ON PRINCIPLES AND ORIGINS
ACCORDING TO THE FABLES OF
CUPID AND COELUM, ETC.

[TRANSLATION OF DE PRINCIPIIS ATQUE ORIGINIBUS, ETC.]

PREFACE.

BY ROBERT LESLIE ELLIS

THE following tract is one of those which were published by Gruter. It seems to be of later date than many of the others, as it contains several phrases and turns of expression which occur also in the Novum Organum.

Bacon's design was to give a philosophical exposition of two myths ; namely that of the primeval Eros or Cupid, and that of Uranos or Cœlum. Only the first however is discussed in the fragment which we now have, and even that is left incomplete.

The philosophy of Democritus appeared to Bacon to be nearly in accordance with the hidden meaning of these fables ; but we are not well able to judge of his reasons for thinking so, as the only system spoken of in detail is that of Telesius.

Touching the origin of Eros, Bacon remarks that no mention is made anywhere of his progenitors. In this he is supported by the authority of Plato, or rather by that of one of the interlocutors in the Symposium, who affirms that no one, whether poet or not, has spoken of the parents of Eros ; but that Hesiod in the order of his theogony places Gaia and Eros next after primeval Chaos¹. It seems in truth probable that the fables which make Eros the son of Zeus and Aphrodite are of later origin. From the Symposium Bacon may also have derived the recognition of an elder and a younger Eros, of whom the former was allied to the heavenly Aphrodite, and the latter to Aphrodite Pandemos ². But it is more probable that his account of the distinction between them comes from some later writer.

Hesiod, to whom the first speaker in the Symposium refers, though he places Eros and Gaia next to Chaos, says nothing of Eros as the progenitor of the universe. His existence is recognised, but nothing is said of his offspring. In this the theogony of Hesiod differs essentially from that which is contained in the Orphic poems, and shows I think signs of greater antiquity. To recognise as a deity an abstract feeling of love or desire, is in itself to recede in some measure from the simplicity of the old world : we find no such recognition in Homer ; and the transition from him to Hesiod is doubtless a transition from an earlier way of thinking to a later. But even in Hesiod Eros is not the producing principle of the universe, nor is his share in its production explained. On the other hand in the Orphic poems, Phanes, whom we are entitled to identify with Eros, is the progenitor of gods and men, the light and life of the universe. He comes forth from Chaos, uniting in his own essence the poles of the mysterious antithesis on which all organic production depends. From him all other things derive their existence. There seems clearly more of a philosopheme in this than in the simpler statements of Hesiod.

The identification of Eros with Phanes or Ericapeus rests on a passage in the Argonautics in which it is said that he was called Phanes by the men of later time because he was manifested before all other beings ; πρωτο? yàp έφάνθη³. It is confirmed by the authority of Proclus.

Phanes, in the common form of the Orphic theogony, comes out of the egg into which Chaos had formed itself⁴. But I am not aware that any one except Aristophanes makes Night lay the egg from which Eros afterwards emerges ⁵; and it seems that this is only a playful modification of the common myth, not unsuitable to the chorus of birds by whom it is introduced ⁶. It does not appear necessary to suppose, as Cudworth seemingly does, that Aristophanes had in some unexplained way become acquainted with a peculiar form of “the old atheistic cabala⁷”.

The most remarkable passage in which Eros (not Phanes) is spoken of as the producer of all things, is in the Argonautics:—

Nothing is said here, or elsewhere I believe, of his having mingled with Uranos in the engendering of the universe ; and I am inclined to think that when Bacon says, “Ipse cum Cœlo mistus, et deos et res universos progenuit,” we ought to substitute Chao for Cœlo ⁹. For the passage in Aristophanes goes on to say that in wide Tartarus Eros and Chaos mingled in love and produced first the race of birds and then gods and men.

Of Phanes nothing of this kind is mentioned, except his intercourse with Night¹⁰; so that Bacon's statement does not seem to be in any way justified.

It would be endless to cite passages in which the attributes of Eros are described, nor is it necessary to do so.

