no more to do with it. Another cause succeedeth, and undertakes
the work, and in time brings a child (that wonderful effect from
such a beginning!) to perfection. Again, man lets food down through
his throat; and that once down, he hath no more to do with it.
Another cause succeedeth and distributeth this food into the senses,
and the affections: into life, and into strength; and doth with it
those other many and marvellous things, that belong unto man.
These things therefore that are so secretly and invisibly wrought
and brought to pass, thou must use to behold and contemplate; and not
the things themselves only, but the power also by which they are effected;
that thou mayst behold it, though not with the eyes of the body,
yet as plainly and visibly as thou canst see and discern the outward
efficient cause of the depression and elevation of anything.
XXVII. Ever to mind and consider with thyself; how all things that
now are, have been heretofore much after the same sort, and after the same
fashion that now they are: and so to think of those things which shall
be hereafter also. Moreover, whole dramata, and uniform scenes,
or scenes that comprehend the lives and actions of men of one calling
and profession, as many as either in thine own experience thou hast known,
or by reading of ancient histories; (as the whole court of Adrianus,
the whole court of Antoninus Pius, the whole court of Philippus,
that of Alexander, that of Croesus): to set them all before thine eyes.
For thou shalt find that they are all but after one sort and fashion:
only that the actors were others.