A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…

So that wherever there is an ⟨p. 489⟩Ignorance of these two, and we go about to examine this or any other Mystery, rather by a disputing, than an Obeying Reason, the immediate consequent of such peremptory and preposterous course, is Error and Depravation of the Understanding. Pythagoras and his Scholars, out of a¹ strong conceit that they had of the Efficacy of Music, or Numbers, examining all the passages of Nature by the Principles thereof, fell into that monstrous Error, that Number was the first and most Essential Element in the Constitution of all Creatures. Thus as men which see through a coloured Glass, have all Objects, how different soever represented in the same colour: So they examining all Conclusions by Principles forestalled for that purpose, thinking every thing of what nature soever to be dyed in the colour of their own conceits, and to carry some proportion unto those Principles: Like Antiph•ron▪ Orites and others in Aristotle, who did confidently affirm² every thing for Real, which their Imagination fancied to it self. But Tully hath prettily reprehended this abuse in that satirical reprehension which he gives to Aristoxenus the Musician, who needs out of the Principles of his Art, would conceit the Soul of man to consist of Harmony▪ H•c magistr• concedat Aristoteli; canere ipse doceat. Let him leave these things to Aristotle, and content himself with teaching men how to sing: intimating thereby the absurdity of drawing any Science beyond its own bounds.

So that wherever there is an ⟨p. 489⟩Ignorance of these two, and we goe about to examine this or any other Mystery, rather by a disputing, than an Obeying Reason, the immediate consequent of such peremptory and preposterous course, is Errour and Depravation of the Vnderstanding. Pythagoras and his Schollers, out of a