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 conveniimt, 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, perseverent in perpetuum ; non possu- 

 mus eis quicquam addere nee auferre.' Is not the V 

 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, aUke 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 pontus. 



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 



