BOOK II.] History of Nature. 33 



according as M. Varro interpreteth it. Arid the Order of 

 Things therein contributes to this, and especially the defined 

 Circle called Signifer, or the Zodiac, divided by the Forms 

 of Twelve living Creatures, through which is the Sun's Track ; 

 preserving the same Course for so many Ages. 



CHAPTER V. 

 Of the four Elements l . 



I SEE no doubt regarding the Number of the Elements, 

 that they are four. The highest, Fire : from whence are 

 those bright Eyes of so many shining Stars. The next, 

 Spirit, which the Greeks and our Countrymen by one Name 

 called Air : this Element is vital, and it soon passeth through 

 all, and is intrinsically mixed in the Whole : by the Power 

 whereof, the Earth hangeth suspended in the midst, together 

 with the fourth Element, of Water. Thus, by a mutual em- 

 bracing of each other, divers Natures are linked together : 

 and so the light Elements are restrained by the heavier, that 

 they do not fly off: and, on the contrary, the massier are 

 held up, that they fall not down, by means of the lighter, 

 which seek to mount aloft. So, through an equal Endeavour 

 to the Contrary, each of them holds its own, bound as it 

 were by the restless Circuit of the World itself: which, run- 

 ning evermore upon itself, the Earth falleth to be lowest, 

 and in the Middle of the Whole : and the same hanging 

 steadily by the Pole of the Universe, poiseth those Ele- 

 ments by which it hangeth. Thus it alone resteth un- 

 movable, whilst the whole Frame of the World turneth 



1 The idea here conveyed of the existence of four elements, which 

 enclose each other, each heavier one in succession subsiding below the 

 other, is more fully expressed by Ovid, in his account of the creation 

 of the world at the beginning of the first book of his " Metamorphoses." 

 The opinion was generally entertained, of these elements being the con- 

 stituents of all things, until modern chemical analysis demonstrated that 

 themselves are compounded of other and more simple elements. Yet 

 the language of the ancient opinion has not altogether ceased from use, 

 even at the present time. Wern. Club. 



C 



