they render their very minds and intellects gross. For it is well known to most, that wine and much flesh-eating make the body indeed strong and lusty, but the mind weak and feeble. And that I may not offend the wrestlers, I will make use of examples out of my own country. The Athenians are wont to call us Boeotians gross, senseless, and stupid fellows, for no other reason but our over-much eating; by Pindar we are called hogs, for the same reason. Menander the comedian calls us "fellows with long jaws." It is observed also that, according to the saying of Heraclitus, "the wisest soul is like a dry light." Earthen jars, if you strike them, will sound; but if they be full, they perceive not the strokes that are given them. Copper vessels also that are thin communicate the sound round about them, unless some one stop and dull the ambient stroke with his fingers. Moreover, the eye, when seized with an over-great plenitude of humors, grows dim and feeble for its ordinary work. When we behold the sun through a humid air and a great quantity of gross and indigested vapors, we see it not clear and bright, but obscure and cloudy, and with glimmering beams. Just so in a muddy and clogged body, that is swagged down with heavy and unnatural nourishments; it must needs happen that the gayety and splendor of the mind be confused and dulled, and that it ramble and roll after little and scarce discernible objects, since it wants clearness and vigor for higher things.

But to pass by these considerations, is not accustoming one's self to mildness and a human temper of mind an admirable thing? For who would wrong or injure a man that is so sweetly and humanly disposed with respect to the ills of strangers that are not of his kind? I remember that three days ago, as I was discoursing, I made mention of a saying of Xenocrates, and how the Athenians gave judgment upon a certain person who had flayed a living ram. For my part I cannot think him a worse criminal that torments a poor creature while living, than a man that shall take away its life and murder it. But (as it seems) we are more sensible of what is done against custom than against Nature. There, however, I discussed these matters in a more popular style. But as for that grand and mysterious principle which (as Plato speaks) is incredible to base minds and to such as affect only mortal things, I as little care to move it in this discourse as a pilot doth a ship in a storm, or a comedian his machine while the scenes are moving; but perhaps it would not be amiss, by way of introduction and preface, to repeat certain verses of Empedocles.... For in these, by way of allegory, he hints at men's souls, as that they are tied to mortal bodies, to be punished for murders, eating of flesh and of one another, although this doctrine seems much, ancienter than his time. For the fables that are storied and related about the discerption of Bacchus, and the attempts of the Titans upon him, and of their tasting of his slain body, and of their several punishments and fulminations afterwards, are but a representation of the regeneration. For what in us is unreasonable, disorderly, and boisterous, being not divine but demoniac, the ancients termed Titans, that is, TORMENTED and PUNISHED (from [Greek omitted])....



TRACT II. Reason persuades us now to return with fresh cogitations and dispositions to what we left cold yesterday of our discourse about flesh-eating. It is indeed a hard and a difficult task to undertake (as Cato once said) to dispute with men's bellies, that have no ears; since most have already drunk that draught of custom, which is like that of Ciree,

Of groans and frauds and sorcery replete. ("Odyssey," x. 234.)

And it is no easy task to pull out the hook of flesh-eating from the jaws of such as have gorged themselves with luxury and are (as it were) nailed down with it. It would indeed be a good action, if as the Egyptians draw out the stomach of a dead body, and cut it open and expose it to the sun, as the only cause of all its evil actions, so we could, by cutting out our gluttony and blood-shedding, purify and cleanse the remainder of our lives. For the stomach itself is not guilty of bloodshed, but is involuntarily polluted by our intemperance. But if this may not be, and we are ashamed by reason of custom to live unblamably, let us at least sin with discretion. Let us eat flesh; but let it be for hunger and not for wantonness. Let us kill an animal; but let us do it with sorrow and pity, and not abusing and tormenting it, as many nowadays are used to do, while some run red-hot spits through the bodies of swine, that by the tincture of the quenched iron the blood may be to that degree mortified, that it may sweeten and soften the flesh in its circulation; others jump and stamp upon the udders of sows that are ready to pig, that so they may crush into one mass (O Piacular Jupiter!) in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and the corruption of the mashed and mangled young ones, and so eat the most inflamed part of the animal; others sew up the eyes of cranes and swans, and so shut them up in darkness to be fattened, and then souse up their flesh with certain monstrous mixtures and pickles.

By all which it is most manifest, that it is not for nourishment, or want, or any necessity, but for mere gluttony, wantonness, and expensiveness, that they make a pleasure of villany. Just as it happens in persons who cannot satiate their passion upon women, and having made trial of everything else and falling into vagaries, at last attempt things not to be mentioned; even so inordinateness in feeding, when it hath once passed the bounds of nature and necessity, studies at last to diversify the lusts of its intemperate appetite by cruelty and villany. For the senses, when they once quit their natural measures, sympathize with each other in their distempers, and are enticed by each other to the same consent and intemperance. Thus a distempered ear first debauched music, the soft and effeminate notes of which provoke immodest touches and lascivious tickling. These things first taught the eye not to delight in Pyrrhic dances, gesticulations of hands, or elegant pantomimes, nor in statues and fine paintings; but to reckon the slaughtering and death of mankind and wounds and duels the most sumptuous of shows and spectacles. Thus unlawful tables are accompanied with intemperate copulations, with unmusicianlike balls, and theatres become monstrous through shameful songs and rehearsals; and barbarous and brutish shows are again accompanied with an unrelenting temper and savage cruelty towards mankind. Hence it was that the divine Lycurgus in his Three Books of Laws gave orders that the doors and ridges of men's houses should be made with a saw and an axe, and that no other instrument should so much as be brought to any house. Not that he did hereby intend to declare war against augers and planes and other instruments of finer work; but because he very well knew that with such tools as these you will never bring into your house a gilded couch, and that you will never attempt to bring into a slender cottage either silver tables, purple carpets, or costly stones; but that a plain supper and a homely dinner must accompany such a house, couch table, and cup. The beginning of a vicious diet is presently followed by all sorts of luxury and expensiveness,

Ev'n as a mare is by her thirsty colt. ============= And what meal is not expensive? One for which no animal is put to death. Shall we reckon a soul to be a small expense? I will not say perhaps of a mother, or a father, or of some friend, or child, as Empedocles did; but one participating of feeling, of seeing, of hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath received from Nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable. Do but consider this with yourself now, which sort of philosophers render us most tame and civil, they who bid people to feed on their children, friends, fathers, and wives, when they are dead; or Pythagoras and Empedocles, that accustom men to be just towards even the other members of the creation. You laugh at a man that will not eat a sheep: but we (they will say again)—when we see you cutting off the parts of your dead father or mother, and sending it to your absent friends, and calling upon and inviting your present friends to eat the rest freely and heartily—shall we not smile? Nay, peradventure we offend at this instant time while we touch these books, without having first cleansed our hands, eyes, feet, and ears; if it be not (by Jupiter) a sufficient purgation of them to have discoursed of these matters in potable and fresh language (as Plato speaketh), thereby washing off the brackishness of hearing. Now if a man should set these books and discourses in opposition to each other, he will find that the philosophy of the one sort suits with the Seythians, Sogdians, and Melanchlaenians, of whom Herodotus's relation is scarce believed; but the sentiments of Pythagoras and Empedocles were the laws and customs of the ancients Grecians.

