TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFATORY NOTE
THESIS ABSTRACT
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FREQUENTLY USED IN TEXT OR NOTES,

CHAPTER I.
RENAISSANCE METAPHYSICS AND THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

CHAPTER II.
THE LEGEND OF JOHN DEE.

CHAPTER III.
EARLY STUDIES--PARTICULAR FIELDS OF INTEREST AND CONTEMPORARY
THOUGHT (1527-1548)
CHAPTER IV.
FROM REFORMER TO CATHOLIC: DEE'S RELIGIOUS POSITION AND
CONTEMPORARY METAPHYSICS (1548-1556)

CHAPTER V.
SCIENTIFIC LABOURS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE (1556-1558)

CHAPTER VI.
NUMBERS--LOGISTICAL, FORMAL AND APPLIED. (THE GROUND OF ARTES--THE
MONAS--ALCHEMY; 1558-1564)

CHAPTER VII.
THE MORTLAKE CIRCLE AND ELIZABETHAN ENDEAVOUR (1564-1583).

CHAPTER VIII.
GREAT AFFAIRS, CELESTIAL AND POLITICAL (1573-1583)

CHAPTER IX.
THE SPIRITUAL CONFERENCES (1581-1589).

CHAPTER X.
THE LAST YEARS (1589-1608).

PREFATORY NOTE

The purpose of the present study is to explore the thought of John Dee, his
general theories and particular achievements, in so far as these can be
reconstructed from all available evidence, and to examine these in their
contemporary intellectual setting, in relation to the current controversies of his
day, and the standards of knowledge then prevailing. The justification for so
detailed an autopsy is, briefly, the plea that Dee may properly be considered a
typical, though outstanding, example and exponent of sixteenth century English
scientific neo-Platonism - a movement which made a significant, if somewhat
neglected, contribution to later and more generally appreciated development in
science and philosophy. The basic assumptions of this study (set out in Ch. I.)
are similar to those of Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical
Science: in particular, the position it aims to explode is that conveniently
summarized in the following extract from a 19th century account of Dee - I
select this passage, which incidentally represents one of the most determinedly
fairminded, serious and sympathetic estimates of that period, since it concisely
and explicitly summarises a view which, in various guises, is still probably the
prevalent one of Dee, and also, of course, of many of his contemporaries:

"Few names occur in the early history of English science more deserving of
notice than that of John Dee. Living in an age when philosophy was encumbered
with a load of scholastic subtleties, and perverted in its very spirit by superstition
and credulity, he evinced a strength and vigour of intellect which were sufficient
for everything but to overcome the temptations peculiar to the period in which
he laboured. Had he lived posterior to Bacon, and possessed the light which the
inductive system would have afforded him, the happiest results might, in all
probability, have crowned the almost gigantic energy with which he pursued the
sciences. But an ardent temperament led him to espouse the wildest theories
that were afloat in his age, and the little solid reputation he has enjoyed with
posterity is owing, not to the value of his works, but to the records which remain
of his wonderful assiduity and acquirements."(1)

There has been increasing recognition of the value of Dee's work in recent years,
and examinations of certain parts of it - more notably of his geographical and
astronomical labours - have appeared. However, no overall survey and
assessment of his activities, no investigation of the fundamental characteristics
of his thought has yet been made. Consequently, although full acknowledgments
are contained in the notes to the various sections of my extensive debts to
preceding writers, since nearly all that concerns Dee's own work results from an
original study of it, and the discussions of more general topics connected with
this usually are based on a fresh survey of the original sources - principally such
as were suggested by this study of Dee's own writings - any brief indication or
sharp delimitation of what can justly be claimed as more entirely original in the
present work is difficult, if not impossible to make.

The form of this study probably requires a work of explanation; that is the
division of chapters according to temporal periods in Dee's life, with biographical
sections preceding the discussion of more general topics - though further
personal detail is sometimes interwoven with the presentation of the latter.
These divisions correspond conveniently, though rather broadly, with deeper
more truly organic divisions of the theme into related sections dealing with
theoretical subject matter of more purely intellectual, impersonal significance.
The detailed analyses preceding the various chapters are designed to make this
readily apparent. These superficially chronologically determined sections,
moreover, connect with one another in the sense that a general discussion of a
topic precedes subsequent detailed examination of the specific treatments of it
by Dee; for instance, the analysis of Dee's attitude towards astrology and the
account of its place in 16th century controversy, on the occasion of Dee's initial
interest in it, and of Dee's astronomical and mathematical views in Ch. III leads
on to the examination and evaluation of his attempt to sketch an "astrological,"
though nevertheless "mechanical," cosmology in Ch. V; or again, even the
necessarily somewhat fragmentary and outwardly purely historical data
concerning his later years in Ch. X, will, it is hoped, appear of no more than
personal interest when viewed in relation to the intellectual context of Dee's
personality presented in previous chapters.

The present form however is partly also a result of the fact that this study was
originally designed to include a second part which would analyse the contents of
the Preface Dee provides for the English Euclid of 1570, trace out its influence in
its own time and through the succeeding century, and exhibit the chief sources
which contributed to its making. The bulk of this "introductory survey" however
soon made it apparent that this enterprise would have to form a separate and
subsequent work. But though the present study cannot therefore pretend to be
an exhaustive presentation of the material that has been accumulated
concerning Dee's work and its influence, it is none the less complete in itself and
remains a necessary preliminary to any just appreciation of Dee's scientific
importance, even though this should be considered restricted to his Euclid
Preface. The present study indeed treats serially and discursively much the same
themes as an examination of the Preface would survey more synthetically and
synoptically, and though the Preface itself, as a separate work of Dee's, receives
only brief and comparatively superficial notice here, yet its contents have been
used throughout, as will be evident from the text, as a standard for determining
relative emphases and as providing coordinates for the presentation of various
subjects discussed. The scientific and mathematical importance of Dee's Euclid
Preface has never been disputed, the apparent modernity of many of its
pronouncements - on experimental method or logical rigour in mathematical
procedure - have evoked many appreciations. At the same time its whole
metaphysical basis - its neo-Platonic epistemology and ontology, its thorough-
going idealism - which is clearly apparent in its text has received little attention:
it has been valued for its obviously fruitful consequences but not historically
examined, that is exhibited in relation to the characteristics of a period and to
the intellectual tendencies of a personality that combined, actually to produce it.
To do this is the aim of the present study; its desirability and justification is, in
I.A. Richard's phrase, that a profitable discussion of any opinion is not possible
"until we have discovered what it expresses as well as what it states." Especially
is this true in the case of Dee's Euclid Preface, since this was, for all its
contemporary and subsequent importance, designedly a popularisation of Dee's
thought, intended to serve as an introduction to mathematics and particularly
addressed to those classes who most needed this science in their daily
occupations and were yet devoid of school-learning or any knowledge of Latin,
the conventional language of learned communication; the origins of the Preface,
its significance as Dee envisaged it, are thus only to be discovered by an
examination of his more general and fundamental theories and other
endeavours, which forms the subject of the present study.

Finally, mere biography, it will be obvious, is a wholly secondary consideration in

the present work. However, new biographical materials - such for instance as do
not appear in Miss C.F. Smith's Life, but remain scattered, unknown, or not easily
accessible - have been fairly fully recorded, usually in the notes. Otherwise the
guiding criteria in the selection of such details have been the necessity for
continuity of narrative and the desirability of including such incidents as either
possessed some intrinsic interest or threw additional direct light on Dee's work or
on his personality in so far as this materially affected his intellectual productions.
An attempt has been made for the first time, though, to provide complete
references to authorities in support of all biographical statements, while the
bibliography, with certain exceptions detailed in the preliminary notes, includes a
full list of all discoverable works making any significant reference to Dee as an
individual.

In conclusion I must express my deep and abiding gratitude to those many

persons who have at various times assisted me in this work - who have gone to
personal trouble to facilitate my investigations or who have placed their own
accumulated relevant information freely at my disposal such as Dr. J.J. Keevil,
Librarian of the Royal College of Physicians, and Sir. T.D. Kendrick, Director of
the British Museum - but whom it would be impractical to catalogue in detail and
from among whom it would be invidious merely to mention a few. In particular I
must express my thanks to my supervisors: to Miss. F.A. Yates of the Warburg
Institute for her constant patience, encouragement, and criticisms during the
past four years, and to Dr. R.L. Saw of Birkbeck College, for much valuable
advice after painstakingly deciphering none too legible versions of this study. I
owe a great debt also to the Warburg Institute which appointed me to a
fellowship to enable me to produce this work. My thanks are due to all my
former colleagues there for their unflagging interest in John Dee, and stimulating
criticism and assistance, and also to Dr. D.P. Walker for so carefully reading and
correcting the various drafts of this study and for many valuable discussions.

THESIS ABSTRACT

The present work is the first reasonably complete and large-scale survey of the
speculations and achievements of the most eminent man of science of
Elizabethan England. It is based on a study of all Dee's traceable printed works
and surviving manuscripts. Though biography has been throughout only a
secondary consideration, new materials discovered during the investigation -
information hitherto unknown, neglected, or generally inaccessible - has usually
been fairly fully incorporated, while an attempt has been made, for the first time,
to provide full and detailed reference and documentation for the sources of all
establishable facts concerning Dee cited here, and the bibliographies contain
what it is believed is a fairly comprehensive catalogue of such works as make
any significant mention of him. The general theme and purpose is to locate Dee
within a sixteenth century current of scientifically orientated "neo-Platonism," the
distinguishing characteristics of which are discussed in an introductory chapter
(and which, it is argued, made important contributions to the development of
scientific theory and practice), to exhibit him as a thoroughly representative
though outstanding champion of such mathematical idealism in this age, and to
reveal a unity in outlook, aims and methods informing the apparent wide variety
of his multifarious endeavours, by tracing their organic connections with his
central philosophical position. Major fields in which his attentions were especially
engaged - mathematics, cabalism, astronomy, astrology, "alchemy," "natural
magic," etc. - are considered in a framework of prevailing contemporary opinions
and controversy, and Dee's particular theories and investigations regarding
these, in relation to the fundamental metaphysical principles he embraced. The
sources, specific contents, character and influence of his various writings are
examined in detail, though a full treatment of the Preface Dee contributed to the
English Euclid of 1570, and of the Euclid itself, in these respects, as well as an
account of its considerable importance in the Renaissance of mathematical
studies and also for more general scientific development, has had to be reserved
as the subject of a second, subsequent study, owing to the unavoidable
bulkiness of this initial survey.

Chapter I

Throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century John Dee enjoyed a
thoroughly European reputation for profound scholarship: his opinions were
widely consulted, his authority invoked in many diverse fields of speculation and
research. Yet, without minimising the value of his personal influence and
attainments, the justification for a detailed study of these must depend less on
the limited value of the accompanying attempt to assess Dee's own claims as an
original thinker or direct contributor to scientific discovery, than on the fact that
he may be significantly considered as the representative - and in some respects
the spokesman - of an age. Dee in his life and writings championed a certain
vigorous "new philosophy" which flourished in the late Renaissance(1), and
though this philosophy, or rather the particular form which it then assumed, fell
later into barren obsolescence (2) yet some of its offshoots of that time were to
bear rich, and unexpected fruit in succeeding centuries. Dee's surviving works
are perhaps only fragmentary illustrations of certain aspects of the general body
of doctrine he maintained, yet an examination of them is illuminating since,
however limited or idiosyncratic their subject matter, they exemplify a typical
approach to various problems, and they also occasionally give clear expression to
broad statements of principle, which should, Dee believed, provide a foundation
for a multitude of particular applications. In these respects, they throw some
light, if only indirectly, on much contemporary endeavour and achievement, even
in fields discussed not at all, or only incidentally, by Dee, since these may often
properly be regarded as related and comparable effects arising from a common
intellectual tradition.

The movement to which Dee contributed may be described rather broadly as

striving after a new philosophic synthesis which should fully express and relate,
as far as they could be known from the data of reason, revelation, and
experience, both the capacities of men and the processes of nature, and which
should relegate neither to a subordinate or derivative position in regard to the
other. It has a natural place, frequently acknowledged by its exponents, in the
general stream of neoplatonism, but it is more particularly associated with that
current, which embracing much of later Greek endeavour in astronomy and
mathematics, stemmed from Alexandria, notably preserving thereafter, from this
source, the characteristic emphasis on the natural powers of the Intellect to
arrive at truth, and on the value of dialectic, with the corresponding lack of
stress on the immediate importance of "ecstasy" (reflected in the Greek patristic
writers' comparative neglect of the doctrines of Original Sin and Grace), and ran
through much of the scientific thought of the Arabs; which current, by insisting
that the Cosmos was a logical and necessary unfolding of intelligible principles,
emanating from and manifesting the nature of God, gave strong support and
encouragement to the study of the natural sciences and mathematics. That other
aspect of neoplatonism - the only one of much influence in the Latin speaking
world during the middle ages, represented by the writings of the Pseudo-
Dionysius, and to some extent those of St. Augustine, which stressed, or was
inclined to value above all else, the personal mystic experience - to which all
knowledge and philosophy was considered at best, merely a propaedeutic, since
true knowledge was essentially revealed and not attained to - this aspect was of
course incorporated into the scientific neoplatonism of the Renaissance - to have
excluded it would have introduced incoherency and inconsistency into a doctrine
relying so much on the assertion of the mind's ability, owing to its relationship
with the creative thought of God, to determine a priori, at least criteria of, truth.
Nevertheless it was overshadowed in the sixteenth century by the rediscovery of,
or by the increased attention then given to, the works of later Greek Platonists -
the mathematical and metaphysical commentaries of Proclus for example, whose
writings make up one of the chief single influences on Dee's thought in general -
as well as ancient scientific writings either associated with these, or at least
having little relation with and frequently running counter to Aristotelian doctrines
- and the theological writings of the Greek Fathers, who presented a much more
explicit synthesis of Christianity and pagan philosophy, the essential harmony
between which was affirmed by Justus, Clement, Gregory and others, than any
of the Latin Fathers had been prepared to do. The form this Neoplatonism
assumed and the applications of its doctrines, in the late Renaissance, of which
Dee's work is here considered to be representative, and which were to give a
new character to the scientific, or philosophical, approach to Nature in his time,
bore fruits in fields far removed from Dee's own immediate interests; for while
his own practical achievements, in kind and in extent, remained somewhat
narrowly limited, the principles from which they sprung, and the method by
which they were developed, were widely proclaimed and accepted as possessing
universal validity throughout the "natural," "intellectual," and "spiritual" worlds,
and as providing guiding canons for practice of the various arts as well as
invention or discovery in mechanics and natural sciences.

Chapter II.

THE LEGEND OF JOHN DEE.

I. Dee's reputation in his own day - respected by scholars, voyagers, practising

craftsmen - influential patrons at court - but rumoured to be a wizard by the
populace, persistently slandered as a "conjuror."

II. The growth of legend after his death - Casaubon establishes the theory that
Dee was deluded by devils - Dee adopted by the Rosicrucians - reverenced by
"adepts" as the possessor of secret wisdom and the vehicle of a new revelation.

III. The eighteenth century - Dee as a notable instance of folly and enthusiasm -
increasing interest in him during the Gothick revival but not different in kind - a
patronising contempt still the prevailing tone of interpretations of his career.

IV. The nineteenth century - printing of the primary biographical sources - their
failure to correct picture of Dee as a mere charlatan or black magician - the large
number of such representations of him - circulation of spurious prophecy under
his name - Dee and Victorian spiritualism and popular astrology.

V. A modern revival of a more sober and scholarly interest in Dee and

appreciation of his scientific importance justifies a full scale re-examination and
revaluation.

Chapter II.(cont)

I. Before proceeding to a detailed examination of Dee's thoughts and writings, a

brief survey of the fortunes of his name through history and the various
presentations of him that have successively appeared may be of some use not
only in making evident the need for a thorough revaluation of his work, but
tracing the growth of the distortions and misunderstandings of his life and
character may serve to reveal something of the causes of the denigration to
which he has been too often and for too long unjustifiably subject. During his
lifetime Dee enjoyed a far-reaching reputation.

Abroad it was of a respectable enough character, for there his name was chiefly
current among scholars, many of whom had similar interests and inclinations to
himself, and amongst whom he built up an extensive personal acquaintance, and
though the events of his journey to Rudolph II's capital in the latter part of the
century won him a certain amount of evil notoriety, his figure in that episode was
overshadowed by that of the flamboyant Kelly, and his activities were hardly of a
remarkable singularity in the city of Prague - at that date thronged with
imposters encouraged by the credulity of the emperor, and a melting pot for all
varieties of the marvellous. In England his reputation was of a more dubious
cast. Dee gave few books to the world, though he poured out the riches of his
learning unstintingly n private conference and correspondence, and the
consequent lack of any public knowledge of the exact nature of his pursuits left
the details of his portrait, for which the extent of his personal fame had created
a demand, to be filled in by rumour, which was usually ignorant and not
infrequently also malicious.

In Dee's lifetime several bodies of opinion regarding him may be distinguished.

There was first the large circle of navigators, experimental workers, skilled
artisans, and fellow scientists who turned frequently to him for advice and
assistance, who invoked him as an authority in their writings, and looked to him
as a champion of the importance and dignity of their studies. A prominent
example is Digges who, in a little work of trigonometry applied to astronomical
questions, issued together with one of Dee's on the same subject, testifies to the
assistance he has received from Dee in his labours, and introduces Dee's
complementary work as proceeding "a charissimo meo amico & Parente altero
Mathematico D. Io. Dee," whom he lauds as "vir in omni doctrinarum genere
celeberrimus, tum in abditissimis Philosophiae mysteriis admirandus."(1) Dee had
another wide set of acquaintances, headed by Elizabeth, at the Court, and it is
perhaps not without interest that his contacts and friendships in this sphere
seem to have been made and continued without regard to the political or
personal groups and factions that divided it in his day. He was frequently
consulted before voyages of trade and exploration sponsored from there, and on
legal and state affairs, especially such as required antiquarian knowledge - as in
the establishing of the English royal titles to territorial possessions - and on
medical matters. Richard Harvey in 1583, among a list of prominent Englishmen
favouring astrology, cites "M. Dee whome hir maiestie vouchsafeth the name of
hyr Philosopher."(2) Elizabeth and his other patrons however seem largely to
have been most particularly impressed by hopes of what his unusual learning
and supposedly extraordinary powers in the ill-defined and somewhat suspect
field of "natural magic," might achieve in the search for the philosopher's stone
and other immediately beneficial marvels. It is nevertheless noteworthy that
after continual disappointment, as such dreams began to recede from the scope
of practical considerations, so that his patrons began, financially at least, to
abandon him, no charges of chicanery or conscious deception, such as have
sometimes been made subsequently and even recently (3), were ever levelled
against him. To the court Dee was to address some biographically valuable
accounts of his scientific endeavours, and if in his later years, when there had
been much ground covered, much unsuccessfully attempted or left half done, yet
little produced, these reduced themselves merely to statements of time and
energy and money laid out in the cause of learning, they still constitute, though
tantalising in their uninformative generality, a sufficiently impressive personal
record.

