[Sidenote: The necessitie of the Mathematicall colledge.]
2. As for the _Mathematicalles_, they had the place before the toungues were taught, which though they be now some necessarie helpes, bycause we vse forreine language for conueaunce of knowledge: yet they push vs one degree further of from knowledge. That the _Mathematicalles_ had the place, and were proposed still to children, he that hath read any thing in Philosophie cannot be ignorant. _Plato_ is full of it, and termeth them commonly the _childrens entrance_, but cheifly in the seuenth booke of his common weale. So is his scholer though long after his death _Philo_ the _Iewe_ (whom euen his countrieman _Iosephus_, a man somewhat parciall in praising other, yet calleth a singular man for eloquence and wisedome, speaking of his embassage to _Caius_ the Emperour) but specially in that treatise, which he maketh of the foretraine, for so I turne _Platoes_ προπαιδεία, and _Philoes_ προπαίδευμα.[71] There he deuiseth, as he is a perpetuall allegoriser, _Sara_ to be the _image_ of _Diuinitie_, and _Agar_ the figure of all other handmaiden sciences, wherein he wisheth a young man to deale very long, or he venture vpon _Sara_, which will not be fertil but in late, and ripe yeares. He construeth both in that place, and in _Moses_ his life also, those wordes of the bringing vp of _Moses_ in all the doctrine of the _Ægyptians_, to be meant in the _Mathematicalles_, which was the traine of that time, and the brood of that soile, or there about. And to saye the trueth let any man marke the course of all auncient learning, and he shall finde, that it could not be possibly otherwise, but that the _Mathematicall_ was their rudiment, though no historie, no describer of common weale, no setter forth of Philosophers life, no Philosopher himselfe had tolde it vs? Is not _Aristotles_ first booke of all in course of his teaching, his _Organum_, which conteineth his whole _Logicke_? and in his proofes for the piking out of his _syllogismes_ doth he not bewraie, wherin he was brought vp? I vse _Aristotle_ alone for example, bycause our studentes be best acquainted with him: whom yet they cannot vnderstand without these helpes, as one _Brauardine_ espied well, though not he alone, who tooke the paines to gather out of _Euclide_ two bookes purposely for the vnderstanding of _Aristotle_. Can his bookes of Demonstration, the _Analytica prosteriora_ be vnderstood without this helpe? His whole treatise of Motion wheresoeuer, commonly fetcht from the verie forme of the thing moued: His confutation of others by the nature of Motion, and site: His _Mathematicall_ discriptions in many places: His naturall _Theoremes_ echwhere can they be conceiued, much lesse vnderstood by any ignorant in this pointe? Wherin _Aristotle_ sheweth vs his owne education, to whom he commendeth the like, if we like of him, whose liking will not fall, though fooles oftimes shake it. It were to infinite to vse proofes in so generall, and so knowne a case, which the whole antiquitie still allowed of, and the famous _Athenian_ common weale vsed euen then, when she had the great brood of the most excellent persons, for her ordinary traine to her youth as _Socrates_ still alledgeth in _Plato_: or rather _Plato_ fathering the speach vpon _Socrates_ sayth so himselfe. _Aristippus_ after his shipwrake found releise thorough that train, and encoraged his companions vpon sight of Geometricall figures in the sande. He that will iudge of these sciences in generall, what degree they haue in the course of learning, and wherin they be profitable to all other studies whatsoever, let him read but either _Proclus_ his foure bookes vpon _Euclides_ first in Greeke, or bycause the greeke is ill, and corruptly printed: _Io. Barocius_, a young gentleman of _Venice_ which hath turned them into Latin, and corrected the copie. Though many haue delt in the argument they be but secondarie to _Proclus_. For he handleth euery question that either makes for them, or against them cheifly in his first booke. It were to much for me to stand vpon enumeration of testimonies in this place, that the auncient schoole did begin at the _Mathematicall_ after the first _Elementarie_, while they minded sound learning in deede, and sequestred their thoughtes from other dealinges in the world. He that marketh but the ordinary metaphores in the eloquentest Greeke writers of that time, whence we prescribe, shall easily bewray, where in the auncient discipline trauelled. To alledge the _Romain_ for learning is to alledge nothing, whose cunning _Virgile_[72] describeth to lye in gouernement, and conquests, remitting other faculties to other people.