Advancement of Learning 133 



it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest : Yea, but, saith 

 Diagoras, where are they painted that are drowned, ? 1 Let us 

 behold it in another instance, namely, That the spirit of man, 

 being of an equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose 

 and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is 

 in truth. Hence it cometh, that the mathematicians 

 cannot satisfy themselves except they reduce the motions 

 of the celestial bodies to perfect circles, rejecting spiral 

 lines, and labouring to be discharged of eccentrics. 2 Hence 

 it cometh, that whereas there are many things in nature as 

 it were monodica, sui juris ; 3 yet the cogitations of man 

 do feign unto them relatives, parallels, and conjugates, 

 whereas no such thing is; as they have feigned an element 

 of fire, to keep square with earth, water, and air, and the 

 like: nay, it is not credible, till it be opened, what a 

 number of fictions and fancies the similitude of human 

 actions and arts, together with the making of man com- 

 munis mensura, have brought into natural philosophy ; not 

 much better than the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, 4 

 bred in the cells of gross and solitary monks, and the 

 opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, 

 who supposed the Gods to be of human shape. And there 

 fore Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked why 

 God should have adorned the heavens with stars, as if he 

 had been an cedilis, one that should have set forth some 

 magnificent shows or plays. 5 For if that great Work- 

 master had been of a human disposition, he would have 

 cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and 

 orders, like the frets in the roofs of houses; whereas one 

 can scarce find a posture in square, or triangle, or straight 

 line, amongst such an infinite number; so differing a 

 harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit 

 of nature. 



1 Cic. De Nat. Deor. iii. 37. 



8 Bacon s warning here is good, though his illustration was soon 

 signally confuted by the promulgation of Kepler s laws. See Nov. 

 Org. i. 45. 



3 He seems to think the derivation of this term is p6vo$ and Siici). 



* Anthropomorphites, a sect which flourished in the fourth and 

 tenth centuries; their distinctive doctrine was that as God is said 

 to have made man in his own Image, therefore the Deity is clothed 

 in human shape. See Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Cent. x. pt. ii. ch. 5. 



Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 9. 