A third, by far the most numerous, section of opinion, regarded Dee as a

sorcerer, or suspected this to be a probability. Throughout his life he was
pursued by such rumours; they increased that vein of reserve and secretiveness
in him which had helped to give rise to them and continued to encourage them;
while at times they led to explicit false charges against him - on occasion, so
flagrant and so publicised that they were attended with much personal
inconvenience, crippling and distracting some of his activities. A somewhat
plaintive note of protest against such slanderers is seldom absent from his later
writings; and his diaries give evidence of the growth of obsessional fears about
the secret enemies that he came, in consequence, to believe surrounded him.
Genuine practising sorcerers, or aspirants to that mystery, there of course were
at the time (4) (though only rarely are they to be found making public boast for
advertisement or from self-delusion, of an association with the devil, as
apparently did the historical Faust (5)) and the popular mind was inclined to see
in what Dee innocently was - a mathematician and astronomer - only the usually
adopted outward seeming and admitted profession of the conjuror, and therefore
to regard it as indicative of an identical diabolical background. Thus Faust in the
fiction turning from divinity "named himself an astrologian and mathematician
and for a shadow sometimes a physician, and did great cures."(6) Many of those
who looked on Dee as a magician were not unsympathetic, and he complained
that he suffered as much from the indiscreet praise of credulous friends as from
the malice of his enemies (7), others hoped to gain something from what they
believed were his Black Arts (8). But the mob which burned his house at
Mortlake were not such as these, and the popular prejudice was hardly at all
mitigated by the few defences of Dee which appeared from those who knew him,
and which show him in an amiable and harmless light. Thus Nashe in 1593,
reproving the spreading of false predictions for purposes of gain or calumny, lists
some incredible reports of omens, monsters and prophecies then current, and
concludes "under Maister Dee's name, the lyke fabulous divinations have they
bruted, when (good reverend old man) hee is as farre from any such arrogant
prescience as the superstitious spreaders of it are from peace of conscience."(9)
Dee's own "apologies" seem only to have helped further to publicise the charges,
and towards the end of his career he is reported in France as having undergone
public trial for witchcraft (10).

II. In the succeeding century, though Dee's scientific fame persisted for some
time, the Preface was twice reprinted, while Selden and other jurists refer with
respect to his arguments on British territorial rights, and though he was cited by
Naude in 1615 among examples of great scholars who had formerly been falsely
accused of magic (11), legend is found already inextricably mingled with fact.
Thus a fellow of Manchester College, where Dee had been Warden, writing a
little before 1656, though he clearly had access to various manuscript works and
autobiographical material tells a curiously muddled story (12). He calls Dee "a
very learned man, and perfect maister of mathematical studies, many arts
enumerated in his preface to Euclide's Elements, were, by him, wholly invented,
by name, definition, propriety, and use, more than either the Grecian or the
Roman mathematicians have left to our knowledge": but then Kelly appears in
the guise of a "cannon of Bridlington" (as Ripley had been some centuries
before), and he and Dee find the Great Elixir together in the ruins of
Glastonbury, and other stories including that of the famous piece of a warming
pan lid they transmuted and sent to Elizabeth are seriously presented. Fuller in
1662, but apparently quite independently, peddles the same tales in a generally
inaccurate account, which however praises Dee's learning on the strength of the
"books he hath left behind him," though the only ones of these he cites are M.S.
works probably already lost and otherwise unknown at the time (13). The period
of Dee's life round which the legends clustered - that in which he was absorbed
in occult practices - since it became the more familiar part of his career,
dominated presentations of him. This distortion to cite one instance, was assisted
by Wood's Athenae Oxoniensis, in which although Dee has no separate entry,
the articles on his son Arthur, and on Kelly naturally describe in some detail his
more suspicious activities (14).

The most generally accepted picture of Dee was of one deluded by Devils. It was
a view firmly fixed by Casaubon's publication of Dee's records of his
communications with "spirits" in 1659. Hooke seems to have been alone in
charitable, but unjustified, belief that this was a cipher account of more
mundane matters, perhaps even secret political reports officially commissioned
(15). Casaubon presents Dee in his preface as a warning against "presumptuous
unlawfull wishes and desires," as one who believed himself "a zealous
worshipper of God, and a very free and sincere Christian....his only (but great
and dreadful) error being that he mistook false and lying Spirits for Angels of
Light, the Devil of Hell (as we commonly term him) for the God of Heaven." "I
am much of the opinion," Casaubon comments "that these Spirits had as great
hopes of Dr. Dee as ever they had of Bacchus or Mahomet," ("Two notable lewd
Enthusiasts") (16). Butler adoptes and popularises the same view. Sidrophel the
Conjurer

"Had read Dee's Prefaces before

The Devil and Euclid o'er and o'er,

And all th'intrigues, 'twixt him and Kelly

Lascus and th'Emperour would tell ye." (17)

Butler displayed as vigorous a contempt for any "Pythagorean" mathematics,

with all its related superstitions, mysteries, as he did for the credulity, over
confidence, random dilettantism he attributed to the experimentalists - this one
result of Ralph's erudition was that:

"He'd extract numbers out of matter

And Keep them in a glass like water," (18)

but his lack of sympathy towards this type of thought more accurately reflected a
contemporary outlook, and the increasing disfavour with which certain of the
studies Dee had particularly cultivated, were regarded. Thus though there were
still many contemporary exemplars of his generic portrait in the Characters of the
Hermetic Philosopher, the doctrines held up especially to scorn - the Cabala,
exegetical or mystical use of number, the Three Worlds - were known as special
preoccupations of Dee, and are here presented by Butler as wiles of the Devil,
leading their exponents inevitably to hell (19). Dee's first biographer, the learned
Dr. Thomas Smith, lends his authority to this, by then, orthodox interpretation of
Dee's activities; deluded by devils, and led on by pride and conceit Dee became
"famosus iste Daemonum Legatus"; he revered and no doubt believed he
practised a true Christianity "sed en obstupescendum deploratissimi ingenii et
diabolicae tyrranidis in illum exercitae specimen et exemplum...O deplorandum
stupidatem! O execrandem insaniam."(20)

The exact obverse of this presentation was adopted by a small but hereafter
historically persistent body who regarded Dee as having genuinely been
possessed of secret knowledge and esoteric wisdom, and as being, perhaps
almost the apostle of a new form of religion. In his lifetime a few individuals,
fanatics or madmen, finding the more obscure of his writings an authoritative
and conveniently ambiguous licence for their own disordered speculations, may
have so believed (21), but in the seventeenth century wider currency was given
to this misrepresentation when Dee's memory was forcibly annexed by the
Rosicrucians. A claim that by reiteration has been frequently accorded credence
(22) though without any possible foundation, for while it is not impossible
chronologically, for Dee to have been acquainted with Fludd, the earliest, most
notorious, and probably the most learned member of this sect in England, and
their cosmogonies are not wholly dissimilar, nevertheless the earliest idiomorphic
appearance of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood does not occur until 1614, some six
years after Dee's death (23). This did not prevent such adepts and connoisseurs
of the occult as Ashmole and Zieglerus, from considerably antedating its origin
and claiming Dee as an acknowledged member of the "Fraternity."(24) He is
associated with them again in the Rosicrucian publication of Roger Bacon's
Epistola de Secretis overibus artis et naturae at Hamburg in 1618, supposedly
taken from a copy possessed by Dee, and reproducing his notes on the work. A
late seventeenth or early eighteenth century work in manuscript entitled "A
treatise of Rosicrucian secrets. Their excellent secrets of making medicine of
metalls," purports to be a transcript of a manuscript owned by Dee, enriched by
many of his personal additions (25). Though Dee's son Arthur lived with him
through his later penury and mental decline, he nevertheless in his writings,
assisted by his friend Ashmole, who translated his Fasciculus Chemicus, in 1650
under the pseudonym of James Hassolle, fostered the legend of Dee as the great
hermetic philosopher possessed of more than apparently natural knowledge,
especially in alchemy and astrology, and other spheres where "occult causes"
were chiefly operative (26).

III. The eighteenth century which inherited such a picture could find little worthy
of attention in it. Pervasively controlling the culture of the age were sentiments
of fear and distaste for all varieties of "enthusiasm," in its technical religious
sense perhaps best defined as an attempt to receive the Holy Spirit otherwise
than through the channel of the established Church, but a phenomena which
might infect any sphere, threatening an ideal of unimpassional regularity by its
melancholy-engendered intensity - and it was as an "enthusiast" that Casaubon
had branded Dee. He was no longer a diabolical figure but a notable instance of
Folly, pointing ineluctably the moral, implied by the fatal ease with which
excessive spiritual pride uninstructed by, or wantonly diverging from, the
promptings of common sense, might subdue a profound but unenlightened
learning to the service of superstitions, ridiculous even by the better standards of
its own time.

A revival of interest in Dee was fostered by Hearne's publication in 1726 of John

of Glastonbury's Chronicles, to which he appended among other documents
some writings of Dee's including the Compendious Rehearsall, and proposals to
Mary for the foundation of a Library Royall (27). The new light these threw on
Dee's character, and the type of impression they could make on a mind, that had
been preserved from prejudice, by lack of acquaintance with the more
melodramatic picture offered by the usual sources, can be illustrated by Ballard's
letter to Hearne, which discusses them. Dee's summary of his own life, leads
Ballard to comment "from which account may be seen the wonderfull
variableness of Fortune, and that no dependency is to be made upon the
flattering promises of great ones; nor upon any abilities or deserts of our own,
be 'em never so extraordinary. He being a person that had made such surprising
acquisitions in several parts of learning that he was justly accounted one of the
greatest learned men of that age: and yet for all his valuable and wonderfull
partes, and the fair promises that were made him by the prime nobilitie of the
kingdome; without all which to anyones thinking, his own merits would
undoubtedly have been a patron good enough to have presented him to some
noble benefit. But to the great scandal of the English nation, he was neglected
and necessitated to the last extremity...."(28) But Casaubon's revelations still
proved too powerful in their effect to allow any reassessment on these lines to
make much headway. Typical of any age in which Dee's contribution to thought
had long since been overshadowed by the virtuosi of the Royal Society, who now
figured as the true original pioneers of science, and in which only his, by now
highly coloured adventurings in the occult were much remembered, is Kippis'
authoritative verdict in his Biographia Britannica. Dee he declares was learned
"but withal extremely credulous, extravagantly vain, and a most deluded
enthusiast." All his writings show him "to have been a man vain and conceited in
the highest degree." He "had not only a boundless curiosity, but likewise a
depraved judgment. His ambition to surpass all men in knowledge carried him, at
length, into a desire of knowing beyond the bounds of human faculties, and in
order thereto, of having recourse to methods equally contrary to the laws of
God, and to the rules of right reason."(29) In similar vein Nash, Granger and
others give him comparable accounts, Lyson wonders "whether....he was himself
the dupe of an enthusiastic imagination, or whether he availed himself of his
knowledge to dupe others in an age when all ranks were given to credulity, may
perhaps admit of a question," but confesses he is "rather inclined to the latter
opinion."(30) Continental accounts reflect similar views. Early in the century
Niceron, though confining himself largely to giving an objective, uncritically
factual, summary of Dee's life as then known, reveals his suspicions of the
"fourberie" underlying much of his conduct (31), and at its close Adelung finds in
"so ausgeseichneten Dummkopf als Dee wirklich war" a notable theme for his
Chronicles of human folly (32).

The "Gothick" revival did not assist in correcting the interpretation of Dee as an
example of Folly. For though new subject matters invaded literature and affected
"taste," the movement, at first, represented an emotional indulgence rather than
any fundamental turning aside from the clear and easy principles of rationalism
or naturalism. The new "taste" for the historical was also perhaps not
accompanied with much enlargement of the understanding, in the consideration
of the past, and is symptomatic of a shift in sentiment rather than an alteration
in intellectual standards. It conduced to making Dee better known as a magician
and alchemist - odd relics of his were sought after with some interest and Horace
Walpole proudly displayed in the collection at Strawberry Hill certain magical
objects that had supposedly once belonged to Dee (33) - but rather encouraged
than disturbed previous contemptuous general estimates of him. The consequent
judgment which was largely to persist - as the more charitable type of attitude
usually to be met with there - through the nineteenth century is well illustrated
by the account of Dee supplied by a correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine
in 1815. Dee, we are told, was "a man of uncommon application and diligence,
but had very little of that which has ever bid defiance to definition and is usually
denominated commonsense." His industry it is admitted is apparent from the
Compendious Rehearsall, but "that he was, moreover, weak and wrongheaded,
that he lived in a sort of continual childhood, and that he was all but an ideot
withal, may be easily deduced from the same source." And the final verdict
arrived at is: "He was an honest, inoffensive, and well-meaning sort of man I
dare say; and ought to rank high among that species of being termed Wisemen;
of whom every village, in the North of England at least, produces one."(34)
Similarly Godwin, although St. Leon is testimony that he was not lacking in
intelligent imagination or sympathetic insight when dealing with "Gothick"
subjects, did not contribute to Dee's rehabilitation in his sketch of him in his
commercial Lives of the Necromancers of 1834, did the sensational portrait in the
account in Roby's popular Traditions of Lancashire, circulating in the same
period, which presented Dee as "our English Faust," and even D'Israeli's widely
read Amenities of Literature of 1841, cannot be cited as an exception to the
usual treatment, for though D'Israeli displays a more amiable and tolerant spirit
in his discussion he is still obsessed by the elements of the marvellous in Dee's
career, going so far as to suggest that he may be the original of Prospero (35). It
is not surprising therefore to find Bentham dismissing Dee, as the type of thinker
who credulously and superstitiously, sunk in the fantasies of an ignorant age,
encouraged, with deplorable effects the belief in the "irregularity" of nature, by
accepting constant supernatural intervention, belief in which it was the glory of
Francis Bacon to sweep away at one stroke and for ever, thus alone making any
true science possible (36).

IV. From about the eighteen forties a more serious strain can be marked in a
reviving interest in Dee. Halliwell though somewhat isolated in this enthusiasm,
was active in bringing to light sixteenth-century scientific writings, and so in
contributing to a recognition of the value of other types of study than the
magical in which Dee had engaged; and the Chetham and Camden Societies
published various biographical sources though even Dee's editors themselves
were prepared to view his activities in a still somewhat dubious light. Thus one of
these, Sir Henry Ellis, comments: "Dr. Dee was greatly eminent as a
mathematician, but of a vain and ambitious spirit, easily tricked and himself an
occasional impostor; trying how far he could take advantage of human
credulity."(37) Nevertheless, despite an increasing amount of available and
authentic information it is still as a magician (38) though of a more debased and
popular variety even than hitherto, that Dee again becomes an object of public
interest.

No small share of the responsibility for firmly fixing such a picture, at least in the
popular mind, rests with Harrison Ainsworth's Guy Fawkes or Gunpowder
Treason of 1841 (39), in which sensational, frequently reprinted novel, Dee plays
a prominent and lurid part. Written as it was, like all Ainsworth's romances, no
matter how fantastic the superimposed plot, with a parade of historical detail,
and a background built upon a by no means contemptible documentation and
study of standard authorities, it was unfortunate that among so much that might
seem impressively authentic, its presentation of Dee was one taken over
uncritically from such writers as Sibley - one of those who still seriously
perpetuated legend, in the mistaken belief of doing service to Dee's memory,
and one who, himself an exponent of "Magic" and astrology, genuinely believed
Dee had attained peculiar powers and knowledge by his penetration into the
secrets of Hermetic wisdom (40). The novel through which Dee moves meddling
in sinister, if ambiguous fashion in great affairs of state, paralysing intruders by
sprinkling a pinch of powder on them, interrogating the dead, exhibiting the
future with diabolical accuracy in his magic mirror, on one occasion
"resuscitating" Guy Fawkes with an elixir vitae (41) was issued with engravings
by Cruikshank - in which Dee appears almost as a prototype of Fagin - vividly
depicting all these scenes. One of these indeed, a hair-raising scene of tomb
robbing and necromancy conducted by Dee and Kelly, is almost an iconographic
source for a legend that has been only too frequently seriously repeated in later
accounts of Dee (42). Ainsworth's sketch was admittedly fiction, making no
pretence of appealing to any other standards than those chosen for the occasion
by the licensed imagination of the novelist; but it is substantially the same
portrait - or rather caricature - that is thereafter reproduced in works frequently
claiming historical veracity. Dee is presented in Mackay's Memoirs of
Extraordinary Popular Delusions 1841, as driving a thriving trade in the "elixir
vitae" he had found in Glastonbury ruins with the people who flocked to Mortlake
to buy his charms, but despite profits from this source, it is observed that "being
crazy upon the subject of the philosopher's stone" he "spent so much on drugs
that he never became rich."(43) Then in 1842 an absurd doggerel prophecy
reported as being taken from "a manuscript in the British Museum," but not
further identified, its text announcing Dee to be its author, was circulated in
London, and its warnings of the disasters to occur in that year seems to have
caused considerable panic in some sections of the population - a striking
testimonial both to the reviving powers of Dee's name and general human
credulity (44). After the failure of the prediction, Blackwoods, fastening on Dee's
topicality, improved the occasion by printing a jocularly toned article about him,
which, though perhaps somewhat crudely, probably reflects the prevailing
attitude among the somewhat better educated towards him. In this Dee is
accused of irreligion, sorcery and charlatanry and described as "the greatest
rogue in the neighbourhood of London," though he is judged to be no greater
fool than everyone else in his age, for all sixteenth century science is dismissed
as devil-ridden superstition, and of contemporary scholars and philosophers in
general, it is roundly declared "The majority of them were in all probability half
mad and those who were whole mad of course set the fashion and were followed
as the shining lights of the day."(45) Significantly the anonymous writer
apparently does not question the genuineness of the circulated prophecy.

