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THE SECOND BOOKE 365
never an existence but indeed a birth, supposing that
Homer made the Ocean Father, and Thetis Mother of
the Gods, thereby to shew us that all things are in
continuall motion, change and variation. As he sayeth,
a common opinion amongst all the Philosophers before
his time, only Parmenides excepted, who denied any
motion to be in things of whose power he maketh no
small accompt. Pythagoras that each thing or matter
was ever gliding and labile. The Stoicks affirme there
is no present time, and that which we call present is
but conjoyning and assembling of future time and past
Herachtus avereth that no man ever entered twice
one same river; Epicharmus avoucheth that who ere
while borrowed any money doth not now owe it; and
that he who yesternight was bidden to dinner this
day, commeth to day unbidden : since they are no
more themselves, but are become others; and that
one mortall substance could not twise be found in one
self estate: for by the sodainessc and lightnesse of
change sometimes it wasteth, and other times it assembleth;
now it comes and now it goes; in some sort,
that he who beginneth to bo borne never comes to the
perfection of being. For, this being borne commeth
never to an end, nor ever stayeth as being at an end;
but after the seed proceedeth continually in change
and alteration from one to another. As of mans seed
there is first made a shapelesse fruit in the Mothers
Wombe, then a shapen Childe, then being out of the
Wombe, a sucking babe, afterward he becometh a
ladde, then consequently a stripling, then a full
growne man, then an old man, and in the end an
aged decrepite man. So that age and subsequent generation
goeth ever undoing and wasting the precedent.
Mutatenim mundi naturam totius cetas,
Ex alioque alius status excipere opinio, debet,
Nec manet vlla sui simtlts res, omnia migrant,
Omnia commutat natura et veitcre cogit', 1
1 LUCR. 1. v, 837.