Who, then, were the first authors of this opinion, that we owe no justice to dumb animals?

Who first beat out accursed steel, And made the lab'ring ox a knife to feel.

In the very same manner oppressors and tyrants begin first to shed blood. For example, the first man that the Athenians ever put to death was one of the basest of all knaves, who had the reputation of deserving it; after him they put to death a second and a third. After this, being now accustomed to blood, they patiently saw Niceratus the son of Nicias, and their own general Theramenes, and Polemarchus the philosopher suffer death. Even so, in the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the desire of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness, being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars. Now even if one cannot demonstrate and make out, that souls in their regenerations make a promiscuous use of all bodies, and that that which is now rational will at another time be irrational, and that again tame which is now wild,—for that Nature changes and transmutes everything,

With different fleshy coats new clothing all,—

this thing should be sufficient to change and show men, that it is a savage and intemperate habit, that it brings sickness and heaviness upon the body, and that it inclines the mind the more brutishly to bloodshed and destruction, when we have once accustomed ourselves neither to entertain a guest nor keep a wedding nor to treat our friends without blood and slaughter.

And if what is argued about the return of souls into bodies is not of force enough to beget faith, yet methinks the very uncertainty of the thing should fill us with apprehension and fear. Suppose, for instance, one should in some night-engagement run on with his drawn sword upon one that had fallen down and covered his body with his arms, and should in the meantime hear one say, that he was not very sure, but that he fancied and believed, that the party lying there was his own son, brother, father, or tent-companion; which were more advisable, think you,—to hearken to a false suggestion, and so to let go an enemy under the notion of a friend, or to slight an authority not sufficient to beget faith, and to slay a friend instead of a foe? This you will all say would be insupportable. Do but consider the famous Merope in the tragedy, who taking up a hatchet, and lifting it at her son's head, whom she took for her son's murderer, speaks thus as she was ready to give the fatal blow,

Villain, this holy blow shall cleave thy head; (Euripides, "Cresphontes," Frag. 457.)

what a bustle she raises in the whole theatre while she raises herself to give the blow, and what a fear they are all in, lest she should prevent the old man that comes to stop her hand, and should wound the youth. Now if another old man should stand by her and say, "Strike, it is thy enemy," and this, "Hold, it is thy son"; which, think you, would be the greater injustice, to omit the punishing of an enemy for the sake of one's child, or to suffer one's self to be so carried away with anger at an enemy as to slay one's child? Since then neither hatred nor wrath nor any revenge nor fear for ourselves carries us to the slaughter of a beast, but the poor sacrifice stands with an inclined neck, only to satisfy thy lust and pleasure, and then one philosopher stands by and tells thee, "Cut him down, it is but an unreasonable animal," and another cries, "Hold, what if there should be the soul of some kinsman or god enclosed in him?"—good gods! is there the like danger if I refuse to eat flesh, as if I for want of faith murder my child or some other friend?

The Stoics' way of reasoning upon this subject of flesh-eating is no way equal nor consonant with themselves. Who is this that hath so many mouths for his belly and the kitchen? Whence comes it to pass, that they so very much womanize and reproach pleasure, as a thing that they will not allow to be either good or preferable, or so much as agreeable, and yet all on a sudden become so zealous advocates for pleasures? It were indeed but a reasonable consequence of their doctrine, that, since they banish perfumes and cakes from their banquets, they should be much more averse to blood and to flesh. But now, just as if they would reduce their philosophy to their account-books, they lessen the expenses of their suppers in certain unnecessary and needless matters, but the untamed and murderous part of their expense they nothing boggle at. "Well! What then?" say they. "We have nothing to do with brute beasts." Nor have you any with perfumes, nor with foreign sauces, may some one answer; therefore leave these out of your banquets, if you are driving out everything that is both useless and needless.

Let us therefore in the next place consider, whether we owe any justice to the brute beasts. Neither shall we handle this point artificially, or like subtle sophisters, but by casting our eye into our own breasts, and conversing with ourselves as men, we will weigh and examine the whole matter....

END OF EIGHT—————-



CONCERNING FATE.

("This little Treatise is so pitiously torne, maimed, and dismembred thorowout, that a man may sooner divine and guess thereat (as I have done) than translate it."—HOLLAND.)

I will endeavor, my dearest Piso, to send you my opinion concerning Fate, written with all the clearness and compendiousness I am capable of; since you, who are not ignorant how cautious I am of writing, have thought fit to make it the subject of your request.

You are first, then, to know that this word Fate is spoken and understood two manner of ways; the one as it is an energy, the other as it is a substance. First, therefore, as it is an action, Plato (See Plato, "Phaedrus," p. 248 C; "Timaeus," p.41 E; "Republic," x. p.617 D.) has under a type described it, saying thus in his dialogue entitled Phaedrus: "And this is a sanction of Adrastea (or an inevitable ordinance), that whatever soul being an attendant on God," &c. And in his treatise called Timaeus: "The laws which God in the nature of the universe has established for immortal souls." And in his book of a Commonweal he entitles Fate "the speech of the virgin Lachesis, who is the daughter of Necessity." By which sentences he not tragically but theologically shows us what his sentiments are in this matter. Now if any one, paraphrasing the fore-cited passages, would have them expressed in more familiar terms, the description in Phaedrus may be thus explained: That Fate is a divine sentence, intransgressible since its cause cannot be divested or hindered. And according to what he has said in his Timaeus, it is a law ensuing on the nature of the universe, according to which all things that are done are transacted. For this does Lachesis effect, who is indeed the daughter of Necessity,—as we have both already related, and shall yet better understand by that which will be said in the progress of our discourse. Thus you see what Fate is, when it is taken for an action.

But as it is a substance, it seems to be the universal soul of the world, and admits of a threefold distribution; the first destiny being that which errs not; the second, that which is thought to err; and the third that which, being under the heaven, is conversant about the earth. Of these, the highest is called Clotho, the next Atropos, and the lowest, Lachesis; who, receiving the celestial influences and efficacies of her sisters, transmits and fastens them to the terrestrial things which are under her government. Thus have we declared briefly what is to be said of Fate, taken as a substance; what it is, what are its parts, after what manner it is, how it is ordained, and how it stands, both in respect to itself and to us. But as to the particularities of these things, there is another fable in his Commonweal, by which they are in some measure covertly insinuated, and we ourselves have, in the best manner we can, endeavored to explain them to you.

