56 ADVANCEMENT OJ* LEARNING. [BOOK 1 



besides the prefigiu ation of Christ, the mark of tho people of 

 God to distinguish them from the Gentiles, the exercise of 

 obedience, and other divine institutions, the most learned of 

 the rabbis have observed a natural and some of them a 

 moral sense in. many of the rites and ceremonies. Thus in 

 the law of the leprosy, where it is said, &quot; If the whiteness 

 have overspread the flesh, the patient may pass abroad for 

 clean; but if there be any whole flesh remaining, he is to 

 be shut up for unclean,&quot; 11 one of them notes a principle of 

 nature, viz., that putrefaction is more contagious before 

 maturity than after. Another hereupon observes a position 

 of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not 

 corrupt the manners of others, so much as those who are but 

 half wicked. And in many other places of the Jewish law, 

 besides the theological sense, there are couched many philo 

 sophical matters. The book of Job likewise will be found, 

 if examined with care, pregnant with the secrets of natural 

 philosophy. For example, when it says, &quot; Qui extendit 

 Aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit terram super nihilum,&quot; 

 the suspension of the earth and the convexity of the heavens 

 are manifestly alluded to. Again, &quot; Spirit us ejus ornavit 

 cailos, et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est coluber tortu- 

 OSUS;&quot;P and in another place, &quot;Numquid conjungere valebis 

 micantes stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dis- 

 sipare?&quot;^ where the immutable 11 configuration of the fixed 

 stars, ever preserving the same position, is with elegance 

 described. So in another place : &quot; Qui facit Arcturum, et 

 Oriona, et Hyadas, 9 et interiora Austri,&quot; 1 where he again refers 

 to the depression of the south pole in the expression of &quot; in- 

 teriora Austri,&quot; because the southern stars are not seen in. 



n Leviticus xiii. 12. See Job xxvi. xxxviii. 



P Job xxvi. 7, 13. i xxxviii. 31. 



r That is, to Job, who cannot be supposed to know what telescopes 

 only have revealed, that stars change their declination with unequal 

 degrees of motion. It is clear, therefore, that their distances must be 

 variable, and that in the end the figures of the constellations wil j 

 undergo mutation ; as this change, however, will not be perceptible for 

 thousands of years, it hardly conies within the limit of man s idea of 

 mutation, and therefore, with regard to him, may be ssid to have no 

 existence. Ed. 



The Hyades nearly approach the letter V in appearance. 



* The crown of stars which forma a kind of imperfect circle near 

 Ar:turus. 



