Advancement of Learning 1 19 



venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit ! l which 

 stayed not long to be performed, in Sylla first, and after in 

 Caesar. So as these predictions are now impertinent, and 

 to be referred over. But the divination which springeth 

 from the internal nature of the soul, is that which we now 

 speak of; which hath been made to be of two sorts, primi 

 tive and by influxion. Primitive is grounded upon the 

 supposition, that the mind, when it is withdrawn and 

 collected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of the 

 body, hath some extent and latitude of prenotion; which 

 therefore appeareth most in sleep, in ecstasies, and near 

 death, and more rarely in waking apprehensions; and is 

 induced and furthered by those abstinences and observ 

 ances which make the mind most to consist in itself. By 

 influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as 

 a mirror or glass, should take illumination from the fore 

 knowledge of God and spirits : 2 unto which the same regi 

 ment doth likewise conduce. For the retiring of the mind 

 within itself, is the state which is most susceptible of divine 

 influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a 

 fervency and elevation, which the ancients noted by fury, 

 and not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other. 



Fascination is the power and act of imagination intentive 

 upon other bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of 

 that we spake in the proper place: wherein the school of 

 Paracelsus, and the disciples of pretended Natural Magic 

 have been so intemperate, as they have exalted the power of 

 the imagination to be much one with the power of miracle- 

 working faith; others, that draw nearer to probability, 

 calling to their view the secret passages of things, and 

 specially of the contagion that passeth from body to body, 

 do conceive it should likewise be agreeable to nature, that 

 there should be some transmissions and operations from 

 spirit to spirit without the mediation of the senses ; whence 

 the conceits have grown, now almost made civil, of the 

 mastering spirit, and the force of confidence, and the like. 

 Incident unto this is the inquiry how to raise and fortify 

 the imagination: for if the imagination fortified have 

 power, then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt 



1 Sail. Jug. c. xxxv. 



2 Plat. Tim. 71 (Steph.), olov tv KaTdirrpy S(KO^V^ rtiirovs, and note 

 the observation on fj-avriKT), at the same place. 



