50 Transactions of the 



may be sure a chapter on the music of the sj)heres is 

 introduced. 



Book IV. treats ' of the Creatures of the Empyrean,' and 

 in this the nature of demons is fully discussed. In the para- 

 graph relating to bad demons, we find such sentences as the 

 following: — 'Accusing and culminating demons occupy the 

 eighth mansion, whose prince is called Ashtaroth, who, active 

 and filled with joy, exaggerates our sins before God.' It will 

 give us some idea of the extent of reading and information 

 possessed by Fludd if I mention the various authors quoted 

 by him in the sixteen pages of this fourth book : — They are 

 Plato, Proclus, Dionysius, Possidonius, Heraclitus, Hippo- 

 crates, Hipparchus, Zeno, Jamblichus, SS. Augustine and 

 Basil, Hermes Trismegistus, S. John, Trithemus, Aristotle, 

 Xenocrates, Asclepiades, Democrates, Parmenides, Epicurus, 

 Empedocles, Ericrates, Theophrastus, Marcus Manillas, Boe- 

 thius, Yirgil, SS. Athanasius and Bernard, Psellus, Agricola, 

 Isidorus, Freigius, S. Gregory, Olaus Magnus, Aj)uleius, S. 

 Paul, Critias, Dinarchus, Tertullian, S. Peter, Porphyry, 

 Seneca, Aristoxenus, Remigius, and Avicenna Surely this 

 indicates an extent of reading which but few men of the day 

 could have possessed. 



Book V. treats ' of the Creatures of the Ethereal Heaven,' 

 and we find herein Fludd's ideas regarding the origin of the 

 sun, and the cause of the ' circular movement of the heavens,' 

 as the apparent motion of the sun was then called. He also 

 devotes some space to the refutation of the Copernican theory, 

 which had a few years before been adopted by Gilbert of Col- 

 chester (of ' De Magneto ' fame), to his honour. The remarks 

 which follow in the next chapters about thunder and light- 

 ning, and meteors, appear to be taken from Lucretius and 

 Plmy, and certainly lack any originality. The second part 

 of the ' Historia ' is devoted to a technical history of the • 

 Macrocosm, which is considered in the following order: 'of 

 Universal Arithmetic,' 153 pages ; ' of Music,' 100 pp. ; ' of 

 Geometry,' 31 pp. ; ' of Optics,' 23 pp. ; ' of the Art of Draw- 

 ing,' 24 pp. ; ' of the Military Art,' 89 pp. ; ' of Motion,' 68 

 pp. (containing an account of various machines and pieces of 

 mechanism, in the designing of which Pludd was said to be 

 proficient) ; ' of Time,' 25 pp. ; ' of Cosmography,' 28 pp. ; 

 ' of Astrology,' 156 pp. ; and ' of Geomancy,' 73 pp. Note 

 the significancy of the extent of the two last-named subjects. 

 Taking the whole work of more than 900 folio pages, we find 

 nearly one-sixth of the space given to astrology, or, taking- 

 together the astrology and geomancy (divination by figures 



