differing from the philosophy afterwards embraced by Democritus: who more openly than any one else asserted the eternity of matter, while he denied the eternity of the world; a point in which he came somewhat nearer to the truth as declared in the divine narrative; for that represents matter without form as existing before the six days' works.

The fable may be explained in this manner. By Coelum is meant the concave or circumference which encloses all matter. By Saturn is meant matter itself; which, inasmuch as the sum total of matter remains always the same and the absolute quantum of nature suffers neither increase nor diminution, is said to have deprived its parent of all power of generation. Now the agitation and motions of matter produced at first imperfect and ill-compacted structures of things, that would not hold together,-mere attempts at worlds. Afterwards in process of time a fabric was turned out which could keep its form. Of these two divisions of time, the first is meant by the reign of Saturn; who by reason of the frequent dissolutions and short durations of things in his time, was called the devourer of his children: the second by the reign of Jupiter, who put an end to those continual and transitory changes, and thrust them into Tartarus-that is to say the place of perturbation: which place seems to be midway between the lowest parts of heaven and the innermost parts of the earth: in which middle region perturbation and fragility and mortality or corruption have their chief operation. And while that former system of generation lasted which had place under the reign of Saturn, Venus, according to the story, was not yet born. For so long as in the universal frame of matter discord was stronger than concord and prevailed over it, there could be no change except of the whole together; and in this manner did the generation of things proceed before Saturn was castrated. But as soon as this mode of generation ceased, it was immediately succeeded by that other which proceeds by Venus, and belongs to a state in which concord being powerful and predominant, change proceeds part by part only, the total fabric remaining entire and undisturbed. Nevertheless Saturn is represented as thrust out and overthrown only, not as cut off and extinguished; because it was the opinion of Democritus that the world might yet relapse into its ancient confusion and intervals of no government: an event which Lucretius prayed might not happen in his own times.

Which may all-ruling Fortune keep far hence,
And reason teach it, not experience.

Again, after the world was established and settled in respect of its mass and moving force, yet it did not from the first remain in quiet. For first there followed notable commotions in the heavenly regions; which however, by the power of the Sun predominating in those regions, were so composed that the world survived and kept its state; afterwards in like manner followed convulsions in the lower regions, by inundations, tempests, winds, earthquakes of more universal character than any we now have; and when these likewise were subdued and dispersed, things settled at last into a more durable state of consent and harmonious operation.

It must be said however of all this, that as there is philosophy in the fable so there is fable in the philosophy. For we know (through faith) that all such speculations are but the oracles of sense which have long since ceased and failed; the world, both matter and fabric, being in truth the work of the Creator.

XIII.
PROTEUS;

OR MATTER.

PROTEUS, the poets tell us, was herdsman to Neptune. He was an old man and a prophet; a prophet moreover of the very first order, and indeed thrice excellent ; for he knew all three,-not the future only, but likewise the past and the present; insomuch that besides his power of divination, he was the messenger and interpreter of all antiquity and all secrets. His dwelling was under an immense

cave. There it was his custom every day at noon to count his flock of seals and then go to sleep. And if any one wanted his help in any matter, the only way was first to secure his hands with handcuffs, and then to bind him with chains. Whereupon he on his part, in order to get free, would turn himself into all manner of strange shapes—fire, water, wild beasts, etc., till at last he returned again to his original shape.

