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THE SECOND BOOKE 329
But let us goe on: if Nature enclose within the
limits of her ordinary progresse, as all other things,
so the beliefes, the judgments and the opinions of
men; if they have their revolutions, their seasons,
their birth, and their death, even as cabbages: if
heaven doth move, agitate and rowle them at his
pleasure, what powerfull and permanent authority doe
we ascribe unto them ? If by uncontroled experience
we palpably touch, that the forme of our being depends
of the aire, of the climate, and of the soile wherein we
are borne, and not onely the hew, the stature, the
complexion and the countenance, but also the soules
faculties: Et plague cceli non solum ad robor corporum,
sed etiam animoiixm facit: 'The climate helpeth not
onely for strength of body, but of minds,' saith Vegetius:
And that the Goddesse, foundresse of the Citie
of Athens, chose a temperature of a country to situate
it in, that might make the men wise, as the AEgyptian
Priests taught Solon: Athemis tenue coelum: ex quo
etiam acutiores putantur Attici: crassum Thebis: itaque
pingues Thebani, et valentes: ¹ ' About Athens is a thin
aire, whereby those Country-men are esteemed the
sharper witted: about Thebes the aire is grosse, and
therefore the Thebans were grosse and strong of constitution.'
In such manner that as fruits and beasts
doe spring up diverse and different; so men are borne
either more or lesse warlike, martiall, just, temperate,
and docile: here subject to wine, there to theft and
whoredome ; here inclined to superstition, addicted to
misbelieving; here given to liberty; there to servitude
; capable of some one art or science; grossewitted
or ingenious : either obedient or rebellious;
good or bad, according as the inclination of the place
beareth, where they are seated; and being removed
from one soile to another (as plants are) they take
a new complexion : which was the cause that Cirus
would never permit the Persians to leave their barren,
rough, and craggie Country, for to transport themselves
into another, more gentle, more fertile, and
¹ CIC. De Fato.