But we now once again turn our discourse to Fate, as it is an energy. For concerning this it is that there are so many natural, moral, and logical questions. Having therefore already in some sort sufficiently defined what it is, we are now in the next place to say something of its quality, although it may to many seem absurd. I say then that Fate, though comprehending as it were in a circle the infinity of all those things which are and have been from infinite times and shall be to infinite ages, is not in itself infinite, but determinate and finite; for neither law, reason, nor any other divine thing can be infinite. And this you will the better understand, if you consider the total revolution and the total time in which the revolutions of the eight circles (that is, of the eight spheres of the fixed stars, sun, moon, and five planets), having (as Timaeus (Plato, "Timaeus," p.39 D.) says) finished their course, return to one and the same point, being measured by the circle of the Same, which goes always after one manner. For in this order, which is finite and determinate, shall all things (which, as well in heaven as in earth, consist by necessity from above) be reduced to the same situation, and restored again to their first beginning. Wherefore the habitude of heaven alone, being thus ordained in all things, as well in regard of itself as of the earth and all terrestrial matters, shall again (after long revolutions) one day return; and those things that in order follow after, and being linked together in a continuity are maintained in their course, shall follow, every one of them by necessity bringing what is its own. But for the better clearing of this matter, let us understand that whatever is in us or about us is not wrought by the course of the heavens and heavenly influences, as being entirely the efficient cause both of my writing what I now write, and of your doing also what you at present do, and in the same manner as you do it. Hereafter, then, when the same cause shall return, we shall do the same things we now do and in the same manner, and shall again become the same men; and so it will be with all others. And that which follows after shall also happen by the following cause; and in brief, all things that shall happen in the whole and in every one of these universal revolutions shall again become the same. By this it appears (as we have said before) that Fate, being in some sort infinite, is nevertheless determinate and finite; and it may be also in some sort seen and comprehended, as we have farther said, that it is as it were a circle. For as a motion of a circle is a circle, and the time that measures it is also a circle; so the order of things which are done and happen in a circle may be justly esteemed and called a circle.

This, therefore, though there should be nothing else, almost shows us what sort of thing Fate is; but not particularly or in every respect. What kind of thing then is it in its own form? It is, as far as one can compare it, like to the civil or politic law. For first it orders the most part of things at least, if not all, conditionally; and then it comprises (as far as is possible for it) all things that belong to the public in general; and the better to make you understand both the one and the other, we must specify them by an example. The civil law speaks and ordains in general of a valiant man, and also of a deserter and a coward; and in the same manner of others. Now this is not to make the law speak of this or that man in particular, but principally to propose such things as are universal or general, and consequently such as fall under them. For we may very well say, that it is legal to reward this from his colors; because the law has virtually—though not in express terms and particularly yet in such general ones as they are comprehended under,—so determined of them. As the law (if I may so speak) of physicians and masters of corporal exercises potentially comprehends particular and special things within the general; so the law of Nature, determining first and principally general matters, secondarily and subordinately determines such as are particular. Thus, general things being decreed by Fate, particular and individual things may also in some sort be said to be so, because they are so by consequence with the general. But perhaps some one of those who more accurately examine and more subtly search into these things may say, on the contrary, that particular and individual things precede the composition of general things, and that the general exist only for the particular, since that for which another thing is always goes before that which is for it. Nevertheless, this is not the proper place to treat of this difficulty, but it is to be remitted to another. However, that Fate comprehends not all things clearly and expressly, but only such as are universal and general, let it pass for resolved on at present, as well for what we have already said a little before, as for what we shall say hereafter. For that which is finite and determinate, agreeing properly with divine Providence, is seen more in universal and general things than in particular; such therefore is the divine law, and also the civil; but infinity consists in particulars and individuals.

After this we are to declare what this term "conditionally" means; for it is to be thought that Fate is also some such thing. That, then, is said to be conditionally, which is supposed to exist not of itself or absolutely, but as really dependent upon and joined to another; which signifies a suit and consequence. "And this is the sanction of Adrastea (or an inevitable ordinance), that whatever soul, being an attendant on God, shall see anything of truth, shall till another revolution be exempt from punishment; and if it is ever able to do the same, it shall never suffer any damage." This is said both conditionally and also universally. Now that Fate is some such thing is clearly manifest, as well from its substance as from its name. For it is called [Greek omitted] as being [Greek omitted], that is, dependent and linked; and it is a sanction or law, because things are therein ordained and disposed consequentially, as is usual in civil government.

We ought in the next place to consider and treat of mutual relation and affection; that is, what reference and respect Fate has to divine Providence, what to Fortune, what also to "that which is in our power," what to contingent and other such like things; and furthermore we are to determine, how far and in what it is true or false that all things happen and are done by and according to Fate. For if the meaning is, that all things are comprehended and contained in Fate, it must be granted that this proposition is true; and if any would farther have it so understood, that all things which are done amongst men, on earth, and in heaven are placed in Fate, let this also pass as granted for the present. But if (as the expression seems rather to imply) the "being done according to Fate" signifies not all things, but only that which is a direct consequent of Fate, then it must not be said that all things happen and are done by and according to Fate, though all things are so according to Fate as to be comprised in it. For all things that the law comprehends and of which it speaks are not legal or according to law; for it comprehends treason, it treats of the cowardly running away from one's colors in time of battle, of adultery, and many other such like things, of which it cannot be said that any one of them is lawful. Neither indeed can I affirm of the performing a valorous act in war, the killing of a tyrant, or the doing any other virtuous deed, that it is legal; because that only is proper to be called legal, which is commanded by the law. Now if the law commands these things, how can they avoid being rebels against the law and transgressors of it, who neither perform valiant feats of arms, kill tyrants, nor do any other such remarkable acts of virtue? And if they are transgressors of the law, why is it not just they should be punished? But if this is not reasonable, it must then be also confessed that these things are not legal or according to law; but that legal and according to law is only that which is particularly prescribed and expressly commanded by the law, in any action whatsoever. In like manner, those things only are fatal and according to Fate, which are the consequences of causes preceding in the divine disposition. So that Fate indeed comprehends all things which are done; yet many of those things that are comprehended in it, and almost all that precede, should not (to speak properly) be pronounced to be fatal or according to Fate.

These things being so, we are next in order to show, how "that which is in our power" (or free will), Fortune, possible, contingent, and other like things which are placed among the antecedent causes, can consist with Fate, and Fate with them; for Fate, as it seems, comprehends all things, and yet all these things will not happen by necessity, but every one of them according to the principle of its nature. Now the nature of the possible is to presubsist, as the genus, and to go before the contingent; and the contingent, as the matter and subject, is to be in the sphere of free will; and our free will ought as a master to make use of the contingent; and Fortune comes in by the side of free will, through the property of the contingent of inclining to either part. Now you will more easily apprehend what has been said, if you shall consider that everything which is generated, and the generation itself, is not done without a generative faculty or power, and the power is not without a substance. As for example, neither the generation of man, nor that which is generated, is without a power; but this power is about man, and man himself is the substance. Now the power or faculty is between the substance, which is the powerful, and the generation and the thing generated, which are both possibles. There being then these three things, the power, the powerful, and the possible; before the power can exist, the powerful must of necessity be presupposed as its subject, and the power must also necessarily subsist before the possible. By this deduction then may in some measure be understood what is meant by possible; which may be grossly defined as "that which power is able to produce;" or yet more exactly, if to this same there be added, "provided there be nothing from without to hinder or obstruct it." Now of possible things there are some which can never be hindered, as are those in heaven, to wit, the rising and setting of the stars, and the like to these; but others may indeed be hindered, as are the most part of human things, and many also of those which are done in the air. The first, as being done by necessity, are called necessary; the others, which may fall one way or other, are called contingent; and they may both thus be described. The necessary possible is that whose contrary is impossible; and the contingent possible is that whose contrary is also possible. For that the sun should set is a thing both necessary and possible, forasmuch as it is contrary to this that the sun should not set, which is impossible; but that, when the sun is set, there should be rain or not rain, both the one and the other is possible and contingent. And then again of things contingent, some happen oftener, others rarely and not so often, others fall out equally or indifferently, as well the one way as the other, even as it happens. Now it is manifest that those are contrary to one another,—to wit, those which fall out oftener and those which happen but seldom,—and they both for the most part are dependent on Nature; but that which happens equally, as much one way as another, depends on ourselves. For that under the Dog it should be either hot or cold, the one oftener, the other seldomer, are both things subject to Nature; but to walk and not to walk, and all such things of which both the one and the other are submitted to the free will of man, are said to be in us and our election; but rather more generally to be in us. For there are two sorts of this "being in our power"; the one of which proceeds from some sudden passion and motion of the mind, as from anger or pleasure; the other from the discourse and judgment of reason, which may properly be said to be in our election. And some reason there is to hold that this possible and contingent is the same thing with that which is said to be in our power and according to our free will, although named differently. For in respect to the future, it is called possible and contingent; and in respect of the present, it is named "in our power" and "in our free choice." These things may thus be defined: The contingent is that which is itself—as well as its contrary—possible; and "that which is in our power" is one part of the contingent, to wit, that which now takes place according to our choice. Thus have we in a manner declared, that the possible in the order of Nature precedes the contingent, and that the contingent exists before free will; as also what each of them is, whence they are so named, and what are the qualities adjoined or appertaining to them.

It now remains, that we treat of Fortune and casual adventure, and whatever else is to be considered with them. It is therefore certain that Fortune is a cause. Now of causes, some are causes by themselves, and others by accident. Thus for example, the proper cause by itself of an house or a ship is the art of the mason, the carpenter, or the shipwright; but accidental causes are music, geometry, and whatever else may happen to be joined with the art of building houses or ships, in respect either of the body, the soul, or any exterior thing. Whence it appears, that the cause by itself must needs be determinate and one; but the causes by accident are never one and the same, but infinite and undetermined. For many—nay, infinite—accidents, wholly different one from the other, may be in one and the same subject. Now the cause by accident, when it is found in a thing which not only is done for some end but has in it free will and election, is then called Fortune; as is the finding a treasure while one is digging a hole to plant a tree, or the doing or suffering some extraordinary thing whilst one is flying, following, or otherwise walking, or only turning about, provided it be not for the sake of that which happens, but for some other intention. Hence it is, that some of the ancients have declared Fortune to be a cause unknown that cannot be foreseen by the human reason. But according to the Platonics, who have approached yet nearer to the true reason of it, it is thus defined: Fortune is a cause by accident, in those things which are done for some end, and which are of our election. And afterwards they add, that it is unforeseen and unknown to the human reason; although that which is rare and strange appears also by the same means to be in this kind of cause by accident. But what this is, if it is not sufficiently evidenced by the oppositions and disputations made against it, will at least most clearly be seen by what is written in Plato's Phaedo, where you will find these words:—

PHAED. Have you not heard how and in what manner the judgment passed? ECH. Yes indeed; for there came one and told us of it. At which we wondered very much that, the judgment having been given long before, it seems that he died a great while after. And what, Phaedo, might be the cause of it? PHAED. It was a fortune which happened to him, Echecrates. For it chanced that, the day before the judgment, the prow of the galley which the Athenians send every year to the isle of Delos was crowned. (Plato, "Phaedo," p.58 A.)

In which discourse it is to be observed, that the expression HAPPENED TO HIM is not simply to be understood by WAS DONE or CAME TO PASS, but it much rather regards what befell him through the concurrence of many causes together, one being done in connection with another. For the priest crowned the ship and adorned it with garlands for another end and intention, and not for the sake of Socrates; and the judges also had for some other cause condemned him. But the event was contrary to experience, and of such a nature that it might seem to have been effected by the foresight of some human creature, or rather of the superior powers. And so much may suffice to show with what Fortune must of necessity subsist, and that there must subsist first such things as are in our free will: what it effects is, like itself called Fortune. ============== But chance or casual adventure is of a larger extent than Fortune; which it comprehends, and also several other things which may of their own nature happen sometimes one way, sometimes another. And this, as it appears by the derivation of the word, which is in Greek [Greek omitted] CHANCE, is that which happens of itself, when that which is ordinary happens not, but another thing in its place; such as cold in the dog-days seems to be; for it is sometimes then cold.... Once for all, as "that which is in our power" is a part of the contingent, so Fortune is a part of chance or casual adventure; and both the two events are conjoined and dependent on the one and the other, to wit, chance on contingent, and Fortune on "that which is in our choice,"—and yet not on all, but on what is in our election, as we have already said. Wherefore chance is common to things inanimate, as well as to those which are animated; whereas Fortune is proper to man only, who has his actions voluntary. And an argument of this is, that to be fortunate and to be happy are thought to be one and the same thing. Now happiness is a certain well-doing, and well-doing is proper only to man, and to him perfect.

These, then, are the things which are comprised in Fate, to wit, contingent, possible, election, "that which is in our power," Fortune, chance, and their adjuncts, as are the things signified by the words perhaps and peradventure; all which indeed are contained in Fate. Yet none Of them is fatal. It now remains, that we discourse of divine Providence, and show how it comprehends even Fate itself.