The sense of this fable relates, it would seem, to the secrets of nature and the conditions of matter. For under the person of Proteus, Matter-the most ancient of all things, next to God-is meant to be represented. Now matter has its habitation under the vault of heaven, as under a cave. And it may be called the servant of Neptune, inasmuch as all the operation and dispensation of matter is effected principally in liquids. The herd or flock of Proteus seems to be nothing else than the ordinary species of animals, plants, minerals, etc., in which matter may be said to diffuse and use itself up; insomuch that having once made up and finished those species it seems to sleep and rest, as if its task were done; without applying itself or attempting or preparing to make any more. And this is what is meant by Proteus counting his herd and then going to sleep. Now this is said to take place not in the morning or in the evening, but at noon: that is to say, when the full and legitimate time has come for completing and bringing forth the species out of matter already duly prepared and predisposed: which is the middle point between the first rudiments of them and their declination. And this we know from the sacred history to have been in fact at the very time of the creation. For then it was that by virtue of the divine word producat matter came together at the command of the Creator, not by its own circuitous processes, but all at once; and brought its work to perfection on the instant, and constituted the species. And here the story is complete, as regards Proteus free and at large with his herd. For the universe with its several species according to their ordinary frame and structure, is merely the face of matter unconstrained and at liberty, with its flock of materiate creatures. Nevertheless if any skilful Servant of Nature shall bring force to bear on matter, and shall vex it and drive it to extremities as if with the purpose of reducing it to nothing, then will matter (since annihilation or true destruction is not possible except by the omnipotence of God) finding itself in these straits, turn and transform itself into strange shapes, passing from one change to another till it has gone through the whole circle and finished the period; when, if the force be continued, it returns at last to itself. And this constraint and binding will be more easily and expeditiously effected, if matter be laid hold on and secured by the hands; that is, by its extremities. And whereas it is added in the fable that Proteus was a prophet and knew the three times; this agrees well with the nature of matter: for if a man knew the conditions, affections, and processes of matter, he would certainly comprehend the sum and general issue (for I do not say that his knowledge would extend to the parts and singularities) of all things past, present, and to come.

XIV.
MEMNON;

OR THE EARLY-RIPE.

MEMNON, according to the poets, was the son of Aurora. Conspicuous for the beauty of his arms, and great in popular reputation, he came to the Trojan war; where rushing with breathless haste and headlong courage at the highest mark, he engaged Achilles, the bravest of all the Greeks, in single fight; and fell by his hand. In pity of his fate Jupiter sent birds to grace his funeral, that kept up a continual cry of grief and lamentation. His statue also, as often as the rays of the rising sun touched it, is said to have uttered a mournful sound.

The fable seems meant to apply to the unfortunate deaths of young men of high promise. For such are as it were the sons of the morning, and it commonly happens that, being puffed up with empty and outward advantages, they venture upon enterprises that are beyond their strength, provoke and challenge to combat the bravest heroes, and falling in the unequal conflict are extinguished. But the death of such persons is wont to be followed by infinite commiseration;

for of all mortal accidents there is none so lamentable, none so powerful to move pity, as this cropping of the flower of virtue before its time: the rather because their life has been too short to give occasion of satiety or of envy, which might otherwise mitigate sorrow at their death and temper compassion. And not only do lamentations and wailings hover like those mourner birds about the funeral pile; but the same feeling of pity lasts long after and more especially upon all fresh accidents and new movements and beginnings of great events, as by the touch of sunrise, the regret for them is stirred up again and renewed.

XV.
TITHONUS ;

OR SATIETY.

It is an elegant fable they relate of Tithonus; that Aurora was in love with him, and, desiring to enjoy his company for ever, begged of Jupiter that he might never die; but forgot, with a woman's thoughtlessness, to add to her petition that neither might he suffer the infirmities of age. So he was exempted from the condition of dying; but there came upon him a strange and miserable old age, such as he must needs undergo to whom death is denied, while the burden of years continues to grow heavier and heavier; so that Jupiter, pitying such a condition, changed him at last into a grasshopper.

The fable seems to be an ingenious picture and description of Pleasure; which in its beginning, or morning-time, is so agreeable that men are fain to pray that such delights may last and be their own for ever; forgetting that satiety and loathing of the same will come upon them, like old age, before they are aware. So that at last when men have become incapable of the acts of pleasure and yet retain the desire and appetite, they fall to talking and telling stories about the pleasures of their youth, and find their delight in that: as we see in lewd persons, who are always harping upon indecent stories, and in soldiers that are for ever recounting their deeds, like grasshoppers, whose vigour is only in their voice.

XVI.

JUNO'S SUITOR;

OR DISHONOUR.

