Nor are they only extolled from Arbitrary and Poetical grounds, but from foundations and principles, false or dubious. That Women are menstruant, and Men pubescent at the year of twice seven is accounted a punctual truth; which period nevertheless we dare not precisely determine, as having observed a variation and latitude in most, agreeable unto the heat of clime or temper; Men arising variously unto virility, according to the activity of causes that promote it. _Sanguis menstruosus ad diem, ut plurimum, septimum durat_, saith _Philo_. Which notwithstanding is repugnant unto experience, and the doctrine of _Hippocrates_, who in his book, _de diæta_, plainly affirmeth, it is thus but with few women, and only such as abound with pituitous and watery humours. It is further conceived to receive addition, in that there are 7 heads of _Nyle_, but we have made manifest elsewhere, that by the description of Geographers, they have been sometime more, and are at present fewer. In that there were 7 Wise men of _Greece_, which though generally received, yet having enquired into the verity thereof we cannot so readily determine it, for in the life of _Thales_, who was accounted in that number, _Diogenes Laertius_ plainly saith, _Magna de eorum numero discordia est_; some holding but four, some ten, others twelve, and none agreeth in their names, though according in their number. In that there are just 7 Planets or errant Stars in the lower orbs of Heaven, but it is now demonstrable unto sense, that there are many more; as _Galileo_[SN: Nuncius Sydereus.] hath declared, that is, two more in the orb of Saturn, and no less then four more in the sphere of Jupiter. And the like may be said of the _Pleiades_ or 7 Stars, which are also introduced to magnifie this number, for whereas scarce discerning six, we account them 7, by his relation, there are no less then fourty. That the Heavens are encompassed with 7 Circles, is also the allegation of _Philo_; which are in his account, the Arctick, Antarctick, the Summer and Winter Tropicks, the Æquator, Zodiack, and the Milky circle; whereas by Astronomers they are received in greater number. For though we leave out the Lacteous circle (which _Aratus_, _Geminus_, and _Proclus_, out of him hath numbred among the rest) yet are there more by four then _Philo_ mentions; that is, the Horizon, Meridian and both the Colures; circles very considerable, and generally delivered, not only by _Ptolomie_, and the Astronomers since his time, but such as flourished long before, as _Hipparchus_ and _Eudoxus_. So that for ought I know, if it make for our purpose, or advance the theme in hand, with equal liberty, we may affirm there were 7 Sybils, or but 7 signs in the Zodiack circle of Heaven.