A spate of publications popularising astrology, numerology, crystal-gazing,

fortune telling, etc., accompanying the growth of literacy and popular education,
made much play with Dee's name. One miscellany of pieces to illustrate and
defend planetary and stellar influence reprints an ordinary, probably anonymous
Shepheard's Kalendar under the title "Her Majestie Elizabeth's book of Astrologie:
Prepared by her Sacred Majesty's very devoted subject and Astrologer Dr. John
Dee," "which until now remained unknown among Dr. Dee's secret papers," and
accompanies it with a number of highly coloured or mythical stories of his life
(46). The frauds perpetrated about the middle of the century on various of the
nobility by Commander J. Morrison (founder of Zadkiel's almanac) were carried
through by the aid of what was announced as being the original crystal globe, of
strange properties, which Dr. Dee had used (47). Charges of chicanery and
swindling, such as the modern exploiters of his name invited, were now made
almost invariably in accounts of Dee (48). At the same time there had never
lacked those who, like Sibley or Borrett, professed to believe in Dee's
supernatural powers, and they were reinforced in this period as a result of the
spreading cult of Spiritualism. Dickens in a lively but inaccurate article, based on
an obviously hasty reading of the True and Faithful Relation, took up the cudgels
against this fashionable craze in 1860 (all seance phenomena he put down "to
the abnormal, not supernatural, power of high nervous excitement, and to clever
conjuring") making the basis of his criticisms an examination of the angelic
conferences of "the first and cleverest spiritualists of the middle ages, Dr. John
Dee and his assistant Edward Kelly."(49)

It is small wonder that those of more intelligence or education placed little store
by Dee's memory. Dircks, a popular writer on various incidents in the history of
scientific progress especially symbolised for him by the "steam engine," passes a
judgment in 1865 far from being extreme of its kind "The Marquess of
Worcester" he declared "affords an eminent example of genius of high order,
grandly and effectively directed towards the advancement of man's political and
social condition. His contemporary (!) Dr. John Dee, the Astrologer, together with
his friend Kelly, the Alchemist, may be appropriately distinguished as
representing a class chimerically inclined and hurtful to society."(50) It is a
pleasing reflection that many of the "inventions" of Worcester - who flourished
half a century after Dee's death - are taken from works of Elizabethans of Dee's
circle, such as Bourne's Inventions and Devices and sometimes contain direct
verbal reminiscences from Dee's Preface (but for the most part, it may be noted,
they are of the same fantastic variety as figured so largely in such Renaissance
compilations as Porta's Natural Magic, and however prophetically striking are as
barren, or cryptic, as regards suggested practical realisation, as such works as
Bacon's Miracles of Art and Nature so popular in the preceding century), while
Leybourne's Cursus Mathematicus of 1690, dedicated to the Marquess of
Worcester, in introductions to its various sections often closely follows, or exactly
reproduces, occasionally with acknowledgement, passages from Dee. As a final
instance of this genre, nothing could exceed the contempt with which Dee is
treated by Cooke Taylor, under the heading of The Romance of Absurdity where
he is described as "A man who won a European reputation by writing sheer
nonsence, and bequeathed to posterity an edifying controversy to determine
whether he was an enthusiast or an imposter."(51)

V. The present century has begun to readjust the balance and superstitions, has
no longer a handsel of Dee's name and writings; though modern occultists still
attempt his annexation (52), while such judgments as Dreyers' would imply that
a large side of him at least is only worthy to be left to their plundering, for Dee
he declares, was a man "qui, cum ad disciplinas mathematicas ingenio destitutus
non esset, simul tamen theurgus erat at imposter, qui crystalli sphaeram intuens
hominum fata praesagiret (53). A generally reliable full-scale biography appeared
in 1909, though the impression it leaves is still mainly that of the deluded mystic,
and other sides of his works are neglected to make room for a full account of the
exciting, but in its surface manifestations, not over-important story of Dee, Kelly
and the Angels (54). (It was still possible for a recent biographer of Raleigh to
dismiss Dee as "the funny old man who was liable to be visited by a spiritual
creature at midnight." (55)) However, since Miss Fell Smith's biography
appeared, Dee's services to the scientific thought of his day has been slowly
receiving more attention - particularly as a result of the writings of F.R. Johnson
and E.G.R. Taylor (56). A fairer estimate than hitherto of his personality and
achievement is becoming possible, and some fuller description and assessment
of the surviving fragments of his work seems not unjustifiable.

Chapter III

EARLY STUDIES - PARTICULAR FIELDS OF INTEREST AND CONTEMPORARY

THOUGHT
(1527-1548)

I. Dee's birth - family - schooling - proceeds to Cambridge.

II. Prevailing confusion in the English universities following the Royal Injunctions
and the reformers' attempted revision of instruction - new emphasis on Greek,
Hebrew and opposition to older scholastic tradition - neglect of mathematics in
usual university instruction - increasing attention to in Cambridge at this time -
influence of Cheke and Smith and Dee's associations with them.

III. Dee's zeal to learning - becomes reader in Greek (n.15) - his mechanical
invention for Aristophanes' Peace - his early imperialism - journeys to Low
Countries - returns with astronomical instruments made by Mercator - residence
at Louvain - desire to contact continental mathematicians owing to low state of
this study in England - early formation of views that remain relatively constant
through life - early selection of special interests.

IV. Logic - lost writings on - and Aristotle (n.27) - views on logical method and
verbal logic in English Euclid - personal contacts with Ramus - popularity of
Ramism at Cambridge in Dee's time - increasing adoption of it in England
through Dee's life by his acquaintances and similar minded thinkers - Ramus and
the new science - his insistence on the importance of mathematics - his system
and endeavours to free thought from slavery to language seemed a genuine and
novel attempt to deal with problems of signification and to take into account
psychological data as regards actual processes of thought in contrast with their
formal expression in the syllogism - its connections with Dee's neo-Platonism.

V. Astrology - Dee commences astrological observations - limited extent of

subsequent practise - his caution in judicial predictions as opposed to his
enthusiasm for astrology as a key to general cosmological theory - contemporary
scientific value of astrology in this respect - interpretations of it with respect to
the hierarchy mind, spirit, matter.

VI. Few at this time reject it since astrology an apparently well-founded physical
science - the supposed empirical evidence - its connection with the doctrine of
the natural order of things derived from the scale of perfection - support from
the authority of Aristotle - and theology - and teleological interpretations of
universe founded on man - and the principle of sufficient reason.

VII. Dee's distinction between astrology and astronomy - a posteriori and a priori
method - reasons for claiming astronomy as a priori science - distinction founded
on the relative use made of mathematics by either science - consequent
attempts by Dee and others to refound astrology on an empirical basis - this
approach, not attacks of opponents, eventually discredits it - contrast of Dee's
natural astrology and the Plotinian tradition that denied causal efficacy to the
stars while encouraging attempted prediction - the defence by the natural
astrologer of prediction as equivalent to forecasts made by all other branches of
science - the reconciliation of free will and astrological causation.
VIII. Opponents of astrology usually ignorant of and hostile to contemporary
science generally - their religious motivation - their fear that astrology involves
determinism and will exclude God from the universe by explaining nature purely
mechanically - their detailed objections and the astrologer's adequate answers.

IX. Astronomy - non-utilitarian motives for its study - attacks on it by opponents

of astrology as another example of vain curiosity - Dee rejects various
Aristotelian dogmas about the Heavens to follow a Platonic account - emphasis
on astronomy in Platonism - its religious and metaphysical import - the individual
to imitate the order of the Heavens - the law and beauty of the Universe
revealed by astronomy and Renaissance neo-Platonism - the analogical extension
of symbolism of astronomy and astrology to other sciences such as alchemy.

X. Cabalah - Dee and cabalistic methods - the cabalah and philosophy, the Three
Worlds - its reputed orthodoxy and contemporary popularity - Plato accepted as
holding the Cabalistic doctrines on the nature of the word - the Cratylus and the
relations between word and thing - the doubts expressed in the Cratylus
disposed of in Renaissance by the supposition that Hebrew is the fruit of divine
revelation.

XI. Oral tradition, conventions of secrecy and Dee's view of learning - particular
cabalistic tenets that appealed to him - his interest in spiritual exegesis -
connection of cabalistic doctrines of number and the power of the word and neo-
Platonic doctrines of the activity of the rational soul - individual influences on
Dee - the supposititious work of Lull - Reuchlin's cabalistic platonism - Agrippa.

XII. Mathematics. Relation between Dee's interest in mathematics and in the

Cabalah - his ascription of objective reality and power over nature to formal
systems - available contemporary mathematical knowledge - the older
numerological approach of the quadrivium - the new algorist school -
combination of these approaches in Dee - the attempted unification of
mathematical procedures - geometry dominates this endeavour - subordination
of algebra which is not considered an independent science but a mere collection
of rules - philosophical consequences of this.

XIII. Mechanics. The application of mathematics. Dee and utility - his views on
demonstration and intuition - the rational and its empirical exemplification - the
influence of Archimedes.

XIV. Conclusion. Dee's attitude to knowledge - secrecy and an aristocracy of

learning - yet advocacy of popular education - mathematics central to his
thought - nature to be studied quantitatively - but no clear cut boundary
between the physical and the spiritual - metaphysics essential to his attempt to
prove mathematics adequated to the dignity of man's soul.
Chapter III (cont)

I. Owing to the contemporary interest in the casting of nativities we are in

possession of more exact information as to the date of Dee's birth than of many
other more important events in his life (1). It occurred at eleven minutes past
four in the afternoon of July 13th 1527 in London (2). Of his father Rowland Dee
little is known except that he was a Gentleman Sewer in the service of Henry
VIII, who owing to some unexpected misfortune, or injustice, was unable on his
death to leave his son a competence (3). Dee's mother (4), who survived into old
age would seem to have outlived her husband by many years; and Dee's house
at Mortlake was long in her name. The family seems to have been part of the
Welsh "invasion" that followed Henry VII's accession and remaining connections
in that country appear later to have been of assistance to Dee in forming his
collection of Welsh records, and other manuscripts and antiquitieshe himself is
later to be found associated with contemporary works on the Welsh language.
The family had certainly once been of some prominence and, in a genealogical
table, deriving the Tudor dynasty from the ancient British Kings, Dee claims for
himself a distant blood relationship to Elizabeth (5). He received his early
education in London and at the Chelmsford Chantry School, and proceeded-
"meteley well furnished with understanding of the Latin tongue," (6) still not
invariably the case before arrival at the Universityin November 1542 to St. John's
College, Cambridge.

II. At this time the Universities were in a state of change, comparative

disorganisation and confusion. Royal injunctions of 1535 following the execution
of Fisher, Chancellor of Cambridge, for refusal of the oath of supremacy, had
commanded changes in the curricula without however any directives as to their
implementation. Entries of students in the decade ending 1547 are the lowest
ever recorded. They hardly exceeded 30 at Cambridge, and were only 20 at
Oxford in 1545. The Injunctions had forbidden lectures on the Sentences of
Peter Lombard, and on the common law. The scriptures were to be read and all
divinity lectures were to be upon them "according to the true sense thereof and
not after the manner of Scotus." Colleges were to provide two daily public
lectures, one of Greek and one of Latin. Students in Arts were to be taught logic,
rhetoric, arithmetic, geography, music and philosophy, and to read Aristotle,
Rodolphus, Agricola, Melancthon, Trapenzuntius "and not the frivolous questions
and obscure glosses of Scotus, Burleus, Anthony Trombet, Bricot, Bruliferius
etc."(7) Some improvement in the standards of instructionwhich had declined
with the falling off in numbers among the scholars, and for other causes
produced by Henry's religious policywas projected by the establishment of the
five Regius Professors of Divinity, Civil Law, Physic, Hebrew and Greek in 1540,
which was designed to effect a transfer of the higher instruction of students from
the administratively overworked, frequently illqualified and now low fee'd regents
of the faculties to the specialist professors. Nevertheless despite such changes,
the old pattern of the trivium, and quadrivium seems still to have remained
dominant, as it had been from the twelfth and was in large to be until the end of
the sixteenth century. This had originally required four years of study from a
student on grammar, rhetoric, and logic for the degree of bachelor, followed, for
the degree of master, by three years devoted to numbers absolute (arithmetic),
numbers applied (music), magnitudes at rest (geometry) and magnitudes in
motion (astronomy). As, however, almost the only test of a student's knowledge
of the subjects of the quadrivium was his own declaration to that effect, they
seem in practice to have been left largely unread by most bachelors. Dee took
full advantage of what the University could offer in this respect, even obtaining
permission to supplement his studies, before his mastership, with a period at
Louvain, where he first made the acquaintance of a number of prominent
continental mathematicians. But there was little formal instruction of any value at
the universities in mathematics, and as a science its development proceeded
throughout the century with the assistance of the enthusiasm of individuals, or
small groups, and the growing technical and commercial demands on it. For a
long period the study of the subjects of the quadrivium had been confined to the
range of materials to be found in Boethius, Cassiodorus and Isidore. A
Renaissance had commenced in the fourteenth century when Paris University in
1330, soon followed by many other European universities, had introduced new
textbooks, such as Euclid Sacrobosco, and Witelo's optics. The revival had been
short lived; lecture lists of Bologna, Padua and Pisa in the fifteenth century show
astrology as the only mathematical subject taught. Instruction in Oxford at the
same

period was confined to Ptolemy's Astronomy and the first two books of Euclid.
Wolsey had founded a mathematical lectureship (as well as six on other
subjects) which the Bavarian Nicholas Kratzer held for a few years, but was the
first and only person to do so since the lectureship lapsed on Wolsey's fall, and
was not among those later reestablished by Henry VIII. Similarly in Cambridge, a
few years before Dee's arrival there (1535) the Barnaby lectureship on
mathematics had been suspended, so that the stipend of L4 could be diverted to
lectures on Greek and Hebrew (8). The situation in this respect, was improving
at Paris under the influence of Ramus and Finaeus, but it was to the newer
universities of Germany, that the sixteenth century mathematicians chiefly
looked as the principal academic centres for the encouragement of this study. In
England the Edwardian reforms were swept away soon after Mary's accession
(9), the readership in mathematics at Oxford, offered to Dee in 1554 (and on his
declining it the scheme seems to have been abandoned) was perhaps one of the
last vestiges of these.

However, in contract with Oxford, which showed itself much more uniformly
hostile, and resistant to contemporary changes, and where, in general,
instruction was still largely dominated by a conservative, more narrowly
philosophical bias, Cambridge emphasised rather letters and the sciences and
afforded considerably more facilities for the type of study towards which lay
Dee's particular bent. Its leaders were the spiritual successors of a generation of
English humanists and Reformers who had evolved a loose and eclectic
Platonism from many sources; men such as Grocyn, Colet, More, Linacre,
Latimer, Lily; a group who had welcomed Erasmus, and also, let it not be
forgotten, Cornelius Agrippa. Thus in the sixteenth century many whose interests
lay particularly towards mathematics are to be observed migrating from Oxford
to Cambridge; Tonstall had been one of the first of these, Recorde, who had held
an Oxford fellowship in 1531 had also done this, taking a degree in medicine at
Cambridge in 1545 (it is possible indeed that the beginning of Dee's friendship
with him dates back to the time when they were both in residence there).
Several of Dee's contemporaries at Cambridge made names in similar fields to
those he chose particularly to explore; Cunningham (whose Cosmographical
Glasse, 1559, shares its title page with Dee's Euclid) came up in 1548,
Blundeville, who was to produce the first work in English employing plane
trigonometry, may also have been there at this time, and Dee's future
collaborator Billingsley entered St. Johns in 1551, only three years after Dee's
own departure. Encouragement was given to such students by Sir Thomas
Smith, Professor of Civil Law, whom Gabriel Harvey was to declare as greater
than Ptolemy, and Sir John Cheke, Professor of Greek (who, together with
Aschamanother scholar and educational reformer with whom Dee was personally
associated (10) and who was at this time a fellow of John'sis described as
placing pagan literature next to the Bible), for Cheke tried to encourage scientific
almost equally with humanistic studies, and despite the criticism of those who
regarded these subjects as unworthy of serious attention, he "feared the blame
of a mathematical head so little in himself, and thought the profession to be so
far from any such taunt....as he betrayed in his great affection towards them
(mathematicians) most evidently in this is doing."(11) Dee probably became one
of the group of Cheke's "young men"; he owed to him his introduction to Edward
VI, and perhaps also the beginnings of his acquaintanceship with Cecil, who had
married Cheke's sister in 1541.

III. At Cambridge Dee gave himself up to study "quasi sacro voto obligatus."(12)
His own account of his assiduity is well known: "I was so vehemently bent to
studie, that for those years I did inviolably keepe this order; only to sleepe four
houres every night; to allow to meate and drink (and some refreshing after) two
houres every day; and of the other eighteen houres all (except the time of going
to and being at divine service) was spent in my studies and learning."(13) The
fervour which attends all Dee's descriptions of his zeal to learning, and the
expectations he often envisages as promised by the vast scores of information
rapidly becoming available to the age, recall the enthusiasm, expressed in
Gargantua's letter to Panta rue at Paris, written only a few years before Dee
came up to Cambridge: "Now it is that....the old sciences are revived which for
many ages were extinct. Now it is, that the learned languages are to their
pristine purity restored viz: Greek, without which a man may be ashamed to
count himself a scholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean and Latin. Printing likewise is
now in use so elegant and correct, that better cannot be imagined....All the
world is full of knowing men, of most learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries;
and it appears to me as a truth that neither in Plato's time, nor Cicero's, nor
Papinian's, was there ever such conveniency for studying, as we see at this day
there is."(14) It may be noted that the kind of study, for which Dee hailed the
age as so promising, and from which so much was to be expected was not of a
type he seems to have felt could be then best pursued in the great centres of
formal academic instruction; in later life he kept very much apart from the
English universities.

