what avail is it to note defects in matters of this kind? For the Olympic Games are over long since; and besides in such things mediocrity is enough for use, excellency in them serving for the most part only for mercenary ostentation.

Lastly I come to Arts of Pleasure Sensual, which are divided according to the senses themselves. The pleasure of the eyes is chiefly Painting, with a number of other arts (pertaining to magnificence) which respect houses, gardens, vestments, vases, cups, gems, and the like. The pleasure of the ears is Music, with its various apparatus of voices, wind, and strings: water instruments, once regarded as the leaders of this art, are now almost out of use. Of all these arts those which belong to the eye and ear are esteemed the most liberal; for these two senses are the purest; and the sciences thereof are the most learned, as having mathematics like a handmaid in their train. The one also has some reference to memory and demonstrations, the other to morality and the passions of the mind. The pleasures of the other senses, and the arts relating to them, are less esteemed; as being more allied to luxury than magnificence. For unguents, odours, the dainties and pleasures of the table, and most of all the stimulants of lust, need rather laws to repress than arts to teach them. It has been well observed by some that military arts flourish at the birth and rise of states; liberal arts when states are settled and at their height; and voluptuary arts when they are turning to decline and ruin. And I fear that this our age of the world, as being somewhat upon the descent of the wheel, inclines to arts voluptuary. Wherefore let these things pass. With arts volup

tuary I couple arts jocular; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of the senses.

And now having run over the doctrines concerning the body of man (Medicine, Cosmetic, Athletic, and the Art Voluptuary), I give this notice in passing; that whereas so many things come into consideration in the human body, parts, humours, functions, faculties, and accidents; and that (if it were a new matter) it would be fit that there should be a single body of learning touching the human body containing them all (like that doctrine concerning the soul, of which I shall soon come to speak); yet to avoid the too great multiplication of arts, or the transposition (more than need be) of their ancient limits, I receive the doctrine concerning the parts of the human body, - the functions, humours, respiration, sleep, generation, the fœtus and gestation in the womb, growth, puberty, old age, fatness, and the like,- into the body of medicine; not that they properly belong to those three offices, but because the human body is in everything the subject of medicine. But voluntary motion and sense I refer to the doctrine concerning the soul, because in these two the soul plays the principal part. And so much for the philosophy concerning the body of man; which is but the tabernacle of the mind.

CHAP. III.

Division of Human Philosophy relating to the Soul into Doctrine concerning the Breath of Life and Doctrine concerning the Sensible or Produced Soul. Second Division of the same Philosophy into Doctrine concerning the Substance and Faculties of the Soul, and Doctrine concerning the Use and Objects of the Faculties. Two Appendices of the Doctrine concerning the Faculties of the Soul; Doctrine concerning Natural Divination and Doctrine concerning Fascination. Distribution of the Faculties of the Sensible Soul into Motion and Sense.

LET us now proceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from the treasures whereof all other doctrines are derived. The parts thereof are two; the one treats of the rational soul, which is divine; the other of the irrational, which is common with brutes. I mentioned a little before (in speaking of Forms) the two different emanations of souls, which appear in the first creation thereof; the one springing from the breath of God, the other from the wombs of the elements. For touching the first generation of the rational soul, the Scripture says, "He hath made man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;" whereas the generation of the irrational soul, or that of the brutes, was effected by the words, "Let the water bring forth; let the earth bring forth." Now this soul (as it exists in man) is only the instrument of the rational soul, and has its origin like that of the brutes in the dust of the earth. For it is not said that" He made the body of man of the dust of the earth," but that "He made man;" that is the

entire man, excepting only the breath of life. Wherefore the first part of the general doctrine concerning the human soul I will term the doctrine concerning the Breath of Life; the other the doctrine concerning the Sensible or Produced Soul. But yet, as hitherto I handle philosophy only (for I have placed sacred divinity at the end of the work), I would not borrow this division from theology, if it were not consonant with the principles of philosophy also. For there are many and great excellencies of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to those who philosophise according to the sense. Now wherever the mark of so many and great excellencies is found, there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; and therefore I do not much like the confused and promiscuous manner in which philosophers have handled the functions of the soul; as if the human soul differed from the spirit of brutes in degree rather than in kind; as the sun differs from the stars, or gold from metals.

I must subjoin likewise another division of the general doctrine concerning the human soul before I speak more fully of the species. For that which I shall hereafter say of the species will concern both divisions alike; as well that which I have just set down, as that which I am now about to propose. Let this second division therefore be into the doctrine concerning the Substance and Faculties of the soul, and the doctrine concerning the Use and Objects of the Faculties.

Having therefore laid down these two divisions, let us now proceed to the species. The doctrine concerning the breath of life, as well as the doctrine concerning the substance of the rational soul, includes those inquiries touching its nature, whether it be native or

adventive, separable or inseparable, mortal or immortal, how far it is tied to the laws of matter, how far exempted from them; and the like. Which questions though even in philosophy they admit of an inquiry both more diligent and more profound than they have hitherto received, yet I hold that in the end all such must be handed over to religion to be determined and defined. Otherwise they will be subject to many errors and illusions of the sense. For since the substance of the soul in its creation was not extracted or produced out of the mass of heaven and earth, but was immediately inspired from God; and since the laws of heaven and earth are the proper subjects of philosophy; how can we expect to obtain from philosophy the knowledge of the substance of the rational soul? It must be drawn from the same divine inspiration, from which that substance first proceeded.

The doctrine concerning the sensible or produced soul, however, is a fit subject of inquiry even as regards its substance; but such inquiry appears to me to be deficient. For of what service are such terms as ultimate act, form of the body, and such toys of logic, to the doctrine concerning the substance of the soul? For the sensible soul- the soul of brutes—must clearly be regarded as a corporeal substance, attenuated and made invisible by heat; a breath (I say) compounded of the natures of flame and air, having the softness of air to receive impressions, and the vigour of fire to propagate its action; nourished partly by oily and partly by watery substances; clothed with the body, and in perfect animals residing chiefly in the head, running along the nerves, and refreshed and repaired by the spirituous blood of the arteries; as Ber