accounts but in Scripture; for the second, we must consult the ancient poets, such as Hesiod, Homer, or those who wrote still earlier, and then again come back to Ovid, who, in his Metamorphoses, seems, in imitation perhaps of some ancient Greek poet, to have intended a complete collection, or a kind of continued and connected history of the fabulous age, especially with regard to changes, revolutions, or transformations.
THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. A SERIES OF MYTHOLOGICAL FABLES.
Cicero, Epistle to Atticus, 5.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, b. ii.
This refers to the confused mixture of things, as sung by Virgil:— “Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta Semina terrarumque animæque marisque fuissent; Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis.”— Ecl. vi. 81.
This is always supposed to be the case in vision, the mathematical demonstrations in optics proceeding invariably upon the assumption of this phenomenon.