the
rational
soul), 'whether it be
fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates,'
&c.
fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates,'
&c.
John Donne
13, _de moribus divinis_, cap.
24) will have this locall
hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and
brimstone; because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically
multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand
millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square); which
will abundantly suffice, '_cum certum sit, inquit, facta subductione,
non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum_. ' Burton, _Anat. of
Melancholy_, _ut sup. _ Eschatology was the 'dismal science' of those
days and was studied with astonishing gusto and acumen. 'For as one
Author, who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the
Earth, lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid, pronounces
that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse,
(and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng, for their
bodies must be there in their dimensions, as well as their soules) so
when the Schoole-men come to measure the house in heaven (as they will
measure it, and the Master, God, and all his Attributes, and tell us
how Allmighty, and how Infinite he is) they pronounce that every soule
in that house shall have more roome to it selfe, then all this world
is. ' _Sermons_ 80. 73. 747. The reference in the margin is to Munster.
l. 311. _that Ancient, &c. _ 'Many erroneous opinions are about the
essence and originall of it' (i. e.
the rational soul), 'whether it be
fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates,'
&c. Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, Part i, Sec. 1, Mem. 2, Subsec.
9. Probably Donne has the same 'Ancient' in view. It is from Cicero
(_Tusc. Disp. _ i. 10) that we learn that Aristoxenus held the soul to
be a harmony of the body. Though a Peripatetic, Aristoxenus lived
in close communion with the latest Pythagoreans, and the doctrine is
attributed to Pythagoras as a consequence of his theory of numbers.
Simmias, the disciple of the Pythagorean Philolaus, maintains the
doctrine in Plato's _Phaedo_, and Socrates criticizes it. Aristotle
states and examines it in the _De Anima_, 407b. 30. Two classes of
thinkers, Bouillet says (Plotinus, _Fourth Ennead_, _Seventh Book_,
note), regarded the soul as a harmony, doctors as Hippocrates and
Galen, who considered it a harmony of the four elements--the hot, the
cold, the dry and the moist (as the definition of health Donne refers
to this more than once, e.
hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and
brimstone; because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically
multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand
millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square); which
will abundantly suffice, '_cum certum sit, inquit, facta subductione,
non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum_. ' Burton, _Anat. of
Melancholy_, _ut sup. _ Eschatology was the 'dismal science' of those
days and was studied with astonishing gusto and acumen. 'For as one
Author, who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the
Earth, lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid, pronounces
that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse,
(and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng, for their
bodies must be there in their dimensions, as well as their soules) so
when the Schoole-men come to measure the house in heaven (as they will
measure it, and the Master, God, and all his Attributes, and tell us
how Allmighty, and how Infinite he is) they pronounce that every soule
in that house shall have more roome to it selfe, then all this world
is. ' _Sermons_ 80. 73. 747. The reference in the margin is to Munster.
l. 311. _that Ancient, &c. _ 'Many erroneous opinions are about the
essence and originall of it' (i. e.
the rational soul), 'whether it be
fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates,'
&c. Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, Part i, Sec. 1, Mem. 2, Subsec.
9. Probably Donne has the same 'Ancient' in view. It is from Cicero
(_Tusc. Disp. _ i. 10) that we learn that Aristoxenus held the soul to
be a harmony of the body. Though a Peripatetic, Aristoxenus lived
in close communion with the latest Pythagoreans, and the doctrine is
attributed to Pythagoras as a consequence of his theory of numbers.
Simmias, the disciple of the Pythagorean Philolaus, maintains the
doctrine in Plato's _Phaedo_, and Socrates criticizes it. Aristotle
states and examines it in the _De Anima_, 407b. 30. Two classes of
thinkers, Bouillet says (Plotinus, _Fourth Ennead_, _Seventh Book_,
note), regarded the soul as a harmony, doctors as Hippocrates and
Galen, who considered it a harmony of the four elements--the hot, the
cold, the dry and the moist (as the definition of health Donne refers
to this more than once, e.