The supreme therefore and first Providence is the understanding or (if you had rather) the will of the first and sovereign God, doing good to everything that is in the world, by which all divine things have universally and throughout been most excellently and most wisely ordained and disposed. The second Providence is that of the second gods, who go through the heaven, by which temporal and mortal things are orderly and regularly generated, and which pertains to the continuation and preservation of every kind. The third may probably be called the Providence and procuration of the Daemons, which, being placed on the earth, are the guardians and overseers of human actions. This threefold Providence therefore being seen, of which the first and supreme is chiefly and principally so named, we shall not be afraid to say, although we may in this seem to contradict the sentiments of some philosophers, that all things are done by Fate and by Providence, but not also by Nature. But some are done according to Providence, these according to one, those according to another,—and some according to Fate; and Fate is altogether according to Providence, while Providence is in no wise according to Fate. But let this discourse be understood of the first and supreme Providence. Now that which is done according to another, whatever it is, is always posterior to that according to which it is done; as that which is according to the law is after the law, and that which is according to Nature is after Nature, so that which is according to Fate is after Fate, and must consequently be more new and modern. Wherefore supreme Providence is the most ancient of all things, except him whose will or understanding it is, to wit, the sovereign author, maker, and father of all things. "Let us therefore," says Timaeus, "discourse for what cause the Creator made and framed this machine of the universe. He was good, and in him that is good there can never be imprinted or engendered any envy against anything. Being therefore wholly free from this, he desired that all things should, as far as it is possible, resemble himself. He, therefore, who admits this to have been chiefly the principal original of the generation and creation of the world, as it has been delivered to us by wise men, receives that which is most right. For God, who desired that all things should be good, and nothing, as far as possibly might be, evil, taking thus all that was visible,—restless as it was, and moving rashly and confusedly,—reduced it from disorder to order, esteeming the one to be altogether better than the other. For it neither was nor is convenient for him who is in all perfection good, to make anything that should not be very excellent and beautiful." (Plato, "Timaeus," p.29 D.) This, therefore, and all that follows, even to his disputation concerning human souls, is to be understood of the first Providence, which in the beginning constituted all things. Afterwards he speaks thus: "Having framed the universe, he ordained souls equal in number to the stars, and distributed to each of them one; and having set them, as it were, in a chariot, showed the nature of the universe, and appointed them the laws of Fate." (Ibid. p.41 D.) Who, then, will not believe, that by these words he expressly and manifestly declares Fate to be, as it were, a foundation and political constitution of laws, fitted for the souls of men? Of which he afterwards renders the cause.

As for the second Providence, he thus in a manner explains it, saying: "Having prescribed them all these laws, to the end that, if there should afterwards happen any fault, he might be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil, he dispersed some of them upon the earth, some into the moon, and some into the other instruments of time. And after this dispersion, he gave in charge to the young gods the making of human bodies, and the making up and adding whatever was wanting and deficient in human souls; and after they had perfected whatever is adherent and consequent to this, they should rule and govern, in the best manner they possibly could, this mortal creature, so far as it might not be the cause of its own evils." (Ibid. p.42 D.) For by these words, "that he might be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil," he most clearly signifies the cause of Fate; and the order and office of the young gods manifests the second Providence; and it seems also in some sort to have touched a little upon the third, if he therefore established laws and ordinances that he might be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil. For God, who is free from all evil, has no need of laws or Fate; but every one of these petty gods, drawn on by the providence of him who has engendered them, performs what belongs to his office. Now that this is true and agreeable to the opinion of Plato, these words of the lawgiver, spoken by him in his Book of Laws, seems to me to give sufficient testimony: "If there were any man so sufficient by Nature, being by divine Fortune happily engendered and born, that he could comprehend this, he would have no need of laws to command him. For there is not any law or ordinance more worthy and powerful than knowledge; nor is it suitable that Mind, provided it be truly and really free by Nature, should be a subject or slave to any one, but it ought to command all." (Plato, "Laws," ix. p.875 C.)

I therefore do for mine own part thus understand and interpret this sentence of Plato. There being a threefold Providence, the first, as having engendered Fate, does in some sort comprehend it; the second, having been engendered with Fate, is with it totally comprehended and embraced by the first; the third, as having been engendered after Fate, is comprehended by it in the same manner as are free choice and Fortune, as we have already said. "For they whom the assistance of a Daemon's power does help in their intercourse" says Socrates, declaring to Theages what is the almost settled ordinance of Adrastea "are those whom you also mean; for they advance quickly." (Plato, "Theages", p.129 E.) In which words, what he says of a Daemon's aiding some is to be ascribed to the third Providence, and the growing and coming forward with speed to Fate. In brief, it is not obscure or doubtful but that this also is a kind of Fate. And perhaps it may be found much more probable that the second Providence is also comprehended under Fate, and indeed all things that are done; since Fate, as a substance, has been rightly divided by us into three parts, and the simile of the chain comprehends the revolutions of the heavens in the number and rank of those things which happen conditionally. But concerning these things I will not much contend, to wit, whether they should be called conditional, or rather conjoined with Fate, the precedent cause and commander of Fate being also fatal.

Our opinion, then, to speak briefly, is such. But the contrary sentiment not only places all things in Fate, but affirms them all to be done by Fate. It agrees indeed in all things to the other (the Stoic) doctrine; and that which accords to another thing, 'tis clear, is the same with it. In this discourse therefore we have first spoken of the contingent; secondly, of "that which is in our power"; thirdly, of Fortune and chance, and whatever depends on them; fourthly, of praise, blame, and whatever depends on them; the fifth and last of all may be said to be prayers to the gods, with their services and ceremonies.

For the rest, as to those which are called idle and cropping arguments, and that which is named the argument against destiny, they are indeed but vain subtleties and captious sophisms, according to this discourse. But according to the contrary opinion, the first and principal conclusion seems to be, that there is nothing done without a cause, but that all things depend upon antecedent causes; the second, that the world is governed by Nature, and that it conspires, consents, and is compatible with itself; the third seems rather to be testimonies,—of which the first is divination, approved by all sorts of people, as being truly in God; the second is the equanimity and patience of wise men, who take mildly and bear patiently whatever befalls, as happening by divine ordinance and as it ought; the third is the speech so common and usual in every one's mouth, to wit, that every proposition is true or false. Thus have we contracted this discourse into a small number of short articles, that we might in few words comprehend the whole matter of Fate; into which a scrutiny ought to be made, and the reasons of both opinions to be weighed with a most exact balance. But we shall come to discuss particulars later.

END OF NINE—————-



AGAINST COLOTES, THE DISCIPLE AND FAVORITE OF EPICURUS.

COLOTES, whom Epicurus was wont diminutively and by way of familiarity or fondness to call Colotaras and Colotarion, composed, O Saturninus, and published a little book which he entitled, "That according to the opinions of the other philosophers one cannot so much as live." This was dedicated to King Ptolemy. Now I suppose that it will not be unpleasant for you to read, when set down in writing, what came into my mind to speak against this Colotes, since I know you to be a lover of all elegant and honest treatises, and particularly of such as regard the science of antiquity, and to esteem the bearing in memory and having (as much as possible may be) in hand the discourses of the ancient sages to be the most royal of all studies and exercises.

Not long since, therefore, as this book was being read, Aristodemus of Aegium, a familiar friend of ours (whom you well know to be one of the Academy, and not a mere thyrsus-bearer, but one of the most frantic celebrators of Plato's name), did, I know not how, keep himself contrary to his custom very still all the while, and patiently gave ear to it even to the end. But the reading was scarce well over when he said: Well, then, whom shall we cause to rise up and fight against this man, in defence of the philosophers? For I am not of Nestor's opinion, who, when the most valiant of those nine warriors that presented themselves to enter into combat was to be chosen, committed the election to the fortune of a lot.