The form in which Bacon connects the myth of the primeval Eros with philosophy is far less artificial and unreal than most of the interpretations which he has given in the Wisdom of the Ancients. Chaos represents uninformed matter ; Eros matter actually existing, and possessed of the law or principle by which it is energised ; the first principle, in short, which is the cause of all phenomena. The parents of Eros are unknown ; that is to say, it is in vain to seek to carry our inquiries beyond the fact of the existence of matter possessed of such and such primitive qualities. On what do those primary qualities ultimately depend? On the “lex summa essentiæ atque naturæ ‣ vis scilicet primis particulis a Deo indita, ex cujus multiplicatione omnis rerum varietas emergat et confletur”. Whether this highest law can ever be discovered is by Bacon left here as elsewhere doubtful ; but he does not forbid men to seek for it. But what he utterly condemns is the attempt to make philosophy rise above the theory of matter. We must ever remember that Eros has no progenitors, “ne forte intellectus ad inania deflectat”—that we turn not aside to transcendental fancies ; for in these the mind can make no real progress, and “dum ad ulteriora tendit ad proximiora recidit”. We must of necessity take as the starting point of our philosophy, matter possessed of its primitive qualities ; and this principle is in accordance with the wisdom of those by whom the myth of Eros was constructed. And certainly, Bacon goes on to say, “that despoiled and merely passive matter is a figment of the human mind”; a statement which refers to the Aristotelian doctrine in which the primitive ΰλη is not conceived of as a thing actually existing, but as that which first receives existence through the εZSos, wherewith it is united. Of this doctrine Bacon asserts that it is altogether trifling : “For that which primarily exists must no less exist than that which thence derives its existence” , that is to say, matter must in itself exist actually and not potentially. And the same conclusion follows from the Scriptures, “wherein it is not said that God created hyle, but that he created heaven and earth ”.

This application of Scripture certainly does not deserve the indignation which De Maistre, perhaps in honest ignorance, has poured out upon it¹¹. “He asserts the eternity of matter,” is De Maistre's commentary on the passage in which it occurs. Beyond doubt he denies that hyle was created, but he also denies that it exists; treating it as the mere figment of the Aristotelian philosophy.

But although De Maistre's remark is only a fair specimen of his whole work, in which ignorance and passion are so mixed together that it is hard to say how much is to be ascribed to the one and how much to the other, yet it cannot be denied that Bacon does not appear to have understood Aristotle. So far from putting at the origin of things that which is potential, and educing the actual from it, Aristotle asserts that any system which does this is untenable ; and it is curious that he refers particularly to the theogonists, ε έκ muros yewi, who engender realities out of night¹². For night and chaos may not unfitly be taken to represent uninformed matter¹³. The doctrine of Aristotle being in this as in other matters followed by the schoolmen, it was a question with them how the words “and the earth was without form”, which come immediately after the declaration that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, ought to be understood. For to create the earth is to give it actual existence ; how then can it be without form? To this the most satisfactory answer was that the words without form do not imply the absence of substantial form, failing which the earth could have no actual existence, but simply mean that as yet the earth was unadorned and in disorder ; a solution in which we see how far they were from supposing that according to Aristotle the first created thing ought to be uninformed matter. They insist on the contrary that the Scripture cannot mean that any created thing can be mere matter : “non enim datur ens actu sine actu”.

Aristotle, as I have said, condemns the theogonists in whose system Night is a producing principle,—a remark in which he may refer either to Hesiod or to the Orphic writers, but which probably relates to the former only. In the reason of this condemnation Bacon agrees with him, and yet takes into the myth which he proposes to explain, Aristophanes's fancy that the egg from which Eros came forth was laid by Night. His reason for doing so is that this part of the fable appears to him to relate not to essence but to cognition, that is to the method whereby we may arrive at a knowledge of Eros, or of the fundamental properties of matter. For conclusions obtained by means of affirmatives are, so to speak, brought forth by Light : whereas those which are obtained by negatives and exclusions are the offspring of Night and Darkness. Therefore the egg is laid by Night, seeing that the knowledge of Eros, though it is assuredly attainable, can yet only be attained by exclusions and negatives ; that is, to express the same opinion in the language of the Novum Organum, the knowledge of Forms necessarily depends on the Exclusiva. That this method of exclusions must of necessity-be ultimately successful is intimated by the myth itself ; for the incubation of the primeval egg is not eternal. In due time the egg is hatched and Eros is made manifest. If it be asked what analogy there is between darkness and the method of exclusions, Bacon's answer is satisfactory,—that darkness is as ignorance, and that in employing the method of exclusions we are all along ignorant of that which at any stage of the process still remains unexcluded. It may again be asked why the method of exclusions is the only one whereby Eros may be disclosed,—a question to which Bacon suggests an answer by saying that Democritus did excellently well in teaching that atoms are devoid of all sensible qualities. Bacon's opinion seems therefore to be, that any method but a negative one would necessarily fail, because that which is sought bears no analogy to any of the sensible objects by which we are surrounded. The parable, he says, maintains throughout the principles of heterogeneity and exclusion : meaning by heterogeneity a strongly marked antithesis between the fundamental qualities of matter and the sensible qualities of which we are directly cognisant. In accordance with this he censures Democritus for departing from this principle in giving his atoms the downward motion of gravity and the impulsive motion (motus plagœ) which belong to ordinary bodies. Not only are atoms and bodies different as touching their qualities, but also in their motions.