After receiving his B.A. Dee became, in 1546, one of the foundation fellows of
Trinity, and probably through Cheke's influence under-reader in Greek, an
appointment his mathematical accomplishments may well have been as
instrumental in securing him as any expertness in that tongue (15). However, he
"set forth" The Peace of Aristophanes, when his mechanical device of the flying
"Scarabaeus" which carried a man with a basket of victuals up to the top of
Trinity hall, produced much amazement and gave to the credulous or malicious-
tongued opportunity to make free, perhaps for the first of the many times he
was to suffer the like afterwards, with the word "conjuring." Such charges,
generally, were unfortunately encouraged by the misconceptions that could all
too easily arise from the somewhat ambiguous terms, in which scientists then
described their own activities. Thus Dee employs "Thaumaturgike" as a generic
description embracing such feats as this, it was the art that was conversant with
the principles, and practised in the construction of all types of machines - those
such as Hero described, or such as Archimedes, Boethius and Regiomontanus
built (16). Similarly Agrippa, and not unusually, classifies as a special branch of
"magic," all mechanical effects designed with the aid of mathematics (17). Dee
on this occasion probably utilised descriptions of stage machinery, from Bk.V of
Vitruvius and the Onomasticon of Pollux. Miss L.B. Campbell comments on Dee's
device: "the fact that Scaliger, writing of the used in comedy after the fashion of
the machine by which in tragedy the deus ex machina came upon the scene,
added to the description of Pollux the remark, "qualis Cantharus sive Scarabaeus
Aristophanes" makes it clear that this experiment by Dee was in the nature of an
attempt to follow classical tradition."(18)

Another incident is chiefly remarkable in that Dee should have felt fifty years
later that it was worthy of record, and inserted it proudly, among many
apparently more notable feats, in his "Compendious Rehearsall" - drawn up to
display his merit and talents, his valuable past achievements and to suggest the
still greater scholastic and mechanical exploits that might be expected, were
adequate financial support forthcoming. The explanation for its appearance there
may well be found in the almost talismanic effect the concept "Emperor" seemed
to have for Dee in later years: he wished Elizabeth to assume the title and Britain
to become an "Empire" that should dominate the globe. (His repeated efforts
and suggestions in this direction met with no success and there are indications
that his later continental voyagings represent, in one aspect, a pursuit of the
"Empire Ideal" into wider fields.) He writes then, forty-five years afterwards, of
his time at Trinity, "In that Colledge also (by my advise and by my endeavours,
divers waies used with all the other Colledges) was their Christmas Magistrate
first named and confirmed an Emperor."(19)

In May 1547 Dee began a journey through the Low Countries "to speak and
conferr with some learned men, and chiefely mathematicians, as Gemma Frisius,
Gerardus Mercator, Gaspar a Mirica, Antonius Gogara" (20) and returned a few
months later with two great globes of Mercator's making, and an astronomers'
staff and armillary ring of brass of a type newly invented, or improved, by
Gemma Frisius, which he presented to the fellows of Trinity. He received his M.A.
unusually quickly, in 1548 (21) ("and never after that was I any more studient in
Cambridge"(22)); and then set out again for Louvain where Gemma Frisius
(1508-1565; M.A. Louvain 1528, where he resided thereafter) was teaching
geography, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Dee's reasons were probably
identical with those he later set forth to Cecil when asking for permission to
remain abroad and print his books in Germany (23)that England offered neither
adequate encouragement, associates, nor instructors in the pursuit of
mathematical knowledge: "Albeit that our universities both, in them have Men in
sundrye Knowledges right excellent as in Divinitie, the hebrue, greke, and Latin
tung etc. Yet, for as much as the Wisdom Infinite of our creator is braunched
into Manifold worts of Wonderfull Sciences greatly aiding Dyvine Sights to the
better view of his power and Goodness, wherein our cuntry hath no man (that I
ever yet could here of) hable to set furth his fote or shew his hand, as in the
Science De Numeris formalibus, the Science De Ponderibus mysticis, and ye
Science de Mensuria divinis; (by which three, the huge frame of the world is
fashioned, compact, rered, stablished and preserved) and in other Sciences,
eyther with these Collateral, or from them derived, or to themwards greatly us
fordering." The period may be loose and involved but Dee's purposes and the
particular preoccupations of his mind are quite plain.

At Cambridge rumours had been started by his stage machine, and already it is
possible that a mysterious obscurity, suggesting his adeptness in, it could not be
known quite what, esoteric

profundities, may already have begin to envelop his activities, and make him a
legend there (24). Smith considers that Dee's spiritual ruin is traceable back even
to this period, and exhibits him as a Faust figure led by overweening desire for
learning to peer beyond the bounds of legitimate Knowledge: "Ab hoc enim
tempore (1548) mihi perquam verisimile videtur, Devam spes vanas in animo
aluisse, licet sub specioso puram veritatem & Thesauros Coelestis sapientiae
investigandi praetextu, se tandem aliquando, quod mortalibus vixdatur assequi,
assecuturm, & inde ex studio Mathematicarum Scientiarum, Physicae et
Chymicae, in arcana naturae, & rerum tum naturalium tum diviniarum
profundiora penetrandi, & novam, eamque plane mysticam, Philosophiam, quasi
vilesceret & omnino repudianda esset, quae tunc usu communi obtinuerat,
introducendi, & denique sibi ipsi ex indulgentia vanissime & prorsus damnandae
curiositatis insignem apud omnes formam adsciscendi ardorem crevisse; cujus
propositi impietatem sub plausibili Scientiarum Mathematicarum praetextu,
tanquam sub speciosis involucriz, a quorumvis conspectu occulere voluit."(25) It
is perhaps possible to arrive at a more exact picture of Dee's speculations and
interest; it involves a certain amount of anticipation but his writings tend to show
that although different topics dominated his attention at various periods he
altered his general theories remarkably little, and in essence these seem to have
been early framed; while some wider survey of a few of his early fields of study
may serve as a useful preliminary to later notices of Dee's own works, in which
much of their foundations exists only implicitly, as submerged assumption.

IV. Up to this time Dee claims to have composed two books (26) which, like the
greater part of his works remained unpublished, and like so many of his
manuscripts now appear to be lost irrecoverably. He gives their titles as The Art
of Logicke, in English (1547), and The 13 Sophisticall Fallacies, with their
Discoveries, written in English meter (1548). That Dee should elect to write these
in the vernacular perhaps indicates how early he had adopted the opinion that all
branches of useful knowledge ought to be made as widely available as possible,
translated into forms in which the relatively unlettered, possessing no tongues or
university education could comprehend and from which they might, in effect,
teach themselves. But it is also perhaps not irrelevant that such works on logic
as were to appear in English in Dee's age, addressed to a similar public and
composed with similar purpose as were for instance the Recorde/Dee arithmetic,
and the Dee/Billingsley geometry, were frequently of a pronouncedly "Ramist"
cast, perhaps as a consequence of the association of such productions with the
religious reform, or puritan, movements in which circles Ramus enjoyed his most
extensive popularity. The fallacies Dee treated of, it is clear from their number,
were the standard list of thirteen taken from Aristotle's De Sophisticis Elenchis,
but this does not at all imply any general adherence on his part to Aristotelian
methods. The list was an accepted common place and one does not encounter
any criticisms of the value of this negative or purely clarificatory aspect of
Aristotle's thought. The conclusion of The Arts of Logicke, written at the end of
the century by Dee's friend and admirer, Blundeville, who wrote mainly on
navigation and applied mathematics, is for instance an extensive treatment of
fallacies exactly as they were first discriminated and classified by Aristotle
(though no acknowledgment to him is there made), while in other respects,
though the influence of Ramus is also clearly perceptible, Blundeville professes
his acceptance of the teachings of Acontius - another friend of Dee, and one not
dissimilar to him in his interest in mathematics and mechanics, nor perhaps also
in his advanced religious speculations (27).

Whether or no these works of Dee were affected by Ramist doctrines - and

chronologically this is quite possible since Ramus had defended his thesis against
Aristotle in 1535 and in 1543 had appeared both the Aristoteliae
Animadversiones and the Dialecticae Partitiones sive Institutiones (reprinted
1547, 1549, 1552, etc.)of Dee's later interest in these and of their congeniality
with his own philosophy there can be no doubt. Dee states that he commenced
his studies at Cambridge with logic, but there is little discussion of it directly in
his later writings, though he makes some criticisms, as in the notes to Euclid, of
those who fall inevitably into error by attempting to practise it without a previous
study of mathematics. He is pleased when he can display mathematics as a
corrective to the errors, produced by the uncontrolled use of synthetic qualitative
concepts in the verbal arguments of the schools (28). His passages on logical
method in the Euclid perhaps naturally, make no mention of the syllogism but his
praise there of the Euclidean resolutive-compositive method which he ascribes to
Plato, and wishes to see transformed into a universal instrument of enquiry and
demonstration - may be paralleled by very similar passages in Ramus' writings
(29). Dee enjoyed the friendship of Ramus' teacher Orontius; he sought out
Ramus' acquaintance in Paris in 1550 (30); his friendship with him is mentioned
by some of Ramus' biographers (31); and he corresponded with him about
surviving MSS of Greek mathematical texts (32). Dee's library moreover
contained a notably large collection of Ramus' works and those of his followers,
while Ramus' views were rapidly propagated in England, and chiefly by those
who may be grouped with Dee as exhibiting similar intellectual tendencies or
with whom he had known personal associations. Ascham had introduced the
Ramist teachings in Dee's time to Cambridge, which was later to become a
recognised stronghold of the doctrines, drawing to it students from abroad, who
wished to learn Ramist logic and philosophy. A pupil and intimate of Ascham's,
Thomas Wilson, published his Rule of Reason, an English version of the logic in
1551. (Sir Thomas Smith's copy of this, heavily underlined and annotated, is
preserved in the British Museum.) It came from the press of Edward Grafton who
had many connections with the progressive Protestant party in England at this
time, was printer to Edward VI and associated with the production of the English
Bible. Ramus' popularity was great among the humanists, the upholders of the
new learning, and educational reformers (33), and it increased in England
through the century; Sydney, whom Dee tutored in Mathematics, was an
admiring student of the Ramist logic, and his secretary Sir William Temple, later
provost of Trinity College Dublin, who produced an edition of it in 1584, was one
of its chief advocates. Ramus' protestantism was not without effect in assisting
the spread of his influence in England; Chamber in 1574 calls him one "que
omnes amare meritissimo pro eius eximia sanctitate debemus."(34) Ramist
teachings moreover appear to have been particularly taken up by those who
were especially concerned with mathematics. Ramus had attempted a reform of
the quadrivium (Recorde's work has been associated with him in this respect
(35)); of geometry and mechanics indeed he once wrote to Dee's friend the
engineer Acontius "iis enim studiis modo totus deditus sum" (36), he founded the
first chair of mathematics at Paris, and adopted the position that only in them
was to be found absolute certainty, all else being therefore matter for discussion
rather than strictly demonstrable (the premiss here was of course even then a
platitude, the application of the consequence to an examination of the proper
function and potentialities of verbal logic was not, and plays an important part in
Ramus' thought); and though his direct influence on the methods of teaching
geometry was ultimately pernicious, as an encourager of this study he was highly
valued. Commandine, with whom Dee collaborated in a work on geometry, in his
translations of the Elements invokes Ramus' authority for the judgment that
those who neglect or do not utterly trust mathematics can be no better than
Epicureans or followers of Aristippus (37); Ramus himself in his edition of Euclid
asserts that nothing in the world can be more varied and multifarious than
number, refers his readers to the Platonists and Pythagoreans for a proper
appreciation of mathematics, and cites authority and argumentsthough without
firmly committing himself to themtending to show that it must derive from
reminiscence, since it is not possible to believe such a science to be an invention
of man (38).

Recently an extremely unfavourable examination of Ramus' thought, particularly

of his logical method, has been made by N.E. Nelson (39), who states that "a
period in which such a farrage of a priori nonsence could be taken seriously by
intellectual leaders must have been an era of amateurs dabbling in problems
which they did not clearly comprehend." Ramus, it is said, "tried to derive his
system from the processes of thought without enquiring how the elements of
thought are related to experience and reality," "he does not show himself
conscious of epistemological problems and does not explicitly deny Aristotle's
solutions" his logic is "only a rhetoric for ordering arguments persuasively," "a
thinned out manual of eristic" drawn almost entirely from Quintilian (40) and
Cicero. But it is possible to accept both the detailed observations made by
Nelson, and also even his total judgment of the absolute value of Ramus' system
considered in itself, without in the least impugning its historical importance and
significance. For in one sense Ramus' work is less a single permanent
achievement than in its rapid popularity, a symptom, exhibiting very revealing
characteristics, of the fermentation of the new thought of the age. The problems
it claimed to resolve may not have been clearly comprehended, but they are
nevertheless new problems, or posed in a new form, and important in that they
should have been felt to demand an answer. It was designed to assist a reform
in scientific method, to which it certainly contributed, if not directly by any
constructive assistance it offered to investigations, as a system, yet by the extent
to which hampering impediments and inconveniences which the Aristotelian
philosophy revealed when applied to such purposes could be dispensed with,
were Ramus' position adopted. If Ramus did not deal with epistemology
specifically in his writing, his work is none the less not without some importance
in this respect, and the acceptance of his system implicitly involved, and would
lead inevitably to the denial of certain features in Aristotle's account of
knowledge; for it represents a genuine attempt to grapple with problems of
meaning, to free logic from slavery to forms of language - the syllogism is
belittled as being merely a means to clarify propositions - and to produce a
constructive form of thought, which should, above all else, be valuable as an
instrument of discovery. It is rhetorical in one sense since its dialectical method
aims in its particular applications at a conviction which is to be generated in the
mind, rather than a mere assent imposed on the judgment by the form of words,
and its acceptance of this ideal entails (as do many of the Socratic dialogues
which treating limited questions seem at first sight to rely merely on persuasive
methods, to employ solely arguments ad hominem), the need for a Platonic view
of mind for its full philosophical justification. Logic, Ramus claims, makes explicit
what is natural to the intellect; thus the rule of universal nature and logic are
one, and inseparable (41). But his own logic is less important for its positive
method of universal dichotomy (which also recalls the procedure of the ancient
academy) than for its rejection of the Aristotelian substance - accident analysis
of reality. Aristotle had insisted that knowledge must be based on definitions of
things; and in order that a thing might be defined it must exist per se, and not
on account of an attribute it possesses. Arguing against those who maintain that
an entity can only be described by enumerating all its accidents, he declares that
"they are compelled to assert that all things are accidents" "and since the
accidental always implies a predication about some subject, if all statements are
accidental there will be nothing primary about which they are made so the
predication will proceed to infinity."(42) This position, Aristotle makes it clear, he
feels to be a reductio ad absurdum. Ramus leaves such objections unanswered;
but the system he substitutes for the Aristotelian logic developed from this
assumption of the necessity for an initial determination of the absolute and
immutable essences of all objects considered, implies that the synthetic concepts
used in this or any other analysis of reality have only relative not absolute
validity and merely a pragmatical or psychological foundation. Essence and
accident he reduces to a common level. The categories, predicables,
predicaments are swept aside, and the single term "arguments" is made to cover
them all. The "argument" is "whatever is affected to the arguing of something
else," every word has reference to an indefinite number of them, and they in
turn are what make that word intelligible. The thoroughgoing "relationism" of
such a system, its own freedom from dogmatism and its flexibility was a useful
framework for novel speculation, and proved especially compatible with the
needs of the new science in so far as this desired additional defence of its claims
that in viewing nature mathematically it was arriving at more important truths, a
more fundamental aspect of nature than Aristotelianism would allow could be
attained by adopting such a method. The degree of Dee's own adherence to the
Ramist teachings remains of course entirely conjectural, though of his interest in,
and familiarity with, them there is no doubt. Those who gave them their support
were frequently those who can be associated with neo-Platonic thought,
however, and it is possible that his own acceptance of them or at least their
prevalence at the time contributed something to the confidence Dee shows in
arguing from general assumptions which might be directly contradicted from an
Aristotelian position (by-passed, as it were, by Ramism); a confidence shown in
so far as he does not evidence any feelings of a need to make a defence of such
assumptions, or counter the orthodox objections.

V. But if Dee's attentions to logic found little explicit expression or unequivocal

reflection in his later works, another studyastrologythat he had embarked on at
this period was thereafter to occupy a prominent place in both his physical
theories and more "mystical" speculations. It was in 1547, he writes, that "I
began to make observation (very many to the houre and minute) of the heavenly
influences and operations actuall in this elementall portion of the world."(43)
While at Louvain he was encouraged in this study by Mercator and Gogava, and
it was "certaine earnest disputacions" of theirs which led him eventually to
compose the Aphorisms (printed 1558) (44), which he recommends in the
Preface as the most compendious treatment of the basis of this science. The
copy of the Quadripartitum he possessed at this time still survives: he has
heavily underlined and marginally annotated almost every page. "Solus
Ptolemaeus verus ex omnibus astrologis," he exclaims at one point (45), and
notes approvingly the claim of Egidius in the prefatory epistle, that no knowledge
can be higher than that of the stars and astrology, since their principles
comprehend the whole natural operations of the World. Dee's primary concern
with astrology seems always to have been directed rather to the philosophical or
cosmological implications that might be derived from it if some correct
knowledge were ascertainable as to the manner and principles of its general
operation, than towards immediate "judicial" practice. He drew up large numbers
of horoscopes of his family and acquaintances, but perhaps largely as a matter
of custom, or possibly experimentally (his figures are seldom accompanied by
detailed verbal interpretations necessary if they were to be utilised other than
privately), for he wished always to refound the science inductively on observed
correlations. He was compelled at times to draw up formal, full-length nativities
for his patrons, but would seem always to have been himself cautious and
suspicious of the amount of tradition and unverified conjecture that entered into
such detailed forecasts; a hint of personal disassociation with the results thus
obtained, appears for instance in his record of how "Before her Majesties
(Elizabeth's) coronacion I wrote at large, and delivered it for her Majesties use by
commandment of the Lord Robert, after Earle of Leicester, what in my judgment
the ancient astrologers would determine of the election day of such a tyme, as
was appointed for her Majestie to be crowned in."(46) Dee made later, in the
Preface, a reasoned and moderate defence of astrology and its legitimate sphere
of application, based on its harmony with accepted cosmological theory, and on
the argument that its effects could be interpreted as due to natural, wholly
physical causes, and were not beyond the possibility of verification. It is
interesting that various vitriolic attacks on "astrology" end with a partial
retraction, a careful qualifying of their position, and affairs an adherence to a
similar or even to the same view as urged here by Dee (47).

Astrology and Astronomy were much more clearly distinguished by practitioners

of them such as Dee, than by the opponents of astrology. Those who rejected
the one were frequently such as despised or could see no purpose in the other.
"To what end" demanded one such enemy of "superstition," "hath God placed us
so far from the stars if with astrolabes, staves and quadrants we can do all
things as if we were nearer."(48) They were nonetheless closely allied sciences,
and this not only for the social reason apparent in Kepler's observation that
mother astronomy would starve if daughter astrology did not support them both.
Astrology, by linking the descriptive data of astronomy with the physical world
additionally justified the study of the former, provided powerful incentives
towards increasing accuracy and diligence in observations of the stellar and
planetary motions, and moreover offered a framework of "scientific" theoryi.e.,
of theory ordered, coherent and pregnant in suggestion for further investigations
- of considerable generality and imaginative appeal, at a time when the discovery
of some such reasonably satisfactory universal scheme was, for many perhaps,
psychologically indispensable as a preliminary to the undistracted pursuit of more
detailed and ultimately more valuable, researches. Whatever its superficial
abuses, its potential value seemed almost limitless to many in the Renaissance;
for astrology, it has been pointed out, "offering as it did, a reasoned explanation
of an infinite diversity of physical phenomena, and including in its scope
psychology and ethics, made possible even in the Middle Ages dreams of a
universal science."(49) What astrology traditionally laid chief stress on was
moreover what the new science aimed at discovering - the unity, orderliness,
and inter-connectedness of the cosmos. Some astrologers, such as Manilius, had
believed this integration to maintain so completely that they were led to affirm
the universe was a single "animal."(50) But passages in the Renaissance tending,
seemingly, to ascribe "life" to the stars are often of more ambiguous import.
Thus, when Dee, or natural philosophers such as his friend Mizaldus, speak not
only of the harmony existing between the bodies of the stars, sun and planets
and those of men, but also between their respective "spirits," and of the
sympathies and similarities between stellar effluxions and affections and faculties
of the soul, it is necessary to remember that such thinkers frequently did not set
up a sharp dualism between spirit and matter, but imagined an infinite gradation
to subsist between the pure spirituality of god and pure corporeality - vital
spirits, even parts of the "soul" might well be "ethereal" but corporeal - and it
was thus possible to allow a degree of animation to the stars without embracing
pantheism or even regarding them as individual consciousnesses, and to allow to
many so-called "spiritual" phenomena a degree of corporeality without adopting
a merely mechanical materialism.

