162 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XIV.9. 
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 fantasies the similitude of human actions and 
arts, together with the making of man communis mensura, 
have brought into natural philosophy; not much better 
than the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, bred in the 
cells of gross and solitary monks, and the opinion of Epi- 
curus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who sup- 
posed the gods to be of human shape. And therefore 
Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked, why 
God should have adorned the heavens with stars, as if he 
had been an edits, one that should have set forth some 
magnificent shows or plays. For if that great work- 
master had been of an 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 an 
harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit 
of nature. 
10. Let us consider again the false appearances im- 
posed upon us by every man’s own individual nature 
and custom, in that feigned supposition that Plato maketh 
of the cave: for certainly if a child were continued in a 
grot or cave under the earth until maturity of age, and 
came suddenly abroad, he would have strange and absurd 
imaginations. So in like manner, although our persons 
live in the view of heaven, yet our spirits are included in 
the caves of our own complexions and customs, which 
minister unto us infinite errors and vain opinions, if 
they be not recalled to examination. But hereof we 
have given many examples in one of the errors, or 