Yet, answered I, you see he so disposed himself in reference to the lot, that the choice might pass according to the arbitrament of the wisest man;

And th' lot drawn from the helmet, as they wished, On Ajax fell.

But yet since you command me to make the election,

How can I think a better choice to make Than the divine Ulysses? ("Iliad," vii. 182; x. 243.)

Consider therefore, and be well advised, in what manner you will chastise this man.

But you know, replied Aristodemus, that Plato, when highly offended with his boy that waited on him, would not himself beat him, but requested Speusippus to do it for him, saying that he himself was angry. As much therefore may I say to you; Take this fellow to you, and treat him as you please; for I am in a fit of choler.

When therefore all the rest of the company desired me to undertake this office; I must then, said I, speak, since it is your pleasure. But I am afraid that I also shall seem more vehemently transported than is fitting against this book, in the defending and maintaining Socrates against the rudeness, scurrility, and insolence of this man; who, because Socrates affirmed himself to know nothing certainly, instead of bread (as one would say) present him hay, as if he were a beast, and asks him why he puts meat into his mouth and not into his ear. And yet perhaps some would make but a laughing matter of this, considering the mildness and gentleness of Socrates; "but for the whole host of the Greeks," that is, of the other philosophers, amongst which are Democritus, Plato, Stilpo, Empedocles, Parmenides, and Melissus, who have been basely traduced and reviled by him, it were not only a shame to be silent, but even a sacrilege in the least point to forbear or recede from freedom of speech in their behalf, who have advanced philosophy to that honor and reputation it has gotten.

And our parents indeed have, with the assistance of the gods, given us our life; but to live well comes to us from reason, which we have learned from the philosophers, which favors law and justice, and restrains our concupiscence. Now to live well is to live sociably, friendly, temperately, and justly; of all which conditions they leave us not one, who cry out that man's sovereign good lies in his belly, and that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the expense of a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every side removed from them. And in their discourses concerning the soul and the gods, they hold that the soul perishes when it is separated from the body, and that the gods concern not themselves in our affairs. Thus the Epicureans reproach the other philosophers, that by their wisdom they bereave man of his life; whilst the others on the contrary accuse them of teaching men to live degenerately and like beasts.

Now these things are scattered here and there in the writings of Epicurus, and dispersed through all his philosophy. But this Colotes, by having extracted from them certain pieces and fragments of discourses, destitute of any arguments whatever to render them credible and intelligible, has composed his book, being like a shop or cabinet of monsters and prodigies; as you better know than any one else, because you have always in your hands the works of the ancients. But he seems to me, like the Lydian, to open not only one gate against himself, but to involve Epicurus also in many and those the greatest doubts and difficulties. For he begins with Democritus, who receives of him an excellent and worthy reward for his instruction; it being certain that Epicurus for a long time called himself a Democritean, which as well others affirm, as Leonteus, a principal disciple of Epicurus, who in a letter which he writ to Lycophron says, that Epicurus honored Democritus, because he first attained, though a little at a distance, the right and sound understanding of the truth, and that in general all the treatise concerning natural things was called Democritean, because Democritus was the first who happened upon the principles and met with the primitive foundations of Nature. And Metrodorus says openly of philosophy, If Democritus had not gone before and taught the way, Epicurus had never attained to wisdom. Now if it be true, as Colotes holds, that to live according to the opinions of Democritus is not to live, Epicurus was then a fool in following Democritus, who led him to a doctrine which taught him not to live.

Now the first thing he lays to his charge is, that, by supposing everything to be no more individual than another, he wholly confounds human life. But Democritus was so far from having been of this opinion, that he opposed Protagoras the philosopher who asserted it, and writ many excellent arguments concluding against him, which this fine fellow Colotes never saw nor read, nor yet so much as dreamed of; but deceived himself by misunderstanding a passage which is in his works, where he determines that [Greek omitted] is no more than [Greek omitted], naming in that place the body by [Greek omitted], and the void by [Greek omitted], and meaning that the void has its own proper nature and subsistence, as well as the body.

But he who is of opinion that nothing has more of one nature than another makes use of a sentence of Epicurus, in which he says that all the apprehensions and imaginations given us by the senses are true. For if of two saying, the one, that the wine is sour, and the other, that it is sweet, neither of them shall be deceived by his sensation, how shall the wine be more sour than sweet? And we may often see that some men using one and the same bath find it to be hot, and others find it to be cold; because those order cold water to be put into it, as these do hot. It is said that, a certain lady going to visit Berenice, wife to King Deiotarus, as soon as ever they approached each other, they both immediately turned their backs, the one, as it seemed, not being able to bear the smell of perfume, nor the other of butter. If, then, the sense of one is no truer than the sense of another, it is also probable, that water is no more cold than hot, nor sweet ointment or butter better or worse scented one than the other. For if any one shall say that it seems the one to one, and the other to another, he will, before he is aware, affirm that they are both the one and the other.

And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much, and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive them to this, that things are no more of one nature than another? For to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and to solve this objection, they teach,—that when almost everything was confused and mixed up together, since it has been arranged by Nature that one thing shall fit another thing, it was not the contact or the apprehension of the same quality nor were all parts affected in the same way by what was influencing them. But those only coalesced with anything to which they had a characteristic, symmetrical in a corresponding proportion; so that they are in error so obstinately to insist that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas they ought neither to combat the senses,—because they all touch some quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,—nor to pronounce of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by another. Let us investigate who those men are which bring in this opinion that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not those who affirm that every sensible object is a mixture, compounded of all sorts of qualities, like a mixture of new wine fermenting, and who confess that all their rules are lost and their faculty of judging quite gone, if they admit any sensible object that is pure and simple, and do not make each one thing to be many?

See now to this purpose, what discourse and debate Epicurus makes Polyaenus to have with him in his Banquet concerning the heat of wine. For when he asked, "Do you, Epicurus, say, that wine does not heat?" some one answered, "It is not universally to be affirmed that wine heats." And a little after: "For wine seems not to be universally a heater; but such a quantity may be said to heat such a person." And again subjoining the cause, to wit, the compressions and disseminations of the atoms, and having alleged their commixtures and conjunctions with others when the wine comes to be mingled in the body, he adds this conclusion: "It is not universally to be said that wine is endued with a faculty of heating; but that such a quantity may heat such a nature and one so disposed, while such a quantity to such a nature is cooling. For in such a mass there are such natures and complexions of which cold might be composed, and which, united with others in proper measure, would yield a refrigerative virtue. Wherefore some are deceived, who say that wine is universally a heater; and others, who say that it is universally a cooler." He then who says that most men are deceived and err, in holding that which is hot to be heating and that which is cold to be cooling, is himself in an error, unless he should allow that his assertion ends in the doctrine that one thing is not more of one nature than another. He farther adds afterwards that oftentimes wine entering into a body brings with it thither neither a calefying nor refrigerating virtue, but, the mass of the body being agitated and disturbed, and a transposition made of the parts, the heat-effecting atoms being assembled together do by their multitude cause a heat and inflammation in the body, and sometimes on the contrary disassembling themselves cause a refrigeration.