Thus Dee underlines Milichius' editorial comment on Pliny's description of the

stars as animated (51): "Et quan corpora coelestia non sunt organica que
admodum terrena animalicum corpora, tamen no video quid prohibeat quo minus
animalia dicantur, illa videlicet anima quo suo mo illig corpora mouet ac format!"
The assumption of such a hierarchy was almost a necessary belief for
philosophers thinking in neo-Platonic terms - it is reflected in the pan-psychism
of Telesio, Bruno, Campanella, for instance - but it was far more widely current.
The concept of the Great Chain of Being - which led to a similar cosmological
pattern - was possessed of a seemingly independent vitality. Certain cabalistic
and other magical practices, for their supposed efficacy were often defended by
telekinetic theories, and ascribed to the imaginative force acting at a distance,
similarly implied it. Such effects as evidenced by magnetism were interpreted -
Gilbert provides a typical and well-known instance - as rather approaching the
category of spiritual than physical phenomena, and indeed recourse to such a
postulate seemed necessary for the full explanatory description of a multitude of
observed events. Thus in the absence of any adequate celestial dynamic, Kepler
was led to suggest that the earth enjoyed vision and memory to guide its course
among the stars (52). The world soul, a prominent dogma in early neo-Platonism
and partially Christianised by such fathers as Origen, and Cyril, and by Simplicus
(53) very often fulfilled a useful role in explaining the supposed presence and
permanence of universal laws, of which the existence was a necessary initial
postulate for much Renaissance scientific effort; though it is significant that such
a complete distinction as Cudworth was able to maintain between the classes of
soul and matter, and their respective actions, lies latent in the approach of
earlier neo_Platonic mathematicists and emerges gradually as their favoured
methodology was able to fuse more completely with increasingly extensive
portions of the external world.

VI. There were remarkably few who were prepared to reject astrology outright
(54) (even Francis Bacon, who considered that "At astrologia multa superstitione
referta est, ut vix aliquid sanum in ea reperiatur," declares "Attamen eam potius
expurgandum, quam prorsus abjiciendam esse censemus"(55)) and this not only
for the golden promises for the satisfaction of curiosity it held out, or the
practical services it would do, could any part of it be proved, or the collateral
benefits it brought to other more "reputable" if less ambitious or utilitarian
studies, but because astrology in many respects seemed a well-founded physical
science. Especially was this so in regard to "meteorology," a sphere in which
even Sextus Empiricus had found nothing in its practise to quarrel with (56), and
in which James I, otherwise uniformly hostile to astrology, was still to concede its
practice as legitimate (57). The effects of the light and heat of the sun on
terrestrial phenomena, and the influence of the moon on the tides seemed to be
observational verities, and these not radically different in kind or more
improbable than other effects conventionally attributed to the heavens by
astrology. (Thus Galileo derided Kepler's belief that the moon could be regarded
as a causal agent in the production of tides, since he felt compelled to place it in
the category of "astrological nonsense" (58)) and it appeared reasonable that the
other celestial bodies performed similar functions, and there were not wanting
those who claimed to provide far more extensive empirical supporting evidence
(59). Belief was reinforced by the familiar doctrine of the superior dignity
possessed by the heavens over the elemental world (accepted equally by an
Aristotelianism affirming their quintessential constitution, or a Platonism making
much of the Epinomis) in the hierarchy of creation, and the theory of the
"natural" order of things which implied the rule of the higher over the lower.
Tycho Brahe in his oration in 1574 de disciplinis mathematicis, which has many
points of similarity to Dee's Preface of four years before, exclaims "Non dubium
est enim hunc inferiorem mundum a superiori regi et impregnari:

O quam mira at magna potentia coeli est

Quo sine nil pareret tellus, nil gigneret aequor." (60)

Roger Bacon, whose writings exercised a persuasive influence on Dee's thought,

also uses this argument, applying it significantly to demonstrate the fundamental
importance of mathematics - "Nor are inferior things known except through
superior ones because the Heavenly bodies are the Causes of things that are
lower. But the Heavenly bodies are known only through quantity as is seen from
Astronomy."(61) Moreover Astrologers could claim support for their theories of
the causal efficacy of the stars, from the writings of Aristotle, who had for
example in a passage cited by Dee in the Preface, along with similar ones on the
same subject ("His Meteorologicall bookes, are full of argumentes, and effectuall
demonstrations of the vertue, operation and power of the heavenly bodies, in
and upon the fower Elementes and other bodies, of them (either perfectly or
unperfectly) composed"(62)) laid it down that "the earth is bound up in some
necessary way with the local motions of the heavens so that all power that
resides in this world is governed by that above," (63) a statement Aristotle
elsewhere clarifies further by declaring the motion of the stars from east to west
to represent the principle of permanence and growth, and the motions of the
planets from west to east that of change and decay, in earthly things (64).
Moreover as there seemed also to be some scriptural justification of astrology -
as the stars which fought against Sisera and the one which foretold Christ's birth
and the Magi interpreted (65) - too complete a rejection of it might carry with it
the suspicion of indicating infidelity, impiety, or a scoffing atheistical attitude. "I
refer you," writes Worsop, in the main a particularly hostile critic of this science,
"....to the learned Melancthon....who called them Epicureos Theologos who
impugn the lawfull science of astrology" (66) and Tycho Brahe declares
"Astrorum negare vires et influentiam est apientias et prudentiae divinae
detrahere, ac manifestae experientiae contradicere."(67) While Dee scribbles
against Pliny's rejection of a Providence at work in the world, through the
mechanism of the stars, the comment "Deliriu epicuri."(68) This attitude is very
closely connected in turn to an argument which carried great weight when the
universe was conceived as governed by purpose, because designed for some end
by God, and a purpose which could not be wholly foreign to man's nature and
might have considerable reference to it - this argument is one based on what
might be called the principle of sufficient reason. Raleigh employs it when he
writes "It cannot be doubted but the stars are instruments of far greater use
than to give an obscure light, and for men to gaze on after sunset," (69) as does
Tycho when he holds the astrological virtues of the stars follows necessarily from
what we know of the whole of the rest of creation, in which "Nulla enim herba
tam exigua, nullum minerale et metallum tam abiectum, nullum animalculum ita
vile, quin insigni aliqua ac propria et specifica virtute sit praeditum."(70) Thus
Dee says in scorn of the Light Despisers "Lo the Sunne, Mone and Sterres (being
so many, so pure, so bright, so wonderfull bigge, so farre in distance, so
manifold in their motions, so constant in their periodes, &c.) they assigne a
sleight, simple office or two and so allow unto the (according to their capacities)
as much vertue, and power Influentiall, as to the Signe of the Sunne, Mone and
seven Sterres (hanged up for Signes) in London, for distinction of houses, and
such grosse helpes, in our worldly affaires."(71)

VII. The distinction in Natural Philosophy, between astrology and astronomy,

based on the relative status given to each by its method and subject matter, to
which Dee subscribed, is common to a large number of thinkers of the day; it is
fundamental in type, arising strictly from considerations of general theory, and
indicative of the kind of homogeneity of outlook which could underlie superficially
wide divergencies of particular views (resulting from varying evaluation of the
practical value, or spiritual meaning of astrology and systems of interpreting its
data). Thus Dee notes in the margin of a prefatory treatise in his volume of
Ptolemy (72) that method in these two sciences exhibits the difference between
"a priori and a posteriori Demonstration." The passage in Salius' text that the
note refers to is more ambiguous than distinctions usually made by later writers
(the edition appeared 1514), but it is on the same lines. It distinguishes sciences
which are in possession of knowledge which allows them to proceed
demonstrably, that is by necessary steps, from causes to effects (as the
astronomer can demonstrate what the present state of the heavens must be,
knowing what has been, or their future state from the present), and those
sciences which have, as far as demonstration goes, to work back from effects to
causes, which is the procedure on which astrological knowledge is based; for it
discovers what are the mundane effects of various conjunctions by observing
earthly changes and assuming the state of the heavens then maintaining to
produce them. It has no means of determining in advance of such a procedure,
by deduction from known first elements or merely from an examination of the
stars and planets themselves, the qualitative changes these "naturally" produce,
and the variations which result from differing angles and aspects, since the
principle of such operations remains largely unknown, and they themselves are
only to be gathered by experiment.

Salius confuses the issue by suggesting that in its forecasts, when it has thus
been founded, astrology can also claim to be using "a priori demonstration" - a
position not usually adopted by others who make a similar analysis, though they
might claim some a priori basis for astrological knowledge on other grounds. The
term "a priori" - as applied so frequently to astronomical knowledge (as also to
mechanical etc.) to contrast it with other known facts and collections of facts in
astrology (or medicine) - clearly does not relate to the type of content, empirical
or otherwise, or to the part played by observation in suggesting its laws or even
providing initial data, but rather is a judgment of the grounds on which a
conclusion made within that science is held to be true (73). Astronomy was
considered "a priori" not merely because it was largely a mathematical science
(so that, granting to the celestial bodies a cyclical uniformity of behaviour and
that their motions admit of complete mathematical descriptions, then predictions
were uncontrovertible and every step between their various states "intelligible"),
but also because most of the primary facts and principles that were known by
observation, seemed to be demonstrable by other means, and to be necessary
rather than contingent since they could not be otherwise without involving
contradiction - which was not the case in astrology. The best examples of such
astronomical facts known by reason are the arguments in Aristotle's de Caelo -
Recorde is but one of many who, though in other respects critical of
Aristotelianism, continue to employ them in the sixteenth century: for instance,
the Universe or outer sphere can be demonstrated to be spherical: because there
can be nothing beyond it and it revolves, but the sphere is the only body that
can do this occupying the same space all the time; because the sphere is the
primary solid, for it is bounded by a single line and in nature the simpler is
always a priori to the composite; because this sphere's revolution is the standard
of measurement for all motion, but the measure of a class is its smallest
member, while the circle is considered here as the shortest path in which
something can start and return to the same point. Similarly the revolution of the
heavens can be shown to be constant since all variations in motion must be
stages in a finite motion with beginning, middle and end, but circular motion
admits none of these, and is eternal (74). Such conclusions, as also the circular
paths (or the circle as the element in the apparent paths) of the planets, which
followed from the nature of the circle as compared to other figures and that of
the heavenly bodies compared to other parts of creation, were not regarded as
inductively determined, but as being themselves self-evident principles, or as
derivable from such principles. Such reasoning, in contrast with the former cause
for labelling astronomy "a priori" - that it was a science almost wholly controlled
by mathematics - became more infrequent, and more restricted, with the spread
of Copernicanism as an alternative to the older hypothesis - though supporters of
this system refashioned arguments of a similar type in its favour - and the idea
of the possibility of the infinite extent of the universe.

That astrology however was founded on, and could only be developed by, direct
observation, that it represented a summary of experience, since the manner of
the operations by which particular effects arose from their supposed causes
remained here "occult," and inevitably conjectural (as was not the case with
effects such as eclipses described and predicted by, astronomy), that it was
more an "art" than a "science," was a view which could call a lengthy list of
authorities to its support. Manilius could be interpreted as inclining to it, when he
wrote with particular reference to astrology

"Per varios usus artem experientia fecit,

Exemplo monstrante viam."(75)

Roger Bacon denies that its conclusions can be called "necessary" in the same
way as those of mathematics, its foundation must remain provisional, for, though
the heavenly bodies may always act in a certain determinate way, what this is
can only be gathered from observation of earthly events to which they are only
contributory causes, in so far as they act directly, and our conclusions are
therefore very liable to error; a shipwreck, Bacon points out, may be still
produced by faulty navigation though the stellar influences at the time were in
fact, beneficial (76). The largely qualitative nature of its subject matter, and the
way it had to be investigated which pointed to the distance separating it from
pure mathematics - the type of apodeictic certainty, determined its position as a
subordinate science. In Tartaglia's Italian translation of Euclid a list of authorities
are produced for effecting a division of the sciences usually called mathematical,
into pure, such as geometry and arithmetic, and mixed, or "mediate," dependent
on the former but incorporating matter from natural philosophy; and this class
includes most of the others of importance, such as music, perspective and
astronomy - "eccetuandola astrologia guidiciaria laqual egli conclude esser pura
naturale, in quanto alla sua essentia."(77) Though some such as Dee attempted
to give theoretical accounts of its basis, and operations in quantitative terms, the
distinction in practise largely remained. Garcaeus in 1576 writes that although
long known by one name and frequently confused, astronomy which is sister to
mathematics is to be distinguished from astrology which is the child of physics;
this latter is a subordinate science - in part a dependent one - "hoc Physicum ex
priore Mathematico oritur" - dependent in so far as it can draw from
mathematical astronomy some part of its methods and data, but distinct and less
certain altogether in that it can be properly established only by traditional
experience (78). Tycho Brahe observes the same distinction, summarising
"Astrologia igitur a posteriori, hoc estab ipsa experientia sua sortitur principia, et
a multis particularibus varius fallentibus observationibus universales constituit
conclusiones: non aliter quam in arte medica fieri assolet."(79)

While all astrology was not regarded as experimentally verified and much
reliance in the interpretation of horoscopes had to be placed on tradition, enough
seemed to be provable to give retrospective support and credit to the practice
and general theory of the natures of the planets and zodiacal signs, and of the
relation between the heavens and earth, as employed by previous generations of
astrologers; and these theories once accepted, an indefinite number of detailed
conclusions could be drawn from them by speculative deduction. At the same
time what is noteworthy is the attempt of many sixteenth century astrologers to
provide an inductive basis as far as was possible for their science. Thus one of
Cyprianus Leovitius' works tabulates all the major conjunctions, trigons, etc.
throughout history, and along with them the chief mundane events that have
occurred at such times, and then on the basis of what may be concluded of
planetary effects from these correlated data, adds a provisional forecast for the
next twenty years (80). Leovitius had earlier brought out a treatise which
appeared in the same volume with complementary works from Wolf and Dee
(the Aphorisms of 1558) entitled Brevis et perspicua ratio iudicandi genituras, ex
physicis causis et vera experientia extructa, which treated judicial astrology on
similar lines; it is a series of comparisons of nativities with the character and
fortunes of the person concerned made with considerable minuteness and with
regard to a restricted number of special topics. Dee from the Preface, seems to
have made a special study of the "Star of Jacob" and its "effects," this and "my
constant and invincible zeale to the veritie in observations of Heavenly Influences
(to the Minute of time) then [1548-1549], so diligent," (81) led him to write the
Aphorisms in which he attempted to suggest a mechanical basis and a
mathematical method for interpreting astrology. The importance of this approach
is that such serious and exact treatment of astrology, the insistence on it as
observational, open to correction from experience, and something to be only
admitted in so far as it could be brought into coherence with general physical
theory, meant ultimately the signing of its death warrant; not the denunciations
of its opponents, which were in this respect powerless, but the investigations of
those who supported it or adopted it as a working hypothesis, were eventually to
dispose of its claims to be a genuine part of scientific knowledge.

This habit of mind which Dee largely evidences was however by no means
universal even among "serious" astrologers, i.e., those who made a genuine
effort to integrate it with their general physical and philosophical theories. It
must be sharply distinguished from that tradition for which Plotinus is perhaps
the most influential early source. This had its special dangers in that it denied
the possibility of any rational explanation in physical terms, such as Dee hoped
would someday be discovered, for observed correspondencies between celestial
and earthly occurrences, while it received perhaps wider encouragement than
such theories as Dee advocated since it was all too frequently an acceptable
formulation to the multitude of those otherwise opposed to astrology on religious
grounds, whose hostility was aroused far more by the suspicion of materialist
determinism which otherwise attached to it than by its social abuses. Philo
expounding Genesis 1, 14 (82), had deduced that the stars were created as signs
by God to provide certain information to men about coming events, but avoided
suggesting in any way that they were themselves causal agents; Plotinus
developed this same theory; the stars may signify the future but no direct effects
are to be attributed to them; that they can so signify he explains by referring to
the relations of harmony which maintain between all things and which are in turn
witnessed to by this: "The symphony however, of souls with the order of the
universe...is testified by this, that their fortunes, lives and deliberate elections
are signified by the stars."(83) He was followed by Macrobius (84) and many
others, and the doctrine proved popular since it could be adapted to a form
which did not threaten free will, any more than did God's foreknowledge, and
celestial phenomena could be taken merely as the signs He employed to express
that part of it He wished revealed; nor did it limit God's power, nor, as the other
view was, wrongly, thought to do, did it impair the dignity and purity of the stars
by implying that they could produce evil. Thus Recorde, though he announces
his intention of writing a whole book "on Critical (or Judicial) Days" (85) and says
of astrology "without it physicke is to be accompted utterlye imperfect" (86)
adopts the Plotinian position, seemingly for religious reasons, and does not
attribute any causal efficacy to the stars (87). Another rather different example
of the "non-mechanistic" astrologer is Cardan. Since his personal philosophy was
dangerously heterodox, and seems to have combined determinism with a
universal animism - which makes his view of causality primarily "magical" - it is
frequently only obscurely expressed in his writings; thus he resolves the
objections to astrology which follow if one denies the direct effect of the stars, or
their conscious knowledge of the future (God is not mentioned) by a none too
perspicuous explanation relying on animistic relation of sympathy; "Praeterea
quamodo astra cum nesciant ipsa, nos quae nesciut docere possunt? Nequi illud
significare possunt per causas, cum nondu causae paratae sint, sed ex ordine
illoru hoc pendet. Ordo aute ad fatu, non ad astra pertinet. Nam astra ordine
tenentur, nec illum ostendere possunt. Itaq; hoc antiquis difficilimum uisum est.
Sed intellectus qui in astris est quod potestate est sempiterna, per illa in animam
infundit; velut in mortalibus animalia praesentiunt aeris mutationes antequam
fiant & antequam causae illarum sint."(88)

