The Second Book 87 



justice as of the mathematics? ^ and is there not a true 

 coincidence between commutative and distributive justice, 

 and arithmetical and geometrical proportion ? Is not that 

 other rule, Qucb in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se conve- 

 niunt, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in 

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

 tion. Omnia mutantur, nil interit* a contemplation in philo- 

 sophy thus, that the quantum of nature is eternal? in 

 natural theology thus, that it requireth the same Omnipo- 

 tence to make somewhat nothing, which at the first made 

 nothing somewhat ? according to the Scripture, Didici quod 

 omnia opera, qucB fecit Deus, per server ent in perpetuum ; non 

 possumus 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 administration ? * 

 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 tnie 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 pontiis.* 



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 observation 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 it, I may justly report as deficient: 



^ In Ellis and Spedding's edition there is a note saying that this 

 clause and its successor are transposed in the original edition. This 

 is not the case in the copy I have collated. And in one or two 

 other notices of variation my copy did not bear out their remarks. 



« Plat. Theat. i. 152. Ovid, Met. xv. 165. 



• Ecclus. xlii. 21. • Discourse on Livy, iii. i. 



• See Nov. Org. ii. 27. " Instantiae conformes." 



• Virg. iEn. vii. 9. 



