And in the third of Saint _James_, _Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth_; yea one onely small sparkle of fire, would press in the twinckling of an eye, all the immense hollow of the Universe, if it were filled with Gun-powder or Napthe and presently after will vanish away. So that of all bodies, there is nothing that doth approach nearer to the soule then fire, said _Plotin_. And _Aristotle_ in his fourth booke of _Metaphysickes_, sets downe, that even to his time the most part of Philosophers had not well knowne fire, nor yet Aire to bee perceivable to our sight and feeling. But men may say the same, that neither _Aristotle_, nor other Grecians of his time knew so well the fire and its effects, at least wise not so exactly as did (so long while after) the _Arabians_, by _Alchymie_, on which all the knowledge of fire dependeth. The _Ægyptians_ said, that it was a ravishing and insatiable Animal, that devoures that which taketh birth and increase, and at last it selfe; after it is therewith well fedde and gorged: when there is no more to feed or nourish it; for that having heat and motion, he cannot passe from food and aire to breath therein; if for want hereof, it remaines at last extinct, with that wherewith it was fed: All things proper to animate substances, and which have life, for life is ever accompanied with heat and motion, which proceeds from heate, rather then heate from motion; although they be reciprocalls, for one cannot be without the other. But _Suidas_ thereupon formed such a contradiction, that not onely animals, but all that which take nourishment and encrease, tend to a certaine butt, whither being come, it stayes without passing any further, where neither nourishment nor increase of fire are limited nor determined; for the more is administred, so much the more it would have, and grow every day greater: for neither the one nor the other can be limited, as do these animals. Then by consequent it must not be put in their ranke; So that the motion of fire should rather be called generation, then nourishment or growth; for there is but that one element, that nourisheth and increaseth it. In the others, that which superabounds therein is by apposition, as if you would joine water to water, or earth to earth; you shall never do the same to fire, to thinke to make it greater by joining thereunto other fire, but by the apposition of matter, upon which it may bite and exercise its action, as wood and other like things, which perforce must turne into its nature, and so it augments it selfe. The Poeticall fictions relate that _Prometheus_ went into Heaven to steale it to accommodate mortals; for which he was so grievously punished by the Gods, as to remaine 30. yeares bound to a Rocke in Mount _Caucasus_, where a Vulter dayly eate up his entrails which did grow againe in course. But it is to bee beleeved that the Gods that are so watchfull, and so affectionate towards mankinde,