Those who held "Plotinian" views are usually found to be such as while having
considerable interest in the actual business of casting horoscopes and making
predictions, were not concerned to investigate the general theory of astrology or
render it coherent with an overall scientific interpretation of the world, and
moreover hoped thus to rescue astrology from charges of derogating from
providence levelled at it by religion. On the other hand those who did not fall
back on this Plotinian evasion, had to meet such accusations in a different way,
and while the mechanics by which the heavens were supposed by thinkers such
as Dee, to produce their effects can be left until the discussion of Dee's own
writings on the subject, it must here be pointed out how this class of astrologers
held both that the operations of astrology were wholly natural and that they
nevertheless did not threaten the freedom of the will. Astrology, writes Wolf in
his apology for it prefixed to Dee's Aphorisms, "est doctrina de effectu syderum
in elementis, et iis rebus quae ex elementis constant"; the predictions it permits
do not trespass on God's prescience, since they provide only another example of
the way in which (as contrasted with God's immediate nondiscuisive knowledge
of past, present and future) "Homo ad futuroru cognitione fambages pervenire
conatur," which is a wholly legitimate attempt, apparent in all sciences
whatsoever, which interpret some feature of a present state of affairs which can
be considered either as itself causal or as the invariable accompaniment of some
more "occult" cause whose presence it therefore indicates, in order to predict a
future happening. "Nemo impietatis damnat agricolas si ex ratione tempestatum,
de proventu frugum; nemo item medicos, si ex habitu corporis, ex tactu pulsus,
& inspectione vrinae, de valetudine et vita hominis: nemo eruditos & prudentes
viros si e statu praesentium rerum conijciant & divinent quid paulo post in
Republica futurum sit. Quae igitur inuidia est, solis Astrologis impietatis crimen
impingere?"(89) But though predictions might be absolute as regards happenings
in the elemental world, in the field of meteorology for instance, in respect of all
events in which man was concerned the judgments of astrology, said Dee were
to be held as holding a mediate position between the necessary and possible
(90). This was a position which followed from the acceptance of the dual nature
of man. Thus Tycho Brahe after explaining the influence of the stars on the
physical world, continues "Cum enim homo ex elementis constet, et a terra
plasmatus sit necesse est, ut easdem conditiones subeat, quad obtinent res, e
quibusconstat."(91) The difficulty then arose that in Raleigh's words it would be
impious "to ascribe to them (the stars) the same dominion over our immortal
souls which they have over all bodily substances and perishable matter."(92) The
difficulty was the same as medicine had to face, and astrology gave the same
answer. The stars, said Roger Bacon, work upon men through their bodies, and
therefore affect their wills and characters to the same degress as the humours
may be allowed to do so (that they do so act upon men he holds as proved by
the difference in "temperament" which may be observed to maintain according
to both country and latitude - he does not regard this phase as a pleonasm, the
"countries" are almost natural units to him) (93). The solution which became
classic, and involved an important distinction between judicial and general
astrology, lies in Ptolemy's dictum that the stars incline but do not compel. It
was clearly compatible with orthodox theology and Aquinas develops it in the
Summa (94): the stars control the bodies of men, and hence act upon the
intellect which is affected by the state of the body, but the will is not so
governed though it is inclined by the passions, which have a physical origin: but
this statement carries the rider that most men are slaves to the passions, and
perhaps the major part of the actions of all men are prompted by them. Hence
while predictions relating solely to the future of the individual (judicial) are purely
contingent, those relating to major historical events, and social changes can be
taken as having a high degree of, or even absolute, certainty__an interesting
early example of a science defending its conclusions by theoretical considerations
of probability, and proclaiming a determinism in large-scale happenings and at
the same time the indeterminateness of the actions of the individual elements
which compose these. Similarly an anonymous English writer (late 15th century)
tells us that the planets form the temperaments of men, giving a certain
tendency to the development of their character and average behaviour by
"whiche moste generally and Naturally men so frameth and fashyoneth himselfe
as in a curse a Bias is to the Bowle, so on lesse God his Grace dothe contrepaies,
being thereto excited, dothe refrayne suche affeccions, but Tholomeus sayth the
wyse may governe and have lordship over the sterres and withstand that they
dyspose. Ut dicitur sapiens dominabitur astris."(95) That Dee subscribed to this
account of judicial astrology, and that he was prepared to make use of its
conclusions along with any other source of information available bearing upon
any question, appears from a letter he wrote much later to his friend Camden,
on his son Arthur whom he had put to school at Westminster, where Camden
was then (1592) a master. "He is of an exceding great and hauty mynd naturally,
ready to revenge rashly. The naturall inclination is to me evydent: as who hath in
horoscopo and in corde Leonis. Dictum sapienti sat esto: for vera curatura you
may alter this naturall courage to true fortitude and not to frail rash fancy as
Socrates did overcome by grace Divine and his industrie, his untowardness,
signified by the Art physiognomical - you know the historie."(96)

The attitude of Dee and other "serious" astrologers towards their science is far
more frequently characterised by moderation and balance than is the case with
the opponents of astrology. They interpreted with caution, regarded its
indications as provisional, and especially so the more particular these were; they
employed it for its great utility in life, but looked on it as a field for investigation
rather than dogmatising upon; this became a fairly fixed view of the generally
cultured person for a long time. Thus Herbert of Cherbury could write in the
mid_seventeenth century "When it (Astrology) is rightly understood and applied
it be not only a lawful but a most necessary art for a wise man; as long as he
takes only general predictions from thence without presuming to foretell
particular and single events, otherwise than as they depend upon general
causes, since they who descend too far into particulars either err or speak truth
by chance."(97) The science - or rather "art" - which astrology is most frequently
said to resemble is medicine, where the methods of diagnosis - an argument
from effects to cause__and prognostication of the course of a disease were
taken as comparable with the procedure of astrology; the two were alike in their
utility, and empirical foundations, in the large amount of conjecture they
contained, and in the very fallible nature of their forecasts, to both of which last
their practitioners themselves freely admitted. The attacks on astrology in the
sixteenth century usually proceed along standard lines of argument drawn from
Pico, and usually betray ignorance of the technical issues involved and
misunderstanding of the nature of the claims made for it by contemporary
scientists as against the abounding charlatans (98). The character of these
criticisms may be briefly noted however as they serve indirectly to define the
position of astrology in Dee's age. They can be distinguished into those
prompted merely by the social abuses which accompanied it - a feature which
none censured more thoroughly than the defenders of astrology themselves
(thus Dee denounces the "Light Practisers "severely in the Preface but he notes
approvingly a passage in Milichius' "On the Dignity of astrology," referring to
Pliny's rejection of it, on account of the abuses and imperfections he exposes -
"Non solum stulticia sed perversitas est aucipari ingenii laudem ex infectatione
bonarum artium" (99)) and those which ventured more fundamental criticisms.
The first were much the more numerous; it is Reginald Scott's excuse for his
hostile passages that "though there be many of them (astrologers) learned and
godly yet lurke there in corners of the same profession great numbers of
counterfets and coseners."(100) Even vicious satires such as Tomkin Albumazar
(1615) will frequently go out of their way at some point to declare that they are
only aimed against knavery, and not against the true practice of "that sacred
skill, That in the Starres reades all our actions."(101) Since he was the most
renowned of their opponents, efforts were made by astrologers to interpret even
Pico's criticisms in this way, though he had explicitly declared that the effects of
light and heat (or motion) were the only influences to be attributed to the
heavens. Thus Tycho Brahe argues that Pico's extreme disgust with the frauds
and cheats masking as astrologers is the real motive for his attack and accounts
for the over vehemency of his book; "in quo tamoo, non tam artem ipsam, et
huius solidiora molimina quatit, quam Astrologorum imperitorum supervacaneas
Naenias prodit quas nemo secretiori et veriori Astrologia addictus unquam
probarit."(103) This view gained colour from the apparently astrological nature of
some of the Theses, and from the way in which his doctrines of natural magic,
which Pico never renounced, seemed bound up with it (104). Thus Bodin
denounces the Florentine Academy for cultivating the astrological_magical arts of
Pico, who taught how to effect a linking of the powers of the heavens and the
earth for the practise of magical operations (105).

VIII. The motives for a total rejection of astrology can nearly all be identified as
religious or purely philosophical in origin, and those who advocated this seldom
show any concern for scientific practice, or interest in standards of truth possibly
attainable apart from these. Pico's work - which so impressed Savanarola that he
directed an abridged vernacular edition to be prepared - wears amore
rationalistic air than Calvin's (106), but they are nevertheless closely similar, both
in the negative feature just noted, and in finding the same dangers in
astrology__that its practitioners are likely to make the will of mann, and his life,
only one link in a sequence ruled by purely natural causation. Thus Pico's chief
target (as it is still John Chamber's in 1601) is Guido Bonatti, a rigidly
deterministic Aristotelian astrologer of the thirteenth century, whose works,
which Pico seems to take as representative, were rejected with equal vehemence
by the majority of Renaissance astrologers themselves - Lucius Bellantius
stigmatises him as being both thoroughly impious and ignorant (107). However
there is no doubt that such views as Bonatti's might be sometimes held by
astrologers. Thus by imitating the heavens Al Jabir had claimed man might attain
powers which religion usually allowed to be the sole prerogative of the Creator,
and even produce life - he gave a receipt for the making of an homunculus, the
chief piece of apparatus for which was a model to reproduce the motions of the
stars and planets, in the centre of which the "egg" was to be placed and where it
would, under the influence of the artificial universe whose power resided like the
real one, in its figures and patternings, germinate and grow (108). Again, one of
the thirteen errors condemned at Paris at the end of the thirteenth century, said
to be drawn from Averroist doctrines, had been "Quo domnia, que hic inferius
aguntur, subsunt necessitati corporum celestium."(109) A suspicion of similar
over naturalistic doctrines attached to Pomponazzi who, in addition to the
generally sceptical tenour of his works on the soul, in de Incantationibus,
rejecting all demoniac or angelic activity, attempted to supply natural
explanations for all marvels, miracles, and "supernatural" occurrences, a problem
he thought to have solved by postulating astral influences at work in all events
(110). Cardan's astrological teaching was similarly suspect; the attitude implied
by his drawing up the nativity of Christ seemed impious and objectionable, its
defence sophistical. Yet even Roger Bacon had placed the religions of the world
under the several planets, and allotted to each a period of growth and decay
according to the celestial revolutions, and many as genuinely religious as he, or
believing themselves as equally orthodox in their profession, adopted in some
measure similar views, Dee himself does not seem to have been wholly free of
them (111).

The astrologer's defence against charges of irreligion we have already noted. Nor
in their criticisms of the methods of his science were his opponents on any firmer
ground. Pico's denunciation is again the storehouse of almost all that were
employed, but they were already ancient when Pico undertook to refurbish them;
most do not represent any advance on the objections of Carneades which
Ptolemy had already answered thoroughly in the Tetrabiblos (112), and they
were easily rebutted by a host of scholars for the most part better informed than
he (113). Objections were based on the complexity of the data and difficulty of
accurate observations, but none were better aware of these than the astrologers.
That it was irrational to take the conformation of the stars at moment of birth as
conditioning character and fortunes, since there was no better reason for taking
this point rather than any other, e.g., the moment of conception, of the infusion
of the soul (Chamber (114) lists seven occasions he thinks should have as good
or better claim to be considered the crucial astrological one than time of birth)
was answered as soon as the inductive foundation of astrology was insisted on -
that the qualities ascribed to planets and constellations were mere descriptive
summaries of effects obtained by the correlation of earthly and celestial
occurrences; hence, since one of the sequences involved, the motions of the
heaven, was uniform and regular, and each state necessarily linked to preceding
and following ones, so that knowing the position of the heavens at one moment
their past and future could also be known, since this was so, it was of no
importance which point as long as it was some one crucial, common and
determinable occurrence in a man's life, was taken as the time for examining the
state of the heavens which controlled his destiny, providing that the same
occurrence in every individual's life was always taken. Astrological knowledge
had been built up, it was claimed, by comparing men's lives with the
conformation of the heavens at their birth, it could therefore be used for
trustworthy predictions as long as this same occasion were taken, without
necessarily ascribing full causal determination of the future to the particular
conformations of the stars at that moment and without producing any deeper
medical or metaphysical justification of the moment of birth as the only correct
occasion for erecting the horoscope. But the critics, here and elsewhere, showed
a blind hostility, or ignorance, as regards the most usual, or accepted positions
of contemporary natural philosophy. Thus the argument from the case of twins
loses its air of good sense in the form it is more than once urged by English
opponents of astrology who hoped naively in this way to improve its cogency; is
it possible that the future was the same, though the figures of their nativities
must have been identical it is asked, for all the children of the Countess of
Holland, who had 365 "al hatched at once" - in John Chambers' phrase (115)
(supposedly on Good Friday 1276, as the result of a beggar's curse). A typical
attack, exhibiting the most usual temper and line of argument is that of Stubbes.
Astronomers and Astrologers he confounds together as "a certaine kinde of
curious people and vainglorious," employed upon "searching the secrets of God
rashlie, which he would have kept close from us, and onely knowne to himself";
"I wonder" he says, lumping together the teachings of each science, "what spirits
tolde them which planets were higher than other and which lower than other,
which be good and which be evill, which be moist and which be drie....with
infinite like fooleries which I overpasse....but certaine I am that out of the booke
of God they never fetched them." Their science "standent upon nothing else but
mere coniectures, supposals, likelihoods, ghesses, probabilities, observations of
times and seasons, coniunctions of signes, starres and planets...."; yet on these
uncertain grounds they overturn the order of Genesis in which God gave man
power over the creatures and not vice versa. "Will they have the dumbe and
unreasonable creatures to rule the reasonable?" he demands and develops this
to a point where he seems only to admit causal efficacy as possible when
accompanied with conscious intentions, declaring it to be obvious that since the
stars are insensible and lifeless they cannot affect living beings or cause their
deaths. To grant stars power is to take power from God, hence "It is time these
phantasticall felowes were looked to in time, that wil go about to disthronize the
mightie God Jehova of his regall throne of maiestie and Glorie making an
Officiperda of him, a iacke out of office, and to pull him (as it were) E coelis, out
of the heavens, downe to the earth, giving him no power nor authoritie at all."
Stubbes then suddenly admits that signs and planets produce effects on the
world whenever God chooses to operate with them, but do not "worke these
effects of their own proper force and strength," and finally allows that astronomy
is lawful insofar as it produces almanacs, calendars and other practical
benefits__he significantly has nothing to say of it as a speculative science, as an
aid to the construction of a general cosmology (116). Indeed it is insofar as
astrology seemed to suggest the possibilities of conceiving a mechanical
automatic universe, not requiring the continuous supervision and direct
miraculous intervention by God, that its critics frequently show themselves as
chiefly suspicious of it. "For if all our actions depend of the sterres" declares
Chamber, "then may God have an everlasting playing day and let the world wag"
(117); and indeed those who saw no difficulty in reconciling astrology with
Christianity, frequently picture the world, and God's relation to it, much after the
fashion of Boyle or Huygens. Thus Hakewill writes "Neither were it hard to adde
much more to that which hath been said, to shew the dependence of these
Elementary bodies upon the heavenly specially out of Cornelius Gemma....and
Mizaldus....Almighty God having so ordained that the highest should serve as
intermediate agents or secondary Causes betweene himself and the lower: And
as they are linked together in a chaine of order, so are they likewise chained
together in the order of causes, but so as in the wheeles of a clocke though the
failing in the superior, cannot but cause a failing in the inferior; yet the failing of
the inferior, may well argue though it cannot cause a failure in the
superior."(118)

IX. Before the introduction of the telescope - which gave a stimulation in a

radically novel form to astronomical studies, opening up new vistas and wide
fields for direct discovery, astrology with its insistence on the need for ever more
accurate observation and calculation, a demand gaining force from the great
benefits it promised, did good service in maintaining interest and promoting
improvement in astronomy. But the utility of their science, either in this respect,
or in the assistance it lent to navigation and calendar making is inadequate to
explain the almost religious fervour with which Dee and others speak of
astronomy. Tycho Brahe records how on first witnessing an eclipse of the sun
(1560, 21 Aug.) it struck him "as something divine that men could know the
motions of the stars so accurately that they could long before foretell their places
and relative positions," (119) and a mingled wonder and reverence pervades all
his general discussions of the subject. But a consequence of the astronomers'
excessive lauding of their science was that it aroused the same type of
philosophical and religious opposition as astrology. Alexander Ross, chaplain to
Charles I is a good representative of this kind of opposition - although writing in
the seventeenth century he seems to belong to an earlier age; at least he would
not have appeared in the previous century so scientifically negligible a figure. He
extends his dislike of Copernicus to a general denunciation of the pretensions of
astronomers; with Lactantius he calls them "furious and mad men," takes the
falling of Anaximenes into a ditch while gazing at the stars as a symbol of the
destiny of the whole profession, rebuts any claims for astronomy's special
nobility or universality, and, although allowing it utility in a very limited practical
sphere, proceeds "But that which I reprove is the vain curiosity of men, who
cannot be content to know with sobriety things revealed, must needs with
Phaeton and Icarus meddle with these heavenly bodies in vain and curious
speculations - the knowledge whereof in this life is denied us as being a part of
Adam's punishment for his affected knowledge, and being a means for us to
have recourse to Christ....As it was God's proper work to make the earth, so it is
proper to him alone to know the measure of it."(120) Dee was certainly one such
as Ross "reproves," he is never weary of discoursing on the sublimities and
beauty of astronomy, regards it as the highest of all the sciences which deal with
things, as concealing in itself all the divine mysteries. It is an attitude which was
possible either from Aristotelian or Platonic principles. Some Averroists
maintained that the universe would have to come to an end - become chaos - if
so much as a single star were to disappear. Cicero's contrast between the
celestial and sublunar worlds might be regarded as the text for innumerable
Renaissance discourses on the perfection of the heavens, e.g., one of Recorde's
title pages, that of the Castle of Knowledge, which illustrates the book's theme,
showing Urania and Fortune, has verses explaining their various spheres of
influence, which are almost a direct translation). "Nulla igitur in caelo nec fortuna
nec temeritas nec erratio nec vanitas inest contraque omnis ordo veritas ratio
constantia; quaeque his vacant ementita et flasa plenaque erroris, ea circum
terras, infra lunam (quae omnium ultima est), in terrisque versantur."(121) But
Dee seems by his attitude towards disputed questions, consciously to follow a
Platonic account. He rejects or at least completely disregards the Aristotelian
quintessence, seeming to consider the stars as of material substance not
unrelated to matter encountered on the earth, if of a refined form (in the
Timaeus, although the fifth regular body is used in the construction of the stars,
it is capable of transmutation - by rearrangement of its "atomic" triangles - into
three of the other "elements"). The Epinomis which almost inculcates a cult of
star worship, Dee refers to several times with the utmost respect ("which boke"
he says, "is the Threasury of all his (Plato's) doctrine"(122)) and although
material, he describes the stars as "these most pure, beautifull, and Mighty
Corporall Creatures," (123) Dee similarly does not regard the stars as
unconnected with "intelligences," or necessarily inanimate, and from his prayers
and incantations, employed with Kelly in scrying would seem to involve the belief
that various angels govern, or represent "Principles" which govern the individual
planets (as in Trithemius' de septem secundeis) and he appears to hold in the
Monas and elsewhere that celestial motions are expressions of divine truths
which can be rationally comprehended through them, and are themselves akin to
the soul ("evil," , the Cratylus had etymologised as "that which moves badly" and
, virtue, as meaning the ease of motion, constant and unimpeded, fitted to the
good soul (124)).

