_A._ I understand you. For he that hath the hands of the men, has also the use both of their swords and strength. _B._ The empire thus divided into spiritual and temporal, the freedom of philosophy was to the power spiritual very dangerous. And for that cause it behoved the Pope to get schools set up not only for divinity, but also for other sciences, especially for natural philosophy. Which when by the power of the Emperor he had effected, out of the mixture of Aristotle’s metaphysics with the Scripture, there arose a new science called School-divinity; which has been the principal learning of these western parts from the time of Charlemagne till of very late. _A._ But I find not in any of the writings of the Schoolmen in what manner, from the causes they assign, the effect is naturally and necessarily produced. _B._ You must not wonder at that. For you enquire not so much, when you see a change of anything, what may be said to be the cause of it, as how the same is generated; which generation is the entire progress of nature from the efficient cause to the effect produced. Which is always a hard question, and for the most part impossible for a man to answer to. For the alterations of the things we perceive by our five senses are made by the motion of bodies, for the most part, either for distance, smallness, or transparence, invisible. _A._ But what need had they then to assign any cause at all, seeing that they could not show the effect was to follow from it? _B._ The Schools, as I said, were erected by the Pope and Emperor, but directed by the Pope only, to answer and confute the heresies of the philosophers. Would you have them then betray their profession and authority, that is to say, their livelihood, by confessing their ignorance? Or rather uphold the same, by putting for causes, strange and unintelligible words; which might serve well enough not only to satisfy the people whom they relied on, but also to trouble the philosophers themselves to find a fault in. _A._ Seeing you say that alteration is wrought by the motion of bodies, pray tell me first what I am to understand by the word body. _B._ It is a hard question, though most men think they can easily answer it, as that it is whatsoever they can see, feel, or take notice of by their senses. But if you will know indeed what is body, we must enquire first what there is that is not body. You have seen, I suppose, the effects of glasses, how they multiply and magnify the object of our sight; as when a glass of a certain figure will make a counter or a shilling seem twenty, though you be well assured there is but one. And if you set a mark upon it, you will find the mark upon them all. The counter is certainly one of those things we call bodies: are not the others so too? _A._ No, without doubt. For looking through a glass cannot make them really more than they are. _B._ What then be they but fancies, so many fancies of one and the same thing in several places?