THE poets tell us that Jupiter in pursuit of his loves assumed many different shapes, a bull, an eagle, a swan, a shower of gold; but that when he courted Juno, he turned himself into the ignoblest shape that could be, a very object of contempt and ridicule; that of a wretched cuckoo, drenched with rain and tempest, amazed, trembling, and half dead.

It is a wise fable, derived from the depths of moral science. The meaning is that men are not to flatter themselves that an exhibition of their virtue and worth will win them estimation and favour with everybody. For that depends upon the nature and character of those to whom they apply themselves. If these be persons of no gifts or ornaments of their own, but only a proud and malignant disposition (the character represented by Juno), then they should know that they must put off everything about them that has the least show of honour or dignity, and that it is mere folly in them to proceed any other way; nay that it is not enough to descend to the baseness of flattery, unless they put on the outward show and character of abjectness and degeneracy.

XVII.
CUPID ;

OR THE ATOM.

THE accounts given by the poets of Cupid, or Love, are not properly applicable to the same person; yet the discrepancy is such that one may see where the confusion is and where the similitude, and reject the one and receive the other.

They say then that Love was the most ancient of all the gods; the most ancient therefore of all things whatever, except Chaos, which is said to have been coeval

with him; and Chaos is never distinguished by the ancients with divine honour or the name of a god. This Love is introduced without any parent at all; only that some say he was an egg of Night. And himself out of Chaos begot all things, the gods included. The attributes which are assigned to him are in number four; he is always an infant; he is blind; he is naked; he is an archer. There was also another Love, the youngest of all the gods, son of Venus, to whom the attributes of the elder are transferred, and whom in a way they suit.

The fable relates to the cradle and infancy of nature, and pierces deep. This Love I understand to be the appetite or instinct of primal matter; or to speak more plainly, the natural motion of the atom; which is indeed the original and unique force that constitutes and fashions all things out of matter. Now this is entirely without parent; that is, without cause. For the cause is as it were parent of the effect; and of this virtue there can be no cause in nature (God always excepted): there being nothing before it, therefore no efficient ; nor anything more original in nature; therefore neither kind nor form. Whatever it be therefore, it is a thing positive and inexplicable. And even if it were possible to know the method and process of it, yet to know it by way of cause is not possible; it being, next to God, the cause of causes-itself without cause. That the method even of its operation should ever be brought within the range and comprehension of human inquiry, is hardly perhaps to be hoped; with good reason therefore it is represented as an egg hatched by night. Such certainly is the judgment of the sacred philosopher, when he says, He hath made all things beautiful according to their seasons; also he hath submitted the world to man's inquiry, yet so that man connot find out the work which God worketh from the beginning to the end. For the summary law of nature, that impulse of desire impressed by God upon the primary particles of matter which makes them come together, and which by repetition and multiplication produces all the variety of nature, is a thing which mortal thought may glance at, but can hardly take in.

Now the philosophy of the Greeks, which in investigating the material principles of things is careful and acute, in inquiring the principles of motion, wherein lies all vigour of operation, is negligent and languid; and on the point now in question seems to be altogether blind and babbling; for that opinion of the Peripatetics which refers the original impulse of matter to privation, is little more than words -a name for the thing rather than a description of it. And those who refer it to God, though they are quite right in that, yet they ascend by a leap and not by steps. For beyond all doubt there is a single and summary law in which nature centres and which is subject and subordinate to God; the same in fact which in the text just quoted is meant by the words, The work which God worketh from the beginning to the end. Democritus considered the matter more deeply; and having first given the atom some dimension and shape, attributed to it a single desire or primary motion simply and absolutely, and a second by comparison. For he thought that all things move by their proper nature towards the centre of the world; but that that which has more matter, moving thither faster, strikes aside that which has less, and forces it to go the other way. This however was but a narrow theory, and framed with reference to too few particulars: for it does not appear that either the motion of the heavenly bodies in circle, or the phenomena of contraction and expansion, can be reduced to this principle, or reconciled with it. As for Epicurus's opinion of the declination and fortuitous agitation of the atom, it is a relapse to trifling and ignorance. So it is but too plain that the parentage of this Cupid is wrapped in night.