But it is moreover wholly evident, that we may employ this argument to all those things which are called and esteemed bitter, sweet, purging, dormitive, and luminous, not any one of them having an entire and perfect quality to produce such effects, nor to act rather than to be acted on when they are in the bodies, but being there susceptible, of various temperatures and differences. For Epicurus himself, in his Second Book against Theophrastus, affirming that colors are not connatural to bodies, but are engendered there according to certain situations and positions with respect to the sight of man, says: "For this reason a body is no more colored than destitute of color." And a little above he writes thus, word for word: "But apart from this, I know not how a man may say that those bodies which are in the dark have color; although very often, an air equally dark being spread about them, some distinguish diversities of colors, others perceive them not through the weakness of their sight. And moreover, going into a dark house or room, we at our first entrance see no color, but after we have stayed there awhile, we do. Wherefore we are to say that every body is not more colored than not colored. Now, if color is relative and has its being in regard to something else, so also then is white, and so likewise blue; and if colors are so, so also are sweet and bitter. So that it may truly be affirmed of every quality, that it cannot more properly be said to exist than not to exist. For to those who are in a certain manner disposed, they will be; but to those who are not so disposed, they will not be." Colotes therefore has bedashed and bespattered himself and his master with that dirt, in which he says those lie who maintain that things are not more of one quality than another.

But is it in this alone, that this excellent man shows himself—

To others a physician, whilst himself Is full of ulcers? (Euripides, Frag. 1071.)

No indeed; but yet much farther in his second reprehension, without any way minding it, he drives Epicurus and Democritus out of this life. For he affirms that the statement of Democritus—that the atoms are to the senses color by a certain human law or ordinance, that they are by the same law sweetness, and by the same law concretion—is at war with our senses, and that he who uses this reason and persists in this opinion cannot himself imagine whether he is living or dead. I know not how to contradict this discourse; but this I can boldly affirm, that this is as inseparable from the sentences and doctrines of Epicurus as they say figure and weight are from atoms. For what is it that Democritus says? "There are substances, in number infinite, called atoms (because they cannot be divided), without difference, without quality, and passibility, which move, being dispersed here and there, in the infinite voidness; and that when they approach one another, or meet and are conjoined, of such masses thus heaped together, one appears water, another fire, another a plant, another a man; and that all things are thus properly atoms (as he called them), and nothing else; for there is no generation from what does not exist; and of those things which are nothing can be generated, because these atoms are so firm, that they can neither change, alter, nor suffer; wherefore there cannot be made color of those things which are without color, nor nature or soul of those things which are without quality and impassible." Democritus then is to be blamed, not for confessing those things that happen upon his principles, but for supposing principles upon which such things happen. For he should not have supposed immutable principles; or having supposed them, he should have seen that the generation of all quality is taken away; but having seen the absurdity, to deny it is most impudent. But Epicurus says, that he supposes the same principles with Democritus, but that he says not that color, sweet, white, and other qualities, are by law and ordinance. If therefore NOT TO SAY is the same as NOT TO CONFESS, he does merely what he is wont to do. For it is as when, taking away divine Providence, he nevertheless says that he leaves piety and devotion towards the gods; and when, choosing friendship for the sake of pleasure, that he suffers most grievous pains for his friends; and supposing the universe to be infinite, that he nevertheless takes not away high and low.... Indeed having taken the cup, one may drink what he pleases, and return the rest. But in reasoning one ought chiefly to remember this wise apothegm, that where the principles are not necessary, the ends and consequences are necessary. It was not then necessary for him to suppose or (to say better) to steal from Democritus, that atoms are the principles of the universe; but having supposed this doctrine, and having pleased and glorified himself in the first probable and specious appearances of it, he must afterwards also swallow that which is troublesome in it, or must show how bodies which have not any quality can bring all sorts of qualities to others only by their meetings and joining together. As—to take that which comes next neither had heat when they came, nor are become hot after their being joined together? For the one presupposes that they had some quality, and the other that they were fit to receive it. And you affirm, that neither the one nor the other must be said to be congruous to atoms, because they are incorruptible.

How then? Do not Plato, Aristotle, and Xenocrates produce gold from that which is not gold, and stone from that which is not stone, and many other things from the four simple first bodies? Yes indeed; but with those bodies immediately concur also the principles for the generation of everything, bringing with them great contributions, that is, the first qualities which are in them; then, when they come to assemble and join in one the dry with the moist, the cold with the hot, and the solid with the soft,—that is, active bodies with such as are fit to suffer and receive every alteration and change,—then is generation wrought by passing from one temperature to another. Whereas the atom, being alone, is alone, is deprived and destitute of all quality and generative faculty, and when it comes to meet with the others, it can make only a noise and sound because of its hardness and firmness, but nothing more. For they always strike and are stricken, not being able by this means to compose or make an animal, a soul, or a nature, nay, not so much as a mass or heap of themselves; for that as they beat upon one another, so they fly back again asunder.

But Colotes, as if he were speaking to some ignorant and unlettered king, again attacks Empedocles for expressing the same thought:—

I've one thing more to say. 'Mongst mortals there No Nature is; nor that grim thing men fear So much, called death. There only happens first A mixture, and mixt things asunder burst Again, when them disunion does befall. And this is that which men do Nature call.

For my part, I do not see how this is repugnant and contrary to life or living, especially amongst those who hold that there is no generation of that which is not, nor corruption of that which is, but that the assembling and union of the things which are is called generation, and their dissolution and disunion named corruption and death. For that he took Nature for generation, and that this is his meaning, he has himself declared, when he opposed Nature to death. And if they neither live nor can live who place generation in union and death in disunion, what else do these Epicureans? Yet Empedocles, gluing, (as it were) and conjoining the elements together by heats, softnesses, and humidifies, gives them in some sort a mixtion and unitive composition; but these men who hunt and drive together the atoms, which they affirm to be immutable and impassible, compose nothing proceeding from them, but indeed make many and continual percussions of them.

For the interlacement, hindering the dissolution, more and more augments the collision and concussion; so that there is neither mixtion nor adhesion and conglutination, but only a discord and combat, which according to them is called generation. And if the atoms do now recoil for a moment by reason of the shock they have given, and then return again after the blow is past, they are above double the time absent from one another, without either touching or approaching, so as nothing can be made of them, not even so much as a body without a soul. But as for sense, soul, understanding, and prudence, there is not any man who can in the least conceive or imagine how it is possible they should be made in a voidness, and atoms which neither when separate and apart have any quality, nor any passion or alteration when they are assembled and joined together, especially seeing this their meeting together is not an incorporation or congress, making a mixture or coalition, but rather percussions and repercussions. So that, according to the doctrine of these people, life is taken away, and the existence of an animal denied, since they posit principles void, impassible, godless, and soulless, and such as cannot allow or receive any mixture or commingling whatever.