In these views, which however do not show either that the method of exclusions is the only one which can succeed or that it will always do so, there is much which deserves attention. They show that Bacon had obtained a deep insight into the principles of the atomic theory. The earlier developments of this theory have always been encumbered by its being thought necessary, in order to explain phenomena, to ascribe to the atoms properties which in reality belong only to the bodies which they compose ; that is, by its being thought necessary to break through Bacon's principle of heterogeneity. Thus the atoms have been supposed of definite sizes and figures, thereby resembling other and larger bodies, and to be perfectly hard and unyielding. When freed from these subsidiary hypotheses, the atomic theory becomes a theory of forces only, and of whatever ulterior developments it may be capable, these can only be introduced when it has assumed this form. The speculations of Boscovich do not mark the farthest point to which the atomic theory may be carried, but they were nevertheless an essential step in advance, and altogether in accordance with what Bacon has here said, though in an obscure and somewhat abrupt manner. “We do well,” remarks Leibnitz, “to think highly of Verulam, for his hard sayings have a deep meaning in them:” a judgment which may not improbably have had a particular reference to the views now spoken of. For Leibnitz's own monadism is in effect only an abstract atomic theory ¹⁴: more abstract doubtless than any thing which Bacon had conceived of, but yet a system which might have been derived from that of Democritus by insisting on and developing Bacon's principle of heterogeneity. And again, in a different point of view, it seems not unlikely that Leibnitz perceived an analogy between his own doctrine and that of Bacon. In the earlier part of his philosophical life, Leibnitz was disposed to agree with the opinion common among the reformers of philosophy, that what Aristotle had said of matter, of form and of mutation, was to be explained by means of magnitude, figure, and motion. This opinion he ascribes to all the reformers of the seventeenth century, mentioning by name Bacon and several others ¹⁵. Thirty years afterwards, in giving some account of the history of his opinions, he says that he came to perceive, “que la seule considération d'une masse étendue ne suffisoit pas, et qu'il falloit employer encore la notion de la force, qui est très-intelligible, quoiqu'elle soit du ressort de la Métaphysique¹⁶ “. In introducing this notion of force, he conceived that he was rehabilitating the Aristotelian or scholastic philosophy, seeing “que les formes des Anciens ou Entelechies ne sont autre chose que les .forces ¹⁷”.These primitive forces ¹⁸ being the constituent forms of substances, he supposed them, with one exception (founded on dogmatic grounds), to have been created at the beginning of the world. The “lex a Deo lata” at the creation “reliquit aliquod sui expressum in rebus vestigium”, namely an efficacy, or form, or force by virtue of which and in accordance with the divine precept all phenomena had been engendered ¹⁹.

If we compare these expressions, which contain the fundamental idea of Leibnitz's philosophy, with those which have already been quoted from the following tract, we shall I think perceive more than an accidental analogy between them. Leibnitz speaks of the primitive forces impressed by the divine word on created things, “ex quâ series phenomenorum ad primi jussûs præscriptum consequeretur,”—and Bacon of the “lex summa essentiæ et naturæ, vis scilicet primis particulis a Deo indita, ex cujus multiplicatione omnis rerum varietas emergat et confletur”. It does not seem improbable that Leibnitz, who in the letter to Thomasius classes Bacon, so far as relates to the present subject, with Gassendi and Descartes, came afterwards to find in Bacon's language hints of the deeper view which he had himself been led to adopt, and which constitutes the point of separation between his system and the Cartesian. This supposition would at least be in accordance with the emphatic manner in which he has contrasted the physical theories of Descartes and Bacon, taking the former as a type of acuteness and the latter of profundity, and asserting that compared with Bacon, Descartes seems to creep along the ground ²⁰.

