philosophy
than Anaximander; for he says that fish and men were not produced in the
same substances, but that men were first produced in fishes, and, when
they were grown up and able to help themselves, were thrown out, and so
lived upon the land. Therefore, as the fire devours its parents, that
is, the matter out of which it was first kindled, so Anaximander,
asserting that fish were our common parents, condemneth our feeding on
them.

QUESTION IX. WHETHER THERE CAN BE NEW DISEASES, AND HOW CAUSED.

PHILO, DIOGENIANUS, PLUTARCH.

Philo the physician stoutly affirmed that the elephantiasis was a
disease but lately known; since none of the ancient physicians speak one
word of it, though they oftentimes enlarge upon little, frivolous
and obscure trifles. And I, to confirm it, cited Athenodorus the
philosopher, who in his first book of Epidemical Diseases says, that not
only that disease, but also the hydrophobia or water-dread (occasioned
by the biting of a mad dog), were first discovered in the time of
Asclepiades. At this the whole company were amazed, thinking it very
strange that such diseases should begin then, and yet as strange that
they should not be taken notice of in so long a time; yet most of them
leaned to this last opinion, as being most agreeable to man, not in the
least daring to imagine that Nature affected novelties, or would in the
body of man, as in a city, create new disturbances and tumults.

And Diogenianus added, that even the passions and diseases of the
mind go on in the same old road that formerly they did; and yet the
viciousness of our inclination is exceedingly prone to variety, and our
mind is mistress of itself, and can, if it please, easily change and
alter. Yet all her inordinate motions have some sort of order, and the
soul hath bounds to her passions, as the sea to her overflowings. And
there is no sort of vice now among us which was not practised by the
ancients. There are a thousand differences of appetites and various
motions of fear; the schemes of grief and pleasure are innumerable.

Yet are not they of late or now produced,
And none can tell from whence they first arose.
(Sophocles, "Antigone," 456.)

How then should the body be subject to new diseases, since it hath not,
like the soul, the principle of its own alteration in itself, but by
common causes is joined to Nature, and receives a temperature whose
infinite variety of alterations is confined to c