How then is it, that they admit and allow Nature, soul, and living creature? Even in the same manner as they do an oath, prayer, and sacrifice, and the adoration of the gods. Thus they adore by word and mouth, only naming and feigning that which by their principles they totally take away and abolish. If now they call that which is born Nature, and that which is engendered generation,—as those who are accustomed to call wood wood-work and the voices that accord and sound together symphony,—whence came it into his mind to object these words against Empedocles? "Why," says he, "do we tire ourselves in taking such care of ourselves, in desiring and longing after certain things, and shunning and avoiding others? For we neither are ourselves, nor do we live by making use of others." But be of good cheer, my dear little Colotes, may one perhaps say to him: there is none who hinders you from taking care of yourself by teaching that the nature of Colotes is nothing else but Colotes himself, or who forbids you to make use of things (now things with you are pleasures) by showing that there is no nature of tarts and marchpanes, of sweet odors, or of venereal delights, but that there are tarts, marchpanes, perfumes, and women. For neither does the grammarian who says that the "strength of Hercules" is Hercules himself deny the being of Hercules; nor do those who say that symphonies and roofings are but absolute derivations affirm that there are neither sounds nor timbers; since also there are some who, taking away the soul and intelligence, do not yet seem to take away either living or being intelligent.

And when Epicurus says that the nature of things is to be found in bodies and their place, do we so comprehend him as if he meant that Nature were something else than the things which are, or as if he insinuated that it is merely the things which are, and nothing else?—as, to wit, he is wont to call voidness itself the nature of voidness, and the universe, by Jupiter, the nature of the universe. And if any one should thus question him; What sayst thou, Epicurus, that this is voidness, and that the nature of voidness? No, by Jupiter, would he answer; but this transference of names is in use by law and custom. I grant it is. Now what has Empedocles done else, but taught that Nature is nothing else save that which is born, and death no other thing but that which dies? But as the poets very often, forming as it were an image, say thus in figurative language,

Strife, tumult, noise, placed by some angry god, Mischief, and malice there had their abode; ("Iliad," xvii. 525.)

so do some authors attribute generation and corruption to things that are contracted together and dissolved. But so far has he been from stirring and taking away that which is, or contradicting that which evidently appears, that he casts not so much as one single word out of the accustomed use; but taking away all figurative fraud that might hurt or endamage things, he again restored the ordinary and useful signification to words in these verses:—

When from mixed elements we sometimes see A man produced, sometimes a beast, a tree, Or bird, this birth and geniture we name; But death, when this so well compacted frame And juncture is dissolved.

And yet I myself say that Colotes, though he alleged these verses, did not understand that Empedocles took not away men, beasts, trees, or birds, which he affirmed to be composed of the elements mixed together; and that, by teaching how much they are deceived who call this composition Nature and life, and this dissolution unhappy destruction and miserable death, he did not abrogate the using of the customary expressions in this respect.

And it seems to me, indeed, that Empedocles did not aim in this place at the disturbing the common manner of expression, but that he really, as it has been said, had a controversy about generation from things that have no being, which some call Nature. Which he manifestly shows by these verses:—

Fools, and of little thought, we well may deem Those, who so silly are as to esteem That what ne'er was may now engendered be, And that what is may perish utterly.

For these are the words of one who cries loud enough to those which have ears, that he takes not away generation, but procreation from nothing; nor corruption, but total destruction that is, reduction to nothing. For to him who would not so savagely and foolishly but more gently calumniate, the following verses might give a colorable occasion of charging Empedocles with the contrary, when he says:—

No prudent man can e'er into his mind Admit that, whilst men living here on earth (Which only life they call) both fortunes find, They being have, but that before the birth They nothing were, nor shall be when once dead.

For these are not the expressions of a man who denies those that are born to be, but rather of him who holds those to be that are not yet born or that are already dead. And Colotes also does not altogether accuse him of this, but says that according to his opinion we shall never be sick, never wounded. But how is it possible, that he who affirms men to have being both before their life and after their death, and during their life to find both fortunes (or to be accompanied both by good and evil), should not leave them the power to suffer? Who then are they, O Colotes, that are endued with this privilege never to be wounded, never to be sick? Even you yourselves, who are composed of atoms and voidness, neither of which, you say, has any sense. Now there is no great hurt in this; but the worst is, you have nothing left that can cause you pleasure, seeing an atom is not capable to receive those things which are to effect it, and voidness cannot be affected by them.

But because Colotes would, immediately after Democritus, seem to inter and bury Parmenides, and I have passed over and a little postponed his defence, to bring in between them that of Empedocles, as seeming to be more coherent and consequent to the first reprehensions, let us now return to Parmenides. Him, then, does Colotes accuse of having broached and set abroad certain shameful and villanous sophistries; and yet by these his sophisms he has neither rendered friendship less honorable, nor voluptuousness or the desire of pleasures more audacious and unbridled. He has not taken from honesty its attractive property or its being venerable or recommendable of itself, nor has he disturbed the opinions we ought to have of the gods. And I do not see how, by saying that the All (or the universe) is one, he hinders or obstructs our living. For when Epicurus himself says that the All is infinite, that it is neither engendered nor perishable, that it can neither increase nor be diminished, he speaks of the universe as of one only thing. And having in the beginning of his treatise concerning this matter said, that the nature of those things which have being consists of bodies and of vacuum, he makes a division (as it were) of one thing into two parts, one of which has in reality no subsistence, being, as you yourselves term it, impalpable, void, and incorporeal; so that by this means, even with you also, all comes to be one; unless you desire, in speaking of voidness, to use words void of sense, and to combat the ancients, as if you were fighting against a shadow.

But these atomical bodies, you will say, are, according to the opinion of Epicurus, infinite in number, and everything which appears to us is composed of them. See now, therefore, what principles of generation you suppose, infinity and voidness; one of which, to wit, voidness, is inactive, impassible, and incorporeal; the other, to wit, infinity, is disorderly, unreasonable, and unintelligible, dissolving and confounding itself, because it cannot for its multitude be contained, circumscribed, or limited. But Parmenides has neither taken away fire, nor water, nor precipices, nor yet cities (as Colotes says) which are inhabited as well in Europe as in Asia; since he has both constructed an order of the world, and mixing the elements, to wit, light and dark, does of them and by them arrange and finish all things that appear in the world. For he has written very largely of the earth, heaven, sun, moon, and stars, and has spoken of the generation of man; and being, as he was, an ancient author in physiology, and one who in writing sought to save his own and not to destroy another's doctrine, he has overlooked none of the essential things in Nature. Moreover, Plato, and before him Socrates himself, understood that in Nature there is one part subject to opinion, and another subject to intelligence. As for that which is subject to opinion, it is always unconstant, wandering, and carried away with several passions and changes, liable to diminution and increase, and to be variously disposed to various men, and not always appearing after one manner even to the same individual. But as to the intelligible part, it is quite of another kind,