It may not be out of place here to remark that there are other traces of Bacon's influence on Leibnitz. In Erdmann's edition of his philosophical works, we find several fragmentary papers which Leibnitz wrote under the name of Gulielmus Pacidius. The title of one of these is “Gulielmi Pacidii Plus Ultra, sive initia et specimina scientiæ generalis de instauratione et augmentis scientiarum de perficiendâ mente rerumque inventione ad publicam flicitatem “.Plus Ultra was the motto to Bacon's device of a ship sailing through the Pillars of Hercules, and the remainder of the title is both in tone and language clearly Baconian. The work itself was to have concluded with an exhortation “ad viros dignitate doctrinâque egregios de humanâ fœlicitate exiguo tempore, si velimus modo, in immensum augendâ ²¹”.

Another of these fragments contains some account of himself, or rather of Wilhelmus Pacidius, in which he mentions it as one of the happy incidents of his youth, that when he had perceived the defects of the scholastic philosophy the writings of several of the reformers came into his hands—among which he gives the first place to the “consilia magni viri Francisci Baconi Angliæ Cancellarii de augmentis Scientiarum ²²”.

To return to the fable of Cupid. After interpreting the statement that all things come from Eros to mean that all phenomena must be referred to the fundamental and originally inherent properties of matter as the first ground of their production, Bacon goes on to say that next to the error of these who make formless matter an original principle, is the error of ascribing secondary qualities to primitive matter. This he expresses by saying that though Eros is endued with personality, he is nevertheless naked, “ita personatus²³ ut sit tamen nudus”. Those who have committed the error of clothing him have either merely covered him with a veil, or have dressed him up in a tunic, or lastly have wrapped him round with a cloak.

These three errors are respectively the erors of those who have sought to explain everything by the transformations of one element, as air or fire,—of those who assume a plurality of elements,—and of those who assume an infinity of first principles (the homœomeria of Anaxagoras), each possessed of specific properties.

Contrasted with these errors is the doctrine that there is one first material principle, “idque fixum et invariabile,” and that all phenomena are to be explained “per hujusmodi principii … magnitudines figuras et positiones,”—a statement which includes along with the old atomic theory every such hypothesis as the Cartesian. By those only who hold this opinion is Eros rightly displayed ; they show him as he really is, “nativus et exutus”.

In the interval between writing this tract and the Novum Organum Bacon's opinions seem to have undergone some change, as he has there condemned the atomists for asserting the existence of “materia non fluxa” an obscure phrase, but which appears irreconcilable with the expression which I have just quoted— “fixum et invariabile”.

However this may be, Bacon next proceeds to enumerate the different forms of doctrine into which the doctrine of a single element has been subdivided. The first principle or primitive matter has been asserted to be water, or air, or fire. Something is then said of the opinions of Thales, of Anaximenes, and of Heraclitus, and they are collectively commended for having given Eros but a single garment, that is, for having ascribed to primitive matter only a single form, substantially homogeneous with any of the forms of secondary existences.

The Anaxagorean doctrine of an infinity of elements is then set aside as belonging to the interpretation of the fable of Cœlum, and thus Bacon comes to the doctrine of two opposing principles, with which the remainder of the tract is taken up. Parmenides, he observes, among the ancients, and Telesius in modern times, have made fire and earth, or heaven and earth, the two first principles.

In connecting together Telesius and Parmenides Bacon overlooked an essential point of difference. For the system of Telesius is merely physical, it deals only with phenomena, and seeks for no higher grounds of truth than the evidence of the senses. Parmenides, on the other hand, recognized the antithesis of tv and 3BD;όμενον∂ 3BD;όμενον, of that which exists and that which is apparent. His doctrine is ontological rather than physical, and he does not admit that phenomena have any connexion with real or essential truth. He seeks for a deeper insight into things than any which a mere “ Welt-anschauung,” a mere contemplation of the universe, could be made to furnish. The hypothesis which he framed to explain the phenomena by which we are surrounded, is with him a hypothesis merely ; and though, like Telesius's, this hypothesis refers every phenomenon to the antagonism of heat and cold, yet it has a character of its own, inasmuch as in a way not distinctly conceivable it also serves to represent the metaphysical antithesis of τ∂ 6v and τ∂ μή ου.

