t or cold, the formal cause is
excess or defect, the place is the blood or brain. But health is the
harmonious commixture of the elements. Diocles, that sickness for the
most part proceeds from the irregular disposition of the elements in the
body, for that makes an ill habit or constitution of it. Erasistratus,
that sickness is caused by the excess of nourishment, indigestion, and
corruptions; on the contrary, health is the moderation of the diet, and
the taking that which is convenient and sufficient for us. It is the
unanimous opinion of the Stoics that the want of heat brings old age,
for (they say) those persons in whom heat more abounds live the longer.
Asclepiades, that the Ethiopians soon grow old, and at thirty years of
age are ancient men, their bodies being excessively heated and scorched
by the sun; in Britain persons live a hundred and twenty years, on
account of the coldness of the country, and because the people keep the
fiery element within their bodies; the bodies of the Ethiopians are more
fine and thin, because they are relaxed by the sun's heat, while
they who live in northern countries are condensed and robust, and by
consequence are more long lived.

END OF THREE---------

ABSTRACT OF A DISCOURSE SHOWING THAT THE STOICS SPEAK GREATER
IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.

Pinder's Caeneus hath been taken to task by several, for being
improbably feigned, impenetrable by steel and impassible in his body,
and so

Descending, into hell without a wound.
And with sound foot parting in two the ground.

But the Stoics' Lapithes, as if they had carved him out of the
very adamantine matter of impassibility itself, though he is not
invulnerable, nor exempt from either sickness or pain, yet remains
fearless, regretless, invincible, and unconstrainable in the midst of
wounds, dolors, and torments, and in the very subversions of the
walls of his native city, and other such like great calamities. Again,
Pindar's Caeneus is not wounded when struck; but the Stoics' wise man
is not detained when shut up in a prison, suffers no compulsion by being
thrown down a precipice, is not tortured when on the rack, takes no hurt
by being maimed, and when he catches a fall in wrestling he is still
unconquered; when he is encompassed with a vampire, he is not besieged;
and when sold by his enemies, he is still not made a prisoner. The
wonderful man is like to those ships that have inscribed upon them A
PROSPER