III. Idearia by the banishment of her rival, now becoming triumphant, entertained thoughts of establishing an absolute and despotic sway over her disciples; and to accomplish this purpose, she published an edict, by which every one was required not to believe in future, aught he should see with his eyes, or touch with his hands, but only to credit such things as she should be pleased to order him to believe; requiring further, that he should look upon it as an indispensable obligation, always to defend with invincible obstinacy and unremitting vociferation her doctrines, against whoever should presume to contradict them. All heads bowed obedient to this tyrannic decree, and people began firmly to believe many maxims, which before they had found a difficulty in assenting to; such for example, as that the truth can never be found out or ascertained but by means of fiction; that there is a mode of coming at the knowledge of things, which may be taught to a child in four days; that mankind are all alike, which is a rule that will hold good with respect to every other species, and if you know what one of a sort is, you know what they all are; that insensible and inanimate things, have their desires, their prejudices, and their affections, the same as animate ones; that that body, which is the most brilliant, and most heating of any, has nothing igneous in its composition; and that on the other hand, there is another very large body, which is purely igneous, that is neither luminous, nor heating, nor does it stand in need of any pabulum to sustain it; that all living creatures have a large portion of fire in their composition, without excepting even the fish, although they are always in or under the water, nor the turtle, whose blood is positively cold.