And having passed that general visitation of God,
who saw that all that he had made was good, that is, conformable to his
will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty: there
is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein notwithstanding there is a
kind of beauty, nature so ingeniously contriving the irregular parts
that they become sometimes more remarkable than the principal fabric. To
speak yet more narrowly, there was never anything ugly or misshapen but
the chaos; wherein, notwithstanding, to speak strictly, there was no
deformity, because no form, nor was it yet impregnate by the voice of
God; now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature, they
being both servants of his providence: art is the perfection of nature:
were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos;
nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are
artificial; for nature is the art of God.

I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero;
others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the library of
Alexandria; for my own part, I think there be too many in the world, and
could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I,
with a few others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon. I would not
omit a copy of Enoch's Pillars had they many nearer authors than
Josephus, or did not relish somewhat of the fable. Some men have written
more than others have spoken: Pineda quotes more authors in one work
than are necessary in a whole world. Of those three great inventions in
Germany, there are two which are not without their incommodities. It is
not a melancholy _utinam_ of my own, but the desires of better heads,
that there were a general synod; not to unite the incompatible
difference of religion, but for the benefit of learning, to reduce it,
as it lay at first, in a few and solid authors; and to condemn to the
fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies begotten only to distract
and abuse the weaker judgments of scholars, and to maintain the trade
and mystery of typographers.

Again, I believe that all that use sorceries, incantations, and spells
are not witches, or, as we term them, magicians. I conceive there is a
traditional magic not learned immediately from the Devil, but at second
hand from his scholars, who, having once the secret betrayed, are able,
and do empirically practice without his advice, they both proceeding
upon the principles