CHAP. V.
Let us, therefore, now discuss another species of doubts, the cause of which is occult, and which, as you say, is accompanied with “violent threats.” But it is variously divided about the multitude of threats. “For it threatens either to burst the heavens, or to unfold the secrets of Isis, or to point out the arcanum in the adytum,[[119]] or to stop Baris, or to scatter the members of Osiris to Typhon, or to do something else of the like kind.” Men do not, however, as you think, threaten by such words as these the sun or the moon, or any of the celestial Gods; for if they did, more dire absurdities would ensue than those which you lament. But, as we before observed, there is a certain genus of powers in the world which is partible, inconsiderate, and most irrational, and which receives reason from another, and is obedient to it; neither itself employing a proper intelligence, nor distinguishing what is true and false, or what is possible or impossible. A genus, therefore, of this kind, when threatenings are extended, is immediately coexcited and astonished, because, as it appears to me, it is naturally adapted to be led by representations, and to allure other things, through an astounded and unstable phantasy.