Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/493

 good by nature, are depraved in these inferior thing, and are made causes of evil.

Seeing every power and vertue is from above, from God, from the Intelligences and Stars, who can neither erre nor do evill, it is necessary, that all evill, and whatsoever is found disagreeing and dissonant in these inferiour things, do proceed, not from the malice of the Influence, but from the evill disposition of the receiver; thus Chysippus rightly sang,

They do like fooles accuse the Gods falsly, Make them the cause of all their misery, When as their folly hurts themselves---

Hence Jupiter calling to minde the case of Aegisthus slain by Orestes, by Homer in the counsel of the Gods, saith,

Us Gods do men accuse (what vice is this?) To be the cause, fountain of what's amiss, When they themselves by their own wickedness Run into danger-

When therefore the perversity of the subject receiveth the Influences of the perverse, or its debility cannot endure the efficacy of the superiors, then by the Influence of the heavens thus received into a matter full of discords, doth result something dissonant, deformed and evill; yet the celestiall powers alwaies remain good, which while they exist in themselves, and from the giver of light have their Influence by the holy Intelligences and the heavens, even till they shall come to the Moon, their Influence is good, as it were in the first degree; but then when it is received in a viler subject, it also is vilified; then also in respect of the different nature of the recipient it is received after diverse manners, and by the qualities disagreeing in the same subject amongst themselves,