ed; from those
vapors clouds are compacted, and these are forcibly driven by the
Etesian winds into the southern parts and into Egypt, from whence
violent showers are poured; and by this means the fens of Egypt are
filled with water, and the river Nile hath its inundation. Herodotus the
historian, that the waters of the Nile receive from their fountain an
equal portion of water in winter and in summer; but in winter the water
appears less, because the sun, making its approach nearer to Egypt,
draws up the rivers of that country into exhalation. Ephorus the
historiographer, that in summer all Egypt seems to be melted and sweats
itself into water, to which the thin and sandy soils of Arabia and Lybia
contribute. Eudoxus relates that the Egyptian priests affirm that, when
it is summer to us who dwell under the northern tropic, it is winter
with them that inhabit under the southern tropic; by this means there is
a various contrariety and opposition of the seasons in the year, which
cause such showers to fall as make the water to overflow the banks of
the Nile and diffuse itself throughout all Egypt.

CHAPTER II. OF THE SOUL.

Thales first pronounced that the soul is that being which is in a
perpetual motion, or that whose motion proceeds from itself. Pythagoras,
that it is a number moving itself; he takes a number to be the same
thing with a mind. Plato, that it is an intellectual substance moving
itself, and that motion is in a numerical harmony. Aristotle, that it is
the first actuality [Greek ommitted] of a natural organical body which
has life potentially; and this actuality must be understood to be the
same thing with energy or operation. Dicaearchus, that it is the
harmony of the four elements. Asclepiades the physician, that it is the
concurrent exercitation of the senses.

CHAPTER III. WHETHER THE SOUL BE A BODY, AND WHAT IS THE NATURE AND
ESSENCE OF IT.

All those named by me do affirm that the soul itself is incorporeal, and
by its own nature is in a motion, and in its own self is an intelligent
substance, and the living actuality of a natural organical body. The
followers of Anaxagoras, that it is airy and a body. The Stoics, that
it is a hot exhalation. Democritus, that it is a fiery composition of
things which are perceptible by reason alone, the same having their
forms spherical and without an inflaming faculty; and it is a body.
Epicurus, that it is constituted of four qualities, of a fiery qualit