THE SECOND BOOK 95 



be doubted. For example : is not the rule, Si 

 inaequalibus aequalia addas, omnia erunt inaequalia, 

 an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics ? 

 and is there not a true coincidence between commutative 

 and distributive justice, and arithmetical and geo 

 metrical proportion ? Is not that other rule, Quae 

 in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se conveniunt, 

 a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in 

 logic as all syllogisms are built upon it ? Is not the 

 observation, Omnia mutantur, nil interit, a con 

 templation in philosophy thus, that the quantum of 

 nature is eternal ? in natural theology thus, that it 

 requireth the same omnipotency to make somewhat 

 nothing, which at the first made nothing somewhat ? 

 according to the scripture, Didici quod omnia opera, 

 quae fecit Deus, perse verent in perpetuum ; non possu- 

 mus eis quicquam addere nee auferre. Is not the 

 ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely discourseth 

 concerning governments, that the way to establish 

 and preserve them, is to reduce them ad principia, 

 a rule in religion and nature, as well as in civil adminis 

 tration ? Was not the Persian magic a reduction or 

 correspondence of the principles and architectures of 

 nature to the rules and policy of governments ? Is 

 not the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or 

 harsh accord upon a concord or sweet accord, alike true 

 in affection ? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or 

 slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope 

 of rhetoric of deceiving expectation ? Is not the 

 delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the 

 same with the playing of light upon the water ? 



Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontua. 



Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the 

 organs of reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with 

 a cave or strait, determined and bounded ? Neither 

 are these only similitudes, as men of narrow observa 

 tion may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps 

 of nature, treading or printing upon several subjects 

 or matters. This science therefore (as I understand 



