Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/569

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