Let us now consider his attributes. He is described with great elegance as a little child, and a child for ever; for things compounded are larger and are affected by age; whereas the primary seeds of things, or atoms, are minute and remain in perpetual infancy.

Most truly also is he represented as naked: for all compounds (to one that considers them rightly) are masked and clothed; and there is nothing properly naked, except the primary particles of things.

The blindness likewise of Cupid has an allegorical meaning full of wisdom. For it seems that this Cupid, whatever he be, has very little providence; but directs his course, like a blind man groping, by whatever he finds nearest; which makes

the supreme divine Providence all the more to be admired, as that which contrives out of subjects peculiarly empty and destitute of providence, and as it were blind, to educe by a fatal and necessary law all the order and beauty of the universe.

His last attribute is archery: meaning that this virtue is such as acts at a distance for all operation at a distance is like shooting an arrow. Now whoever maintains the theory of the atom and the vacuum (even though he suppose the vacuum not to be collected by itself but intermingled through space), necessarily implies the action of the virtue of the atom at a distance; for without this no motion could be originated, by reason of the vacuum interposed; but all things would remain fixed and immovable.

As for that younger Cupid, it is with reason that he is reported to be the youngest of the gods; since until the species were constituted he could have no operation. In the description of him the allegory changes its aim and passes to morals. And yet there remains a certain conformity between him and the elder Cupid. For Venus excites the general appetite of conjunction and procreation; Cupid, her son, applies the appetite to an individual object. From Venus therefore comes the general disposition, from Cupid the more exact sympathy. Now the general disposition depends upon causes near at hand, the particular sympathy upon principles more deep and fatal, and as if derived from that ancient Cupid, who is the source of all exquisite sympathy.

XVIII.
DIOMEDES;

OR RELIGIOUS ZEAL.

DIOMEDES, a hero of high renown and a special favourite of Pallas, was incited by her (being of himself apt enough) if he chanced to encounter Venus in the battle, not to spare her. He boldly did as he was bid, and wounded Venus in the hand. This for the time he carried with impunity, and returned to his own country in great fame and reputation: but meeting there with domestic troubles he took refuge abroad in Italy. Here also he had a good enough fortune at first. King Daunus entertained him with hospitality and enriched him with honours and presents, and many statues were raised to him throughout the country. But no sooner did a calamity befall the people among whom he had taken up his abode, than Daunus bethought him that he was entertaining under his roof a man impious and hated by the gods, a fighter against heaven, who had violently assaulted and wounded with the sword a goddess whom it was forbidden even to touch. Whereupon, to free his country from the curse under which it lay, he suddenly (setting aside the bond of hospitality, in respect of the more ancient bond of religion) puts Diomedes to death, and orders his statues to be thrown down and his honours cancelled. Nor was it safe in such a case even to pity so grievous an accident; but his comrades likewise, when they bewailed the death of their chief and filled the land with lamentations, were changed into a kind of swans,—a bird which at the approach of its own death also utters a sweet and plaintive sound.

The subject of this fable is rare and almost singular; for there is no other story in which any hero is represented as having wounded a god. This is told of Diomedes only and in him certainly seems meant to be portrayed the character and fortunes of a man who makes it his declared object to persecute and overthrew by violence and the sword some religious worship or sect, though a vain and light one. For though religious wars were unknown to the ancients (the heathen gods having no touch of jealousy, which is the attribute of the true God), yet so great appears to have been the wisdom of the primitive ages and so wide the range of it, that what they did not know by experience they nevertheless attained in idea by reflexion and imagination.

Now those who make war against any religious sect, though a vain, corrupt, and infamous one (and this is signified in the person of Venus), proceeding not by force of reason and doctrine and by sanctity of life and by weight of examples and authorities to correct and confute, but by fire and sword and sharpness of