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THE SECOND BOOKE , 251
hee ? And if it were hee, those had some reason who,
debating this opinion against Plato, object that the
sonne might one day bee found committing with his
mother under the shape of a Mules body, and such
like absurdities. And shall wee imagine that in the
transmigrations which are made from the bodies of
some creatures into others of the same kind, the new
succeeding ones are not other than their predecessors,
were? Of a Phenixes cinders, first (as they say) is
engendred a worme and then another Phenix: who*
can imagine that this second Phenix be no other and
different from the first? Our Silk-wormes are seene
to dye and then to wither drie, and of that body
breedeth a Butter-flie, and of that a worme, were it
not ridiculous to thinke the same to be the first
Silkeworm ? what hath once lost its being is no more.
Nec si materiam nostram colleges it oetas
Post obttum, ruisumque ledegerxt, ut sita nunc esf,
Atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumma vita,
Pertmeat quidquam tamen ad nos id quoque/actum,
lntei rupta setncl cum sit repetenha nostia, 1
If time should recollect, when life is past,
Our stuffe, and it replace, as now 'tis plac't,
And light of life were granted us againe,
Yet nothing would that deed to us pertaine,
When interrupted were our turne againe.
And Plato, when in another place thou saist that it
shall be the spirituall part of man that shall enjoy the
recompences of the other life, thou tellest of things
of as small likely-hood.
Scilicet avulsus radicibus ut nequit ullam
Dispicere ipse oculus iem, seoisum coipoie toto. 2
Ev'n as no eye, by th' root's pull'd out, can see
Ought in whole body scverall to bee.
For by this reckoning it shall no longer be man, nor
consequently us, to whom this enjoyment shall
¹ LUCR. 1. iii. 890. ² lb, 580,