The heavens Plato had declared partake of a "bodily nature and are therefore
not immutable, but they try to maintain a uniform motion," (125) and in doing
this they become for him of the highest importance, since in Solmsen's words:
"In regular and eternal movement Change coincides with Sameness, and
alteration loses its arbitrary character and attains a quality of perfection."(126)
They were an example of a resolution of the dilemma posed in the Theaetetus
and elsewhere: if Reality were unchangeable no intelligence could exist, if it were
all flux no knowledge could exist; intelligence had to be in motion, its objects
constant; the combination was apparent in the heavenly bodies which moved
(and were hence rational), but whose paths were regular and constant
(representing the object of their intelligence). The heavens Plato asserts more
than once are "a living creature and endowed with intelligence by him who
fashioned it in the beginning."(127) (For the "law" which we recognise in the
regularity of the celestial motions is for Plato a proof of their rationality, and
being akin."(128) The stars are visible gods in the contemplation of which,
according to the Epinomis, man is assured of wisdom and happiness: it is not
wholly a novel doctrine - "Do I not even believe that the sun or yet the moon are
gods as the rest of mankind do?", Socrates is represented as demanding
rhetorically in the Apology (26D) - except that the proper worship of these
"Gods" for Plato, is the thorough and exact scientific study of them, and
philosophical speculation about them - courses which popularly might carry with
them a suspicion of "atheism." Despite his emphasis on the scientific study of the
stars, des Places suggests that the astronomy which Plato praises would be
better termed "astrolatrie," "et c'est bien une religion astrale que l'Epinomis
propose aux Hellenes a cote de la religion delphique," and this is "une
consequence naturelle....de la croyance de Platon que seule une ame peut
causer un mouvement.(129) The moral and religious benefits of astronomy are a
frequent theme with Plato. Discussing the etymologies of the names of the Gods
he derives "Uranus" from the phrase "gazing on things above" and asserts that it
is this looking which makes men of pure mind (130). In the Laws he writes of
the heavens, "no man that views these objects in no careless or amateurish way
has ever proved so godless as not to be affected by hem in a way just the
opposite of that which most people expect," since the populace imagine that
such men "become atheists through observing, as they suppose, that all things
come into being by necessary forces and not by the mental energy of the will
aiming at the fulfilment of good." On the contrary, Plato argues, astronomers
know best that even the stars themselves must have "souls" (in the sense
perhaps they are able to respond to the guidance of reason as their regular
motions declare) since otherwise they "could never have employed with such
precision, calculations so marvellous" as their courses have evidently required;
and indeed "it is impossible for any mortal man to become permanently
godfearing, if he does not grasp the two truths," the first concerning the soul's
immortality, the second, "that reason, which, as we have often affirmed, controls
what exists among the stars together with the necessary preliminary
sciences."(131)

The religious import of astronomy, that it is not only to be studied for itself but
for the sake of these metaphysical truths for the understanding of which it is
necessary, is likewise the burden of many Renaissance astronomers, frequently
accompanied by explicit reference to Plato's authority, his description at the end
of Timaeus of birds as reincarnations of "harmless but light witted men who
studied the heavens but imagined that the surest evidence in these matters
comes from the eye," was accepted as at least a just allegory (132). Another
recurrent subject of speculation, in its general statement accepted axiomatically
by most Renaissance thinkers, is the relation between the individual soul and the
celestial movements. It has a long history (being bound up with the microcosm-
macrocosm analogy) after its expression by Plato (Aristotle summarising the
cosmology of the Timaeus says "The revolutions of the Heavens are regarded as
the motions of the soul" (133)). What or such a view is to be found in the stars
is an ideal to be imitated in the individual life. Thus when Philosophy appears to
Boethius in his dungeon, he addresses her "Talis habitus talisque uultus erat,
cum tecum naturae secreta mirarer, cum mihi siderum uias radio describeres,
cum mores nostras totiusque vitae rationem ad caelestis ordinis exempla
formares."(134) A phrase which Dante echoes "wherefore the human race is best
disposed when it follows the track of heaven insofar as its proper nature
allows."(135) It proved a dogma that gave wide licence to much mystical or
magical speculation in the Renaissance, and drew support from Plotinus'
considerations of the "figures of the heavenly bodies" and their significance in
connection with his teachings of the "universal sympathy."

The temper and arguments of Plotinus' Against the Gnostics in which the chief
grounds of his attack were that these men do not sufficiently recognise or
honour the beauty of the heavens, which deficiency must stultify the good in any
creed they hold (136) - are very similar to declarations of Renaissance
astronomers when praising their science or replying to real or possible objections
from a theological standpoint to their supposedly excessive concentration on it.
Such writings are almost always characterised by a close interweaving of
aesthetic and religious enthusiasm combined with the assertion that here at least
is an object of study worth of the greatness of man's mind. "Quid quaeso" writes
Tycho Brahe "pulchrius et homine dignius esse potest, quam immensam illam
caeli machinam, luminarium stellar unque omnium exquisitas et admirandas
vicissitudines motuumque jucundissimas harmonias suo submittere
ingenio."(137) Thomas Hood, in his inaugural address as mathematical lecturer
in the city of London 1588, makes the understanding of astronomy a moral duty
for man: "For Right Worshipfull: there is more required of us men concerning
Heaven than the only view of the outward frame; the beastes themselves can
view the thing, they can behold it as weld as we, but wee must treade the
footsteppes of Adam and Seth his Sonne, whose study was continuall in these
thinges."(138) Dee's pupil Digges writes in a work, published in the same year as
one upon the same subject, as one by Dee and perhaps designed to be bound
into a single volume with it "Cum igitur exquisita assiduaq; Machine Coelestis
contemplatio vehementissime aut excitat confirmet in hominum animis de Deo
opinionem, non sapienter solummodo sed religiose etiam Platonem dixisse iure
confiteri debemur Astronomiae causa oculos hominibus esse datos: sunt enim
praecipue ob hac causam hominibus dati, ut a querendam aliquam de Deo
noticiam (Infidis etiam et Ethnicis) duces essent, eclectis aute, ut admirabilis
quasi Harmonie dulcissima titillatione excitati, alacriores ad (Dei optimi maximi)
laudes ex intimis anime penetralibus ebuccinandos sint" (139); and proceeds to
correlate atheism among ancient philosophers with the neglect of its study, and
to declare a belief in providence, and immortality dependent functions of a
knowledge of it. Dee's own views will be treated in detail later, but they could be
no more faithful summary of them than the remarks of Synesius (a philosopher
much read by Renaissance Platonists) on this subject - "l'astronomie est deja par
elle-meme une noble science, et elle mene a une science plus divine encore. Je
la considere comme la preparation aux mysteres de la theologie: elle a pour
objet le ciel dont les revolutions semblent a d'illustres philosophes une imitation
des mouvements de l'ame; elle procede par demonstrations, et elle s'appuie sur
la geometrie et l'arithmetique que l'on peut regarder comme la regle infaillible de
laverite."(140)

Dee even at the early stage of his career covered at the beginning of this chapter
may already have had his interests in alchemy aroused, but as it did not become
for him a major preoccupation until later in his life an account of his theories on
the subject can be postponed (141). It may not be irrelevant to note in passing,
however, the special correspondence this science had with astrology. (Reyher
writes "qui cupit aliquid ex profundissima Chymiae Scientia ad finem perducere,
opus est, ut corpora coelestia bene consideret, earumque qualitates & natures &
positiones diligenter agnoscat."(142)) Celestial influences promoted the growth,
and natural, evolutionary, transmutation of metals within the earth. Particular
metals bore the same names, and signs, and characters as the planets; that they
could be referred to by the same designations was to Dee far more than a casual
fact, nor did he look on the coincidence as the result of an arbitrary human
imposition, or a mere convenience of terminology, since for "cabalistic" reasons
he held that these names and signs themselves were possessed of proper and
peculiar powers, and were greater "realities" than the material objects and
processes they were employed to represent. A formulation which was valid in
astrology maintained also in alchemy, for owing to this ambivalence of terms it
was difficult to speak of the one without making reference at the same time to
the other as is the case with Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica. The physical
phenomena of astrology and alchemy could be regarded as particular realisations
of a single universal law to be seen more clearly in their signs and descriptions
than in themselves. The reciprocity and correspondence supposed to maintain
between the subject matter of these two sciences, is an excellent example of
what has been called "L'analogie formelle" and described as "le plus grand
ressort de la science de la Renaissance" apparent in the Macro/Microcosm
doctrines, the foundations of Paracelsian medical theory, and especially "dans la
philosophie chimique des neo-Platoniciens." (143) It was in such theoretical
aspects of alchemy that Dee's interest chiefly lay - though he engaged at times
in much arduous experimentation - and his was perhaps the usual attitude of
scholars to it. The pursuit of wealth was not the genuine end of the study of
alchemy - "covetousness" indeed was an attitude of the spirit, which, it was held,
would sabotage even correctly performed physical experimentation, and
effectively preclude the practitioner from any success whatsoever, and even after
the Philosopher's Stone had been attained, the manufacture of gold it was held
was only "the lowest use the adepti made of this Materia."(144)

X. The cabalistic teachings which at an early stage of his life engaged Dee's
enthusiastic attentions (145), demand fuller notice, as they are an omnipresent
feature of his "philosophical" thought, and figure largely in many of his later
writings. Their popularity at the time is connected with the spread of the study of
Hebrew, a language that had already been introduced into the Cambridge
curriculum in Dee's time. Dee confesses in the "Spiritual Diary" that he never
attained much skill in that tongue (146) but the general doctrines of cabalah
were fairly easily accessible in Latin sources; Postel's translation of the Sefer
Yetzirah appeared in Paris in 1552, and Dee was also familiar with the writings of
Reuchlin, Agrippa and Pico, who had claimed the honour of being the first to
introduce the true cabalah into Europe; while apart from technicalities of
procedure much of the fundamental doctrine of the Latin cabalistic writers had
far older roots, if only insofar as what might be derived afresh from cabalistic
texts coincided and was taken as originally identical with much that was familiar
from other sources - the emanation theories of creation linked up with early neo-
Platonist cosmogonies, the part played by light in these and its relation to the
word was reflected in Hermetic writings (147), while its view of the word only
rendered more explicit what had always underlain magical practises, or fused on
a higher level with speculations on the Logos teaching of St. John. The cabalah
also was regarded in the Renaissance as being an intrinsic part of the thoughts
of Raymond Lull, of whose works genuine and spurious Dee formed a large
collection (148). Dee's Monad as point, is in many respects identical with the
Cabalistic interpretation of the letter "yod" - from which all the letters of the
Hebrew alphabet were generated, and hence all words and phrases, and which
was the principle of the unity of all things, embodying the law according to which
creation proceeded. Dee also employed the methods used by cabalists in their
textual interpretations such as Gematria (the substitution of a word for a
numerically equivalent one), Notarikon (the expansion of a word into a phrase,
by taking each letter of the word as the guide in selecting a further word of
which it is the initial) and Themuria (changing one phrase into another by
permuting the letters of each word until an order of all the letters is discovered
which can be divided into words forming a new phrase). Many of Dee's later
occult excesses involved many barren exercises in these and similar
manipulations; they were of course recognised already to some extent as being
"la partie la plus grossiere, la plus exoterique de la kabbale practique."(149) At
the same time, however, no single coherent body of philosophy was to be found
simply in the Cabalistic texts themselves. In Lenoble's phrase "Une metophysique
se degage en effet bon gre mal gre de la Cabale." This was largely "la vieille
doctrine de la hierarchie des formes et de la creation en cascade,"(150) for
which the ten emanations, arranged on four levels - of three according to a usual
Christian variant which Dee seems to have inclined to (151), were taken as
providing a pattern. The formalisation of cabalistic teachings, the extraction of a
philosophical system from them, seems mainly to have been the work of the
Latin cabalists of the Renaissance, who attempted to integrate it with their
general cosmological views. Thus Cheradamus in his Alphabetum linguae
sanctae, mystico intellecta refertum - a work that Dee seems to have studied
with some care - opens the work, before proceeding to discuss cabalistic
methods of "textual criticism," with a general discussion of the Three Worlds -
Angelic, Celestial, and Elemental - and of the micro-macrocosm doctrine, and the
reflection of the three worlds in various tripartite divisions of man, and also their
parallels in the three parts of Hebrew speech, and the twenty-two letters of the
Hebrew alphabet, that are divided into two groups of nine letters and one of
four, corresponding to the nine orders of angels, nine spheres and four elements
(152). The Three Worlds, it may be noted here, were to form perhaps the
fundamental theme of Dee's Preface where the doctrine is given an
epistemological interpretation - the lower world being that known qualitatively
through the senses, and the aspects of the material thus perceived, a mediate
realm is considered as that in which the mind reasons upon the objects of
mathematics which are native to itself, and in which its activity allows it to attain
true knowledge of the other two, since this realm though self sufficient in
content, is connected with the others by offering in different ways, a pattern of
each, while above this is a spiritual world, where truth, presumably becomes a
matter of direct experience, and knowledge is granted without discursus.

A hundred years later Butler mocked at the degenerate cabalists of the day for
"hiring old Mongrel Rabines that are three quarter Jews to make their art (i.e.,
necromancy) as lawful as they can with mighty arguments drawn from
etymologies and anagrams."(153). But in Dee's time it was a legitimate and
reputable study; its very recent discovery and availability (in its rabbinical form)
was an added incitement, since the rich promise of its mysteries was still largely
unexplored. Pico's Oratio de Hominis Dignitate, intended to preface the
disputations on the Theses proclaimed the possibility of a semi-cabbalistic key to
the Universe as a whole (154) (the long lists of correspondences between letters,
and the parts of the universe, of the year, of man, of the moral and intellectual
worlds given in the Sephir Jetzirah, and elsewhere were certainly in accord with
Renaissance speculative taste, Dee, Cornelius Gemma, and others noteworthy for
their scientific activities at ties indulged in the construction of similar analogical
schemes). Of these nine hundred theses which Dee in the Preface praised so
highly, 47 were cabbalistic, and 72 deduced from Cabbalistic doctrines. Moreover
this study was widely though far from universally accepted as in the main
theologically orthodox or at least unreprehensible (155). Beroaldus wrote to
Reuchlin that the Pope had read his works with pleasure and had caused even
statesmen and warriors to take up the study of the Cabalah (156). It was
claimed that the cabalistic writings directly affirmed - or the applications of their
exegetical methods to Talmudic writings showed these to affirm the Trinity, the
divinity of Christ and other Christian dogmas (157); many Jewish scholars it was
reported had been converted by their study of it, and it was possible to prevent
the destruction of Hebrew manuscripts on occasion by ecclesiastical authority, if
they could be claimed as being "Cabbalistic." The influence of Cabbalistic
doctrines on the English Humanists of the early sixteenth century has been
pointed out by Blau (158), who further observes that "however spread the ideas
were widely synthesized with and often indistinguishably introduced into various
Platonic systems of thought."(159) This of course was very largely a result of its
supposed concordance with Pythagoreanism. Franciscus Georgius (in de
Harmonia Mundi totius 1525) declares the Cabalah and Pythagoreanism to be
exactly parallel systems; similarly Petrus Bongus (in Mysticae Numerorum, 1585)
- who incidentally cites Dee among the list of authorities from whom he has
compiled this book, asserts that almost all the philosophy of Pythagoras was
derived from the Cabbalists.

Apart from the numerological aspects of the Cabalah of which the similarity to
"Platonic" doctrines, and their identical origin was conventionally recognised
(160) (Pico distinguishes these, or Sephiroth, from the study of divine names,
Schenroth, which he says are the two branches of the Science (161)), the most
important Platonic dialogue in connection with the Cabalah is the Cratylus. To
say that Plato believed in the intimate relationship of the thing and the word had
always been a commonplace. "Thou hast learned in Plato's school," Philosophy
says to Boethius "that our speeche must be like and as it were akin to the things
we speak of."(162) Chaucer defends a use of coarse expressions to describe
vulgar actions - perhaps with Philosophy's speech in mind - on the grounds that

Eke Plato saith, whoso can him rede

The wordes moste ben cousin to the dede (163).