It is however to be remembered that with the ontological aspect of the philosphy of Parmenides Bacon has here no concern.

The fundamental notion of Telesius's system was doubtless suggested both to him and to Parmenides ²⁴, by certain obvious phenomena, and especially by the growth, decay, and reproduction of plants and animals. But it is essentially derived from the delight which the mind takes in every form of antithetic dualism, and especially in the idea of the reciprocal action of opposing forces. It comes from the same source as the love and strife of Empedocles, and as the good and evil principles of the Persian theology.

By the help of this notion, namely that heat and cold are the constituent principles of the universe, Telesius attempts to give general explanations of all phenomena, leaving it to others to study them in detail. The largeness of his plan and the grave eloquence with which it is set forth won for him some celebrity, notwithstanding the extreme obscurity of his style and the vagueness of his whole doctrine.

The academy of Cosenza (it was at Cosenza that Telesius was born) adopted his views, and both there and elsewhere men were for some time to be found who called themselves Telesiani. Spiriti, in his Scrittori Cosentini, gives a list of the disciples of Telesius ; it contains however no name of much note, except that of Campanella, and the fame of Campanella rests much more on his moral and political speculations than on his defence of Telesius. Giordano Bruno and Patricius cannot be called disciples of Telesius, though the writings of both bear traces of his influence ²⁵. Among real students of nature it was not to be expected that so indefinite a system as that of Telesius could find much acceptance, and accordingly it is but seldom mentioned by scientific writers. Grassi, in the Libra Astronomica²⁶, seems to reproach Galileo with having taken some notion about comets from Cardan and Telesius ; remarking that their philosophy was sterile and unfruitful, and that they had left to posterity “libros non liberos”. To this Galileo answers that as for what Cardan and Telesius might have said on the matter he had never read it, and it would seem as if he means to disclaim all knowledge of their writings. Though he protests against the argumentum ex consensu which Grassi brings against them, yet it is plain that he does so only to confute his opponent, and not because he thought them worthy of a greater fame than they had received. Even among the large class of men who are content to acquiesce in general views and are not careful to inquire whether these views are accurate or ill-defined, Telesius's popularity could not last long. For he had left nothing for his followers to do. All that could be said in favour of his fundamental idea he had said himself, and any attempt to develop it further could only show how insecure a foundation it was built on. His works are however not undeserving of attention, even apart from the influence which they had on the opinions of Bacon. They show much of the peculiar character of mind which distinguishes southern from northern Italy, and which is yet more conspicuous in the writings of Campanella and of Vico : grave and melancholy earnestness,—a fondness for symbol and metaphor, and for wide-reaching but dreamy theories.

The first two books of his principal work, the De Rerum Naturâ, were published at Rome in 1565. The complete work was not published until 1586, only two years before his death²⁷. In 1590 a number of tracts, some of which had appeared in his lifetime, were published by Antonius Persius, one of his chief disciples, with a dedication to Patricius, which seems to claim him as at least half an adherent to the Telesian philosophy ²⁸. For some account of Telesius's minor works I may refer to Spiriti's Scrittori Cosentini,, or to what Salsi has said of them in Ginguené's Histoire Littéraire de l' ²⁹.

Of Lotter's work, De Vita et Scriptis Telesii, Leipsic, 1733, I much regret that I only know what is said of it in the Acta Eruditorum for that year. It appears to contain much information not easily to be found elsewhere.

The view which Bacon gives of the doctrines of Telesius seems to have been much used and trusted by the historians of philosophy ³⁰,—a natural result of the involved and obscure style in which they were originally propounded. Whether it is altogether an accurate representation of these doctrines may at least be doubted : it seems as if Bacon, in some matters of detail, mingles with what he finds in Telesius some further developments of his own. Perhaps he is in some measure influenced by his jural habits of thought, and tries in all fairness and equity to put a favourable construction on that on which he sits in judgment³¹. However this may be, I have certainly found it difficult to support all his statements by quotations from his author, and in some cases have noticed at least apparent discrepancies.

The tract ends abruptly with the discussion of the system of Telesius. A similar discussion of the atomic theory would have been of far greater interest, for Bacon's own opinions are much more closely connected with those of Democritus than with Telesius's, from whom he derived only isolated doctrines. The most important of these doctrines is that of the duality of the soul, of which and of its relation to the orthodox opinion I have elsewhere had occasion to speak ³².

