THE USE OF IMAGINATION. 21 



the raine which falles from above, should mount vpward ; LlB - 



with many other ridiculous deformities. But if we consult 

 with the force of reason, she will make small accoumpt of 

 all these vaine imaginations, nor suffer vs to beleeve them 

 no more than a foolish dreame. But Reason will answer 

 with this her integritie and gravitie, that it were a very 

 grosse error, to imagine the whole world to be like vnto a 

 house, placing the earth for the foundation, and the heaven 

 for the covering. Moreover she will say, that as in all 

 creatures the head is the highest part and most elevated, 

 although all creatures have not heades placed in one and 

 the same situation, some being in the highest part, as 

 man, some athwart, as sheepe, others in the middest, as 

 spiders, even so the heaven, in what part soeuer it be, 

 remaines above, and the earth likewise in what part 

 soever, remaines vnderneath. Our imagination therefore is 

 grounded vpon time and place, the which she cannot com 

 prehend nor conceive in generall, but in particular. It 

 followeth, that when wee shall raise it to the consideration 

 of things which exceed the time and place which are 

 knowne vnto her, then presently she shrinkes and cannot 

 subsist, if reason doth not support her. In like sort wee 

 see, vpon the discourse of the creation of the worlde, our 

 imagination straies to seeke out a time before the creation 

 thereof, and to build the world ; she discribes a place, but 

 shee comes not to consider that the worlde might bee made 

 after another fashion. Notwithstanding, reason doth teach 

 vs, that there was no time before there was a motion, 

 whereof time is the measure, neyther was there any place 

 before the vniversall, which comprehendes within it all 

 place. Wherein the excellent Philosopher Aristotle doth Arist., i, do 



Ccl., ca. 3. 



plainely satisfie, and in a few wordes, that argument made 

 against the place of the earth, helping himselfe with our 

 vse of imagination, when bee sayeth, and with trueth, 

 &quot; That in the world the same place of the earth is in the 



