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THE SECOND BOOKE 259
number : whereby it seemeth unlikely that God bath
framed this peece of work alone without a fellow : and
that the matter of this forme hath wholy beene spent
in this only Individuum.
Quare etiam atque etiam tales /a teare neccsse est,
Esse altos alibi congressus mate) tai,
Qualis hic est avido complexu quern tenet AEther. 1
Wherefore you must confesse, againe agame,
Of matters such, like meetings elsewhere raigne
As this, these skies in greedy gripe contame.
Namely, if it be a breathing 1 creature, as its motions
make it so likely, that Plato assureth it, and divers of
ours either affirme it, or dare not impugne it; no more
than this old opinion, that the heaven, the starres, and
other members of the world, are creatures composed
both of body and soule; mortall in respect of their
composition, but immortall by the Creators decree.
Now if there be divers worlds, as Democritus, Epicurus,
and well neere all Philosophy hath thought; what know
wee whether the principles and the rules of this one
concerne or touch likewise the others? Haply they
have another semblance and another policie. Epicurus
imagineth them either like or unlike. We see an
infinite difference and varietie in this world only by
the distance of places. There is neither corne nor
wine, no nor any of our beasts seene in that new corner
of the world which our fathers have lately discovered :
all things differ from ours. And in the old time, marke
but in how many parts of the world they had never
knowledge nor of Bacchus nor of Ceres. If any credit
may be given unto Plinie or to Herodotus, there is in
some places a kinde of men that have very little or no
resemblance at all with ours. And there be mungrell
and ambiguous shapes betweene a humane and brutish
nature. Some countries there are where men are borne
headlesse, with eyes and mouths in their breasts; where
all are Hermaphrodites; where they creepe on all foure;
1 LUCR. 1. ii. 1073.