¹ Sympos. p. 178. ; and see Valcknaer's Diatribe, to whom Stallbaum refers. On the other hand Pausanias mentions as an early myth that Eros was the son of Ilithyia. See Pausan. Bœot. ix. 27.

² Sympos. p. 180, and see also p. 195.

³ Orph. Argon.14. In the preceding line, Eros is made, according to Gesner7#x0027;s reading, the son of Night. But for ufa there is another reading, πατέρα.

⁴ See Lobeck, Aglaoph. i. 474.

⁵ Aves, 650.

⁶ This seems to be confirmed by the half ludicrous epithet ύτηνέμιον.

⁷ See Cudworth, Intellect. Syst.

⁸ Argonaut. 423. In the third line πυθμένας is admitted to be corrupt. I would venture to suggest πoλíâs, making σαλάŋς)! the genitive case after γέέvσiv.

⁹ This conjecture is confirmed by the corresponding passage in the De Sap. Vet., where for cum calœo mistus we have ex chao.—J. S.

¹⁰ Lobeck, i. 501. It is to this intercourse that the line quoted by Proclus refers :— Αὐτὀ∂ έs yàp παισòΐφελετo κούριον

¹¹ Examen de la Philosophie de Bacon, ii. p. 143.

¹² Arist. Metaph. xii. 6.

¹³ See Brandis's Schol in Aristot. p. 803, and for the remarks of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Lobeck, Aglaoph. i. 488.

¹⁴ The monad, Leibnitz himself remarks, is a metaphysical point, or formal atom.

¹⁶ Epist. ad Thomas, p. 48 of Erdmann's edition of Leibnitz's Phil. Works.

¹⁷ Lettre à Bouvet, p. 146, Erdmann.

¹⁸ Système nouveau, p. 124, Erdmann.

¹⁹ Forces primitives,?. Syst. Noitv. 19 See his De ipsâ Naturâ, p. 156.

²⁰ Leibnitiana, vol. vi. p. 303, ed. Genev. 1768.—J. S.

²¹ Leibnitz, ed. Erd. p. 89.

²² Leibnitz, ed. Erd. p. 91.

²³ The meaning of personatus appears from the phrase Bacon previously uses : “Cupidiuis est persona quædam”.

²⁴ The same notion is ascribed also to Hippo of Rhegium, and to others of the Greek philosophers. See Ps, Orig. [Hippolytus, i. 14] Philos. (16), as to Hippo

²⁵ The influence of Telesius on Bruno is not, I think, mentioned by historians of philosophy, yet there is no doubt of its existence. In the following passage the fundamental principle of Telesius is plainly assumed, mingled with ideas derived from Copernicus. “Cosî vien distinto l7#x0027;universo in fuoco et acqua che sono soggetti di doi primi principii formali et attivi, freddo et caldo. Que' corpi ohe spirano il caldo, son le sole, che per se stesso son lucenti et caldi ; que' corpi che spirano il freddo son le terre ”.— Cena di Cenere, p. 174 of Wagner's edition.

²⁶ Published in 1618, with the pseudonym of Lotario Sarsi. It is incorporated in the new edition of Galileo's works, iv. p. 61.

²⁷ It was reprinted in 1588, along with the Contemplationes of Mocenicus and the Quæstiones Peripateticæ of Cæsalpinus.The volume containing these three works is entitled “Tractationum Philosophicarum tomus unus”, and is apparently not easily met with. It is this edition that I have been in the habit of using.

²⁸ This dedication is prefixed to the tract “De Mari”.

²⁹ The account of Telesius in Ginguené was written by Salsi. See Ginguené, vii. p. 500.

³⁰ See what Brucker says of Morhof and Sosellus, Hist. Crit. Phil. iv. 453.

³¹ Bacon's own language suggests this impression. “Nos enim,” he declares, “in omnium inventis summâ cum fide et tanquam faventes versamur.” And that he does not conceive himself bound to minute accuracy in reproducing the opinions of the philosophers of whom he speaks, appears from several expressions : “Hujusmodi quædam de diversitate calorum a Telesio dicuntur ;” “æaut iis meliora, cogitabant illi,” etc.

³² See General Preface, p. 29.—J. S.