6G FABLE OF CUPID. 



he ought to have assigned generation and corruption (which 

 is never entirely privative, but is productive of a second 

 generation) to the inequality of the sun s heat, according 

 to the whole that is of the approaching and receding of 

 the sun jointly, not the generation to the approaching-, 

 the corruption to the receding separately, which he did, 

 blunderingly and following the vulgar error. But if any 

 should think it strange that the generation of things is 

 attributed to the sun, when it is asserted that the sun is 

 fire, but fire generates nothing, this, saith he, is a ground 

 less objection: for that which is asserted respecting a 

 heterogeneous nature of the heats of the sun and of fire, is 

 a mere phantasy. For that the operations are infinite in 

 which the action of the sun and the action of fire come 

 together, as in the ripening of fruits, the conservation of 

 tender plants, and of those which are used to a clement 

 temperature ; in cold regions, in the hatching of eggs, the 

 restoration of waters to their clearness (for we join the 

 solar and animal heat), in the resuscitation of frozen ani- 

 malculffi, in the calling of them up, and of vapours and the 

 like. But nevertheless that our fire is a bad imitator, and 

 does not well imitate the actions of the sun or come near 

 them, since the sun s heat hath three properties, which 

 common fire can but poorly imitate under any circum 

 stances. First, that from its distance it is less and more 

 bland in its very degree ; but that this of a kind imitable 

 in some way; for such a measure of heat is rather un 

 known than unattainable. Secondly, that in flowing and 

 increasing through so many and such media it borrows and 

 obtains a considerable degree of generative influence ; but 

 chiefly because it is increased, lessened, advances or re 

 tires with so regular an inequality, but never succeeds to 

 itself capriciously or with haste* Which two last proper 

 ties are almost inimitable by fire, though the thing may be 

 accomplished by very considerate and laborious measures. 

 Such are the assertions of Telesius on the diversity of 

 heats. 



But he scarcely takes any notice of the contrary principle 

 of cold and of its distribution ; except perhaps what will 

 be now said in the second place on the disposition of matter, 

 might seem to him to suffice upon this head, which, never 

 theless, he ought not to have supposed, since it was not 

 his mind to make cold by any means the privation of heat, 

 but as an active principle its rival and competitor. But 

 his dissertations on the arrangement of matter go to show 



