FABLE OF CUPID. 77 



a favourable opinion of Telesius, and recognize in him a 

 lover of truth, a profitable servant of science, a reformer of 

 some tenets, and the first indeed of the moderns. Nor have 

 I to do with him so much as Telesius as in his character 

 of restorer of the philosophy of Parmenides, and as such 

 he is entitled to great regard. But my chief reason for so 

 largely discussing this part of our subject is, that in Tele 

 sius, who is the first who meets our view, we find occasion 

 to consider very many subjects which can be transferred, 

 as replies to following sects (of whom we shall hereafter 

 speak) to avoid repetition. For there are fibres of errors 

 (though of different kinds) wonderfully complicated, which 

 can yet in many instances be cut away by one answer. 

 But as we began to say, we must see what kind of influ 

 ences and actions are found in things which cannot by 

 any concord of things or violence of ingenuity be referred 

 to heat and cold. We must assume then, in the first 

 place, what is granted by Telesius, that the sum of matter 

 remains eternally the same without increase or diminution. 

 This property, by which matter preserves and sustains 

 itself, he transmits as passive, and as it were pertaining 

 more to the measure of quantity than to form and action, 

 as if there were no need of reckoning it to heat or cold, 

 which are considered the sources of acting forms only and 

 influences, for that matter is not simply but altogether des 

 titute of active influence. And these assertions flow from 

 an incredible error, unless the miracle be removed by its 

 having been an inveterate and general opinion. For there 

 is scarcely any error similar than that a person should not 

 deem the active influence that virtue infused into matter, 

 (through which it is kept from decay, so that the very 

 least portion of matter is not buried in the whole bulk of 

 the world, nor destroyed by the power of all the active 

 influences, or in any way annihilated, and can be reduced 

 to order ; nay, can occupy a portion of space and preserve 

 resistance with impenetrable dimension, and itself by turns 

 be capable of some action, and not forsake itself). When, 

 on the contrary, it is by far the most potent of all in 

 fluences, and evidently insuperable and as it were a mere 

 fate and necessity. Yet this virtue Telesius does not 

 attempt to refer to heat or cold. And rightly so : for nei 

 ther do fire or numbness and congelation add or detract 

 any thing from it nor have any power over it, when it yet 

 meanwhile flourishes in the sun, at the centre of the earth 

 and every where. But he seems to fail, in that he recog- 



