76 FABLE OF CUP[U. 



were transparent, could beat across the globe of the earth. 

 Heat and cold, in particular (of which we are now treating), 

 are never found to overcome so great a space in the con 

 veyance of their influence, as light and shade. Therefore, 

 if the shade of the earth does not reach the sun, much less 

 is it in accordance with this to suppose that the cold of the 

 earth travels thither. If indeed the sun and heat acted 

 upon certain mediate bodies, whether the influence of a 

 contrary principle could not ascend, or by any means 

 hinder their action, it is requisite that the sun and heat 

 should occupy whatever are the nearest bodies to them, and 

 then should join also the more remote, so that in time the 

 conflagration of Heraclitus should take place by the solar 

 and celestial nature gradually descending, and making a 

 nearer approach to the earth and its confines. Nor does 

 this well harmonize, that that power of imparting and 

 multiplying its own nature and of turning other things 

 into itself, which Telesius attributes to the elements, should 

 not operate on similar equally or more than opposite bodies ; 

 so that the heaven ought already to be lit up and the stars 

 to be engaged in mutual conflict. But, to come nearer the 

 point, those four demonstrations ought to be set forth, 

 which even singly, much more conjointly, can evidently 

 subvert the philosophy of Telesius respecting the elements. 

 Of these, the first is that there are found in things some 

 actions and effects, even of things the most potent and 

 the most widely diffused, which cannot by any means be 

 referred to heat and cold. The second is, that there are 

 found some natures of which heat and cold are the conse 

 quences and effects, and that not through the excitation of 

 preinexistent heat, or through the application of heat ap 

 proximating to them, but through those things by which 

 heat and cold are infused and generated in their first esse. 

 The ground of an element, therefore, fails in either side in 

 them, both because there is a something not from them, and 

 because themselves are from something. The third is, that 

 even those which derive their origin from heat and cold 

 (which certainly are very many), yet proceed from them as 

 from an efficient and organs, not as from their proper and 

 nearest source. Fourthly, that that conjugation of the four 

 connaturals is altogether blended and confused. There 

 fore I will speak of these singly. But some may think the 

 time misspent in so minute an examination of the philosophy 

 of Telesius, a philosopher of no great popularity or celebrity. 

 But the fastidiousness of such objectors I dismiss. I have 



