is broken into bodies of similar configuration,
and these are rolled up and down with the fragments of the voice; as it
is proverbially said, One daw lights with another, or, God always brings
like to like. Thus we see upon the seashore, that stones like to one
another are found in the same place, in one place the long-shaped, in
another the round are seen. So in sieves, things of the same form meet
together, but those that are different are divided; as pulse and beans
falling from the same sieve are separated one from another. To this it
may be objected: How can some fragments of air fill a theatre in which
there is an infinite company of persons. The Stoics, that the air is not
composed of small fragments, but is a continued body and nowhere admits
a vacuum; and being struck with the air, it is infinitely moved in waves
and in right circles, until it fill that air which surrounds it; as we
see in a fish-pool which we smite by a falling stone cast upon it; yet
the air is moved spherically, the water orbicularly. Anaxagoras says a
voice is then formed when upon a solid air the breath is incident, which
being repercussed is carried to the ears; after the same manner the echo
is produced.

CHAPTER XX. WHETHER THE VOICE IS INCORPOREAL. WHAT IS IT THAT THE GIVES
ECHO?

Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle declare that the voice is incorporeal;
for it is not the air that causes the voice, but the figure which
compasseth the air and its superficies having received a stroke, give
the voice. But every superficies of itself is incorporeal. It is true
that it move with the body but itself it hath no body; as we observe in
a staff that is bended, the matter only admits of an inflection, while
the superficies doth not. According to the Stoics a voice is corporeal
since everything that is an agent or operates is a body; a voice acts
and operates, for we hear it and are sensible of it; for it falls and
makes an impression on the ear, as a seal of a ring gives its similitude
upon the wax. Besides, everything that creates a delight or injury is
a body; harmonious music affects with delight, but discord is tiresome.
And everything that moved is a body; and the voice moves, and having its
illapse upon smooth places is reflected, as when a ball is cast against
a wall it rebounds. A voice spoken in the Egyptian pyramids is so
broken, that it gives four or five echoes.

CHAPTER XXI. BY WHAT MEANS THE SOUL IS SENSIBLE, AND WHAT IS THE