30 History of Nature. [ BOOK II. 



thereof, neither is it fit for Men to search, nor within Man's 

 Understanding to conceive. Sacred it is, everlasting, infi- 

 nite, all in all, or rather itself all and absolute : limited, yet 

 seeming infinite : in all Motions, certain ; though in Appear- 

 ance uncertain : comprehending in itself all both without 

 and within : Nature's Work, and yet very Nature itself. It 

 is Madness that some have thought in their Mind to mea- 

 sure it ; yea, and durst in Writing set down the Dimensions 

 thereof: that others again, by Occasion hereupon taken, 

 or on this founded, have taught, That there are Worlds in- 

 to slip from the minds of learned Heathens, through their speculations 

 into occult causes, and the wrapping up of religion from the inquiries of 

 the vulgar, as being too high for their comprehension, they were led to 

 the conception of what, in fact, was no more than a mere abstraction, and 

 destitute of all proper personality : a simple, unconscious fatality, with 

 little volition : and, in truth, no better than a diffusive aether, or, as it 

 would now be denominated, galvanic influence. The philosophy of 

 Pythagoras was derived from the East; "But it was this," says Lord 

 Bacon (" Natural History," 10th century), " which did first plant a mon- 

 strous imagination, which afterwards was, by the school of Plato and 

 others, watered and nourished. It was, that the world was one, entire, 

 perfect, living creature ; insomuch as Apollonius of Tyana, a Pythagorean 

 prophet, affirmed that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was the respira- 

 tion of the world, drawing in water as breath, and putting it forth again. 

 They went on, and inferred, that if the world were a living creature, it 

 had a soul and spirit ; which also they held, calling it ' spiritus mundij the 

 spirit or soul of the world. By which they did not intend God (for they 

 did admit of a deity besides), but only the soul, or essential form, of the 

 universe. This foundation being laid, they might build upon it what 

 they would; for in a living creature, though never so great (as, for 

 example, in a great whale), the sense and the effects of any one part of 

 the body instantly make a transcursion throughout the whole body. So 

 that by this they did insinuate, that no distance of place, nor want nor 

 indisposition of matter, could hinder magical operations ; but that, for 

 example, we mought here in Europe have sense and feeling of that which 

 was done in China ; and likewise we mought work any effect without and 

 against matter; and this not holden by the co-operation of angels or 

 spirits, but only by the unity and harmony of nature." This was the 

 occult cause, to which all the otherwise unaccountable operations of 

 nature might easily be referred. We have a curious instance of such a 

 method of explanation at the end of the ninety-third chapter of this book. 

 Wern.Club. 



