titude: that numerous piece of monstrosity which,
taken asunder, seem men and the reasonable creatures of God, but
confused together, make but one great beast and a monstrosity more
prodigious than Hydra: it is no breach of charity to call these fools;
it is the style all holy writers have afforded them, set down by
Solomon in canonical Scripture, and a point of our faith to believe
so. Neither in the name of multitude do I only include the base and
minor sort of people: there is a rabble even amongst the gentry, a
sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as
these; men in the same level with mechanics, tho their fortunes do
somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound for their
follies.

II

NOTHING STRICTLY IMMORTAL[71]

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with
memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember
our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short
smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us
or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce
callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which
notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to
come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature,
whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and, our
delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows
are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions.

A great part of antiquity contented their hopes of subsistency with a
transmigration of their souls--a good way to continue their memories,
while having the advantage of plural successions, they could not but
act something remarkable in such variety of beings, and enjoying the
fame of their passed selves, make accumulation of glory unto their
last durations. Others, rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night
of nothing, were content to recede into the common being, and make one
particle of the public soul all things, which was no more than to
return into their unknown and divine original again. Egyptian
ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet
consistencies, to attend the return of their souls. But all was
vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. The Egyptian mummies, which
Cambyses[72] or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is
become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams.