FABLE OF CUPID. 71 



minate powers and copiousness of heat, or, on the contrary, 

 to assign a fixed and certain copiousness of heat to a certain 

 quantity and certain actions of matter : Oh, that this might 

 be obtained by those who have both time and intellect at 

 command adequate to this investigation, and who could, 

 in the possession of the most perfect tranquillity search 

 into nature; that mankind might not only become then 

 masters of every kind of knowledge, but almost of every 

 kind of power. This, indeed, is said with more honesty 

 than is found in his opponents, who, if they cannot attain 

 their objects, affirm that their attainment is impossible from 

 the nature of the art or object itself, so that no art can be 

 condemned, since itself is both pleader and judge. There 

 remains that which was the third, namely, the method of 

 reduction. This Telesius dispatches by a threefold sen 

 tence. The first is that which we noticed by the way 

 before, that no symbolization is understood (as in the doc 

 trine of the Peripatetics) through which substances, by an 

 agreement, as it were, are nourished, and act in unison : 

 for that all generation, and every effect in a natural body 

 is the result of victory and predominance, not of agreement 

 or treaty. This, indeed, is no new dogma, since Aristotle 

 remarked it in the doctrine of Empedocles ; for that Empe- 

 docles, indeed, though he maintains contention and amity 

 to be the efficient principles of things, yet in his explica 

 tions of causes generally makes use of their contention, and 

 seems to forget their amity. The second is that heat by its 

 own proper action constantly changes a substance into 

 moisture, and that dryness by no means coalesces with 

 heat, nor moisture with cold ; for that to attenuate and to 

 moisten is the same, and that what is extremely thin is also 

 extremely moist ; if through humid be understood that 

 which very easily yields, is divided into parts, again reco 

 vers itself and is with difficulty limited or made to settle. 

 All which are more the properties of fire than of air, which 

 is for the most part moist, according to the Peripatetics; 

 and that so heat continually draws, feeds upon, extends, 

 inserts, and generates humidity ; that cold, on the contrary, 

 acts altogether on dryness, concretion, and hardness ; where 

 Aristotle deems him deficient in acuteness, and inconsistent, 

 and impatient of the decisions of experience, in joining heat 

 with dryness. For that the drying of substances by heat 

 is accidental merely ; namely, in a dissimilar body, and 

 that is composed of some parts more thick, of others more 

 thin, by drawing out, and (by means of attenuation) giving 