Quotations such as these might indicate that no more was supposed to be

involved in Plato's doctrine on this point than that there should be a general
propriety of expression. But frequently something much more fundamental was
intended. The Cabbalists certainly so applied it. Reuchlin says the true
knowledge of a thing is hidden in the letters and syllables of the word expressing
it, "Quoniam vero nomen, ut in Cratylo, ait Plato, essentiae ipsius est
imitatio...."(164), and Agrippa echoes him: the Platonists hold, he says, that the
proper force and virtue of an object lie in its true name (165). In Plato's dialogue
Socrates holds a balance between Cratylus who believes "there is a kind of
inherent correctness in the names which is the same for all men both Greeks and
Barbarians" (383A) and Hermogenes, who argues that they are of merely
conventional imposition. The conclusion is not definite, and expresses grave
doubts as to the possibility of proving the truth and even as to the utility, if this
could be done, of Cratylus' doctrine. But to these objections the Cabbalists now
felt themselves to be in possession of a complete answer, and accepted without
misgivings not merely the concessions Socrates makes to Cratylus in the course
of the argument, but the entire position of the latter. In the dialogue, by making
the truth of a statement not of a propositional kind, but as something extending
down to the smallest parts of the speech, Hermogenes is forced to admit that
names themselves may be true or false. "It will I imagine seem ridiculous" says
Socrates "that things are made manifest through imitation in letters and
syllables, nevertheless it cannot be otherwise."(425D) An analysis even of
personal names is made to show that their meanings are in accordance with the
nature of their bearer. Cratylus is admitted to be right in saying that "names
belong to things by nature, and that not everyone is an artisan of names, but
only he who keeps in view the name that belongs by nature to each particular
thing and is able to embody its form in the letters and syllables."(390E) If this
could be done words would be a source of genuine knowledge since their
structure would show what each thing really is (423E). The ability to do this then
becomes an essential part of the lawgiver's function, his work "is to make a
name with the dialectician as his supervisor, if names are to be well given"
(390D); he must "give all his names with his eye fixed upon the absolute or ideal
name."(389D) Some names however, it is even suggested may have been
invented "by a power more divine than is that of man."(397C) The pursuit of the
principles of correct name-giving and interpretation is carried down through word
roots, to the syllables and individual letters; for "if the name is like the thing the
letters of which the primary names are to be formed must be by their very
nature like the things," (434A) and so an examination is made of the properties
of separate letters of the alphabet since "we must know how to apply each letter
with reference to its fitness."(424D)

All this, as well as passages from other dialogues - the Phaedrus (244B) says for
instance, that the men of old who invented names, thought so highly of the art
that they connected it with "the noblest of arts, that which foretells the future,
by calling it the manic art" - could be taken to show that Plato subscribed to a
similar teaching to that of the Cabalah, and might perhaps have been directly
acquainted with it. But the Cratylus ends with the reflection that no man of sense
would put himself under the dominion of names or seek certain knowledge
merely by investigating these (440C), since as there are clearly both true and
false names, even though the true may have been given by a god, we have no
means of ascertaining from words alone which belong to each class, and hence
are liable to be badly deceived by them; so "it is plain that we must look for
something else, not names, which shall show us which of these two kinds are the
true names, which of them that is to say show the truth of things."(438A) To
these strictures the Cabalists claimed to have a full reply; the solution it was
pointed out was already hinted at by Plato, in his admission that the earliest
names were of divine origin but were not Greek, for "we got the earliest names
from some foreign folk, and the foreigners are more ancient than we are."(425D)
The Hebrew characters and language, could be shown, it was believed, to be
such an original mirror of creation, and what the Cabalah supplied was the
methods for a correct and scientific interpretation of their mysteries. Thus Dee
(?) inserts the marginal headings against a section of Cheradamus' exposition of
the Cabalah "Platonis sententia de Alphabeto Graeco-Hebraeae linguae laus a
comparatione."(166)

The first naming of things by Adam, when he lived in close communion with the
divine before the fall, was regarded as being impossible to be conceived of as
merely an arbitrary activity. Thus Francis Bacon lauds "pura illa et immaculata
scientia naturalis, per quam Adam nomina ex proprietate rebus imposuit."(167)
Moreover it was an ancient and prevalent belief that Adam was not only
possessed of Universal Knowledge but committed much of it to writing, and such
books might not be beyond all hope of recovery. Thus Evelyn writing on the
antiquity of Sculpture in the mid-seventeenth century declares of Adam: "For
that there were several books about (some whereof had been long since read in
the Primitive Church) bearing his venerable name; as that which Epiphanius and
others cite....we have no reason to contradict: and Th. Aquinas in his treatise de
Ente et Essentia speaks of a volume of plants described by Adam: and there are
Traditions of a whole Natural History, with several other works of this most
learned of all Men living, as Suidas doubts not to call him....though whether
these Books of his were so miraculously found out and preserved by the
renowned Trismegistus we leave to the more credulous," he also mentions that
"the Aethiopians are said at this day to glory much in possessing the Books of
Seth and Enoch."(168) (The "Book of Enoch" Dee believed he had secured, in an
unknown tongue by dictation of the angels; Pico had gloried in possessing in
Chaldean the works of Cham (Zoroaster).) Similarly Sherburne in 1675, puts
Adam in his list of famous astronomers and mathematicians "the Book which
goes under the titel of Liber Creation is being owned for his."(169)

It was thus without doubt that Adam was familiar with written characters; the
question of whether these, and the tongue he spoke might not altogether have
perished was resolved, or rather avoided, by postulating a later revelation
involving the Hebrew letters. A work on alchemy Dee much prized and has
interleaved with pages of his notes on it, makes wide use of the Cabala on the
grounds that (it has just reproduced the Hebrew alphabet) "Concessi enim fuere
supradicti caracteres Moisi in Monte Synai a Domino aeterno omnipotenti."(170)
It was argued that since God himself wrote the tablets they probably bore some
relation in their characters to that in which his own Book, of which there were
various scriptural mentions was written, and texts such as that no jot or title of
the law should pass away, the "jot" being interpreted as meaning the "iod," were
pressed for supporting evidence. The Sepher Jetzinah describing the creation
declares dogmatically "Viginti duos literass culpit, ponderauit transmutauit,
composuit & creavit cum illisomnen animam creatam & creaddam. Viginti duae
literae sunt sculptae in voce, incisae in spiritu, collocatae in palatione" etc.(171)

XI. The Cabala claimed to be the second and secret part of the revelation made
to Moses (172), after this it had been preserved in the memories of successive
generations through whom it had been handed down solely by word of mouth,
and not till very late, and then not fully had it been set down in writing. This was
one of the many aspects of the doctrine which made a special appeal to Dee's
particular habit of mind. He seems always to have been inclined to value that
knowledge most highly that was possessed by fewest men. His secretive
methods of composition and transmission of his thought is largely responsible for
the small incidence of survival of his many works; those particularly which he
thought original or to have made an advance on earlier knowledge have mostly
perished. That the Cabalah was the genuine fruit of an oral tradition, passed
down through generations of the elect from the time of Moses, was to him the
reverse of improbable; his own published works or those he designed for
publication were too often only the fragmentary suggestions of the knowledge
and opinions he would pour out in private exposition; his Monas was designedly
obscure so that its full meaning could be only painfully deduced and this only by
those already adept in what it spoke of. It was believed also that Plato had
taught a secret doctrine orally, and that this had been carefully guarded lest it
fall into the hands of the vulgar, for this was in effect what the second Epistle of
Plato had stated; in replying to a question of Dyonisius who had claimed to know
the "secret" of Philosophy, it insisted that, if anything were put in writing on such
matter, it must be thoroughly enigmatic in expression: "I have never written on
these subjects. There is no writing of Plato's, nor will there ever be; those that
are now called so are the ideas of an idealized and youthful Socrates." Similarly
the Phaedrus had said "He who thinks then that he has left behind him any art in
writing and he who receives it in the belief that anything in writing will be clear
and certain would bean utterly simple person and in truth utterly ignorant of the
prophecy of Ammon if he thinks written words are of any use except to remind
him who knows the matter about which they are written."(173) This idea was a
familiar feature - and therefore more credible - in many other fields; particularly
was a secret oral transmission a commonplace of alchemical lore: Norton in the
fifteenth century says that alchemy is:

A wonderful Science, secrete Philosophie

A singular grace and gift of th'almightie

Which never was found by labour of Mann.

But it by Teaching or Revelacioun begann...

No man could yet this science reache

But if God send a Master to him teach:

For it is soe wonderfull and soe selcouth

That it must needes be taught from mouth to mouth."(174)

Similarities between cabalistic and Platonic doctrines, such as that of creation by

a series of emanations in the Sephir Jetzirah, and the account in the Timaeus or
Proclus' construction of the world in the Elements, or Plotinus' by successive
privations of the hyle, leant support to the conviction that Dee seems to have
shared with many others that Moses might be regarded as the original source of
Greek philosophy (175). For the correspondences to be observed were held to be
only explicable (if a separate revelation were not to be postulated) by direct
transmission - or by theories of the truth common to all men by nature or by
constant infusion from the divine. Such a hypothesis, that the Greeks preserved
a Mosaic teaching, not fully available elsewhere, lent a new and authoritative
dignity to their works, which might indeed be considered essential if they were to
be fully accepted and much weight put on them, for, as a little book which Dee's
acquaintance Thomas Twyne, translated, asks bluntly "who will believe that
Aristotle or Plato did knowe anythinge concerning the creation of the worlde,
whereof Moses was ignorant: who first received the thinges which he wrote by
most secret revelation from God."(176)

In addition to the many particular tenets of his philosophy that Dee could find
reflected in, and corroborated by Cabalistic teachings, it may be noted that Dee's
extreme piety was of the type that is drawn to seek out great mysteries in the
minutiae of Scriptural textual criticism, more especially so when what he found in
the text could be given some form of numerical expression; such items as
chronologies and genealogies seem to have had an inherent fascination for him.
What we possess of his work on Solomon's Ophirian voyage show it to have
been a huge compilation of deductions from a few biblical passages; he decides
on the exact navigational course of the journey and the time occupied in each
stage, the number, type, tonnage and freightage of the vessels, their
complements and the functional divisions among these and the numbers allotted
to each task, the amount of victualling necessary and so forth, and to do this he
seems to have thought was not merely of historical but of theological
importance. The Cabalah which exalted every word of the scriptures to an
ungaugeable level of significance, supplied Dee with authority and instruments
for an occupation which had always a fatal attraction for him. Pythagorean
numerology was an accepted study. Application of it to scriptural exegesis had
been made by the fathers on occasion (177). But the Cabbalah suggested ways
of extracting even more numbers from the Hebrew text and new ways of
interpreting them. Certain passages seemed indeed to confirm clearly the
accuracy and applicability of cabalistic method (thus only one servant of
Abraham's is mentioned by name, but the numerical value of his name is equal
to the total of servants Abraham is recorded as possessing). Therefore even
apart from the many places which produced difficulties, or seemed pointless if
accepted in a more obvious and literal sense, to take any of the Bible solely in
this way seemed to be a slighting of the wisdom of God proferred to man (the
four levels of literal, moral, prophetic and anagogical meaning in the scriptures
was in any case a hoary commonplace), and the words considered as simple
communication through conventional language were to be regarded as being, as
the Zohar described the text "no more than the vestments and drossy coverings
of a purer revelation."(178)

If Dee's obsession with the harmonies of pure number was at worst a harmless if
unprofitable exercise, though one which had always a remote hope of producing
some discovery of mathematical value, his parallel obsession with treating words
and signs in this way involved him not only in much useless and arduous labour,
but when he fell in with Kelly, the undoing of his life and thought was chiefly due
to such an unrelaxing quest after angelic or divine names, which would be
identical in power, perhaps in essence, with what they stood for. Created things
Dee at times regarded as merely particular exemplifications of words and
numbers, and came to the paradoxical belief that the purpose of things was
merely to designate their appellations. In the Cabalah power of the word was
inestimable. The opening of the Sephir Jetzirah proclaims that the mechanism of
creation was "by three forms of expression, Numbers, Letters and Words" (179);
in the Zohar, the first hypothesis of God is the "Word," from which the material
world results, previously the "word" having been only a latent potential known as
"Wisdom." "La loi qui a preside a la langue des Hebreux" writes "Papus" - a
recent Cabalist - "est la meme que celle qui a preside a la creation de l'univers,
et connaitre l'une c'est connaitre implicitement l'autre. Voila ce que tend a
demontrer un des plus anciens livres de la Kabbale: La Sepher Jezirah (180).

"La theorie de la Kabbala pratique" Papus rightly observes, "se rattache a la

theorie generale de la magie; union de l'idee et du symbole dans la Nature, dans
l'homme et dans l'Univers. Agir sur des symboles, c'etait agir sur des idees et sur
des etres spirituels (anges); de la, tous les procedes d'evocation mystique."(181)
This theory is much more widespread than the strict Cabalistic form with which it
corresponds; it figures prominently in the writings of many of those who chiefly
influenced Dee's thought; indeed it seems to have been specially frequent in
works of those largely interested in the natural sciences and holding at the same
time Platonic theories about the activity of the soul and the a priori nature of
certain forms of knowledge and appears as an almost invariant and important
feature of the general syntheses such thinkers offer of the construction and
operations of the universe. Kraus has presented this theory as it appears in Al
Jabir's system; thus, "l'affirmation" he translates "que (le langage) est du a une
institution et a une convention et qu'il n'est qu'un accident est fousse - car (le
langage) est une substance, (il est) d'origine naturelle ( ) et ne derive pas d'une
institution ( ) mais d'une intention dan's l'ame. Car les actes de l'ame sont tous
substantiels....Les lettres memes qui forment la `matiere' du discours, sont une
creation de l'ame, et partant substantielles."(182) Alkindi, from whom both
Roger Bacon and Dee borrow heavily on this and other matters, subscribes to a
similar theory; words are acts of the soul, and like all else emit rays producing
action at a distance, these rays being the mechanism which holds all things in
the universe in close interconnections. It is a subject Bacon recurs to frequently.
"For such great virtue can consist in words that no mortal can trace it out." The
Rational Soul has power over and controls all that is below it, "but its especial
action is the word and therefore the saints always performed their miracles by
pronouncing words." He discusses how these should be formed to be effective
instruments of magic, since the soul "has especial need of words formed
efficaciously and by design." He also discusses how the letters of the Hebrew
alphabet "had significance respecting the ancient people, and how they show the
number of centuries through which the state of that race passed as regards its
different periods and ages, in accordance with the special powers and potencies
of the letters." The Greek and Latin alphabets Bacon maintains may also be put
to the same use - Dee used them both without scruple in the Monas and made
to reveal the future fortunes of the Greek and Latin churches (183).
Massetani compares the function ascribed to Hebrew letters in the Cabalah to
that of the Platonic ideas (184), and indeed the general doctrines of the Cabalah
could be easily adapted to take on a "Platonic" form and this more especially in
that it was rather as a source fertile in suggestions than as a strict body of
independent doctrine that the Renaissance in general accepted it. (Thus
Paracelsus felt free to construct his own Cabalah, which though it embodied a
few selected elements from the original, bore as a whole little resemblance to
more usual forms; Dee's use of it also in the Monas would appear relatively free
and personal.) Such an adaption rather than the Cabalistic textual interpretation
connects it with the strong Lullian current detectable in the sixteenth century
(185), and though the de auditu Kabbalistico, sive ad omnes scientias
introductorium is almost certainly spurious(186), Lull's thought and logical
method were largely interpreted and adapted by Renaissance scholars to bring
them into accord with the doctrines of this work. Lull - who with Reuchlin and
Agrippa perhaps the three most prominent among the writers Dee studied
(including Pico, Archangelo de Burgo Nova, Cheradanus, etc.) who contributed to
his views on the Cabalah - had attacked Aristotle declaring his metaphysics to be
a juggling with barren categories and his morals to be based on ideas perceived
through the senses; he himself wished to found a logic and a mnemonic system
which should not be composed of abstractions or mere psychological rules for
assisting the memory, but instead he aimed to tabulate a set of fundamental
conceptions in which all present conceptions would be comprehended and out of
which all future ones could be constructed. Their symbolic representation would
also not be merely arbitrary and conventional (and sixteenth century "mnemonic"
works such as Bruno's which have usually a metaphysical basis professed similar
aims). His belief in the possibility of doing this could be related to cabalistic
teachings, and to the position of the De audita Kabbalistico which describes how
the mind is able to attain an intellectual realm of abstract truth, at which level
words can be used not only to reveal the nature of things but to control them;
though it is the knowledge rather than magic that is stressed. "Dicitur haec
doctrina Kabbala" the pseudo-Lull writes, "quod idem est, secundum hebraeas,
ut receptio veritatis cujus libetrei divinitus revelatae animae rationali....Est igitur
Kabbala habitus animae rationalis ex recta ratione divinarum reru cognitionis.
Propter quod apparet est de maximo etia diuino. Cosequutiue, diuina scientia
vocari debet."(187)

Reuchlin was, as the pseudo-Lull was not, a profound Hebrew scholar. In his two
dialogues he analyses a multitude of Hebrew terms into roots, syllables and
letters and expounds them (it is from this and similar sources that Dee probably
takes his otherwise seemingly purposeless habit of often giving the Hebrew
equivalent for any concept he considers of mystical importance - thus after
speaking of the firmament he adds "This is that, which in Genesis is called Ha
Rakia. Consider it well."(188)) But Reuchlin also adapts the Cabalah's teachings
fairly freely to his own purposes. Thus the ten degrees of knowledge, obscurely
spoken of in Cabalistic writings, he equates with an elaborated form of "Platonic
ascent," which he explains thus. Man is composed of the dust of the earth, and
the breath of life "et spiraculo vitae p ditus, sapienter amet divina, producatque
terra animam uiuentem ad speciem suam atque propriam uidelicet illam
peculiarem Ideam, non brutorum, non plantorum, non lapidum aut lignorum, sed
ab ore dei natam, & in faciem eius divino spiritu afflatam mentis suae ipsam
illuminationem. Hec illa est que paulo ante a nobis vocatatur deificatio, cum ab
obiecto praesente per medium suum exterior sensus in sensionem interiorem, &
illa in imaginationem, & imaginatio in existimationem, & existimatio in rationem,
& ratio in intellectum, & intellectus in mentem, & mens in lucem quae illuminat
hominem, & illuminatum in se corripit."(189) It may be observed that though
wedded to a neo-Platonic psychology, the Cabalah might in one part of its theory
of the word, as a necessary unit of meaning, and the same for all men, approach
the Aristotelian view of the basis of language. (Indeed Reuchlin has no
objections to raise against Aristotelianism or syllogistic reasoning if accepted as
adequate only within a limited sphere.) A hint of this is perhaps detectable in the
latin verses Dee contributed to a Welsh work of Henry Perry in 1594, where he
seems to suggest that all languages (he mentions Hebrew, Latin and Welsh)
have a basic structure in common, and are thus keys to each other (190).

Agrippa's treatment of Cabalistic theory lays much greater stress on magic than
either "Lull" or Reuchlin. He divides his work into three parts dealing chiefly with
natural magic, number, and divine names - or ceremonial magic, to correspond
with the three worlds. God, he argues, gives names to things, for Christ said
"your names are written in Heaven." The act of imposing a name, even by man,
if done under proper astrological and magical conditions, establishes a relation
between it and the thing it signifies, whose efficacious virtues it then possesses
independently. Names (he borrows from Alkindi) being acts and powers of the
soul, are substantial; they emit rays, which is why they remind men of things
they stand for, since these rays produce correct and lively images in the mind.
The Platonists maintain, he says, that the force, the very life of a thing, is
concealed in its name (191). But Agrippa, whose work contains little that is
original to him - it is rather a vast compilation of fragments of theory and
information from a wide variety of sources, attaining a sort of unity by the
ingenuity of the arrangement - though he exercised, along with those previously
mentioned, an extensive and continuous influeNce over Dee throughout life, is
more properly relevant to a later discussion on Natural Magic.

XII. Dee's enthusiasm for mathematics, which he regarded as the noblest of the
sciences - after quoting Plato's opinions on it and mentioning its use in scriptural
interpretation, he exclaims in the Preface; "No man, therefore, can doute, but
toward the atteyning of knowledge incomparable, and Heavenly Wisdom:
Mathematical Speculations, both of Numbers and Magnitudes: are meanes,
aydes and guides; ready, certaine, and necessary" (192) - was not unrelated to
his interest in the Cabalah; and this because his attitude towards it, and the
fundamental assumptions he made about it, required only a slight shift in
direction - so that they now applied to a somewhat different set of entities - to
provide an equally cogent justification for Cabalistic theory. Thus mathematics
was a form of expression and in one sense a language as much as the Hebrew,
and if it seemed more truly founded in nature and universal than speech in which
a large element of the conventional had to be accepted as entering, this could
largely be offset by the privileged position that Hebrew could be held to have
been revealed as possessing in relation to God. To postulate that a system of
expression such as Mathematics - and one self sufficient in the sense that its
objects of reference seemed immaterial and natural to the mind, while it was
governed by a logic, or syntax, that allowed it to be fully developed by pure
deduction - to postulate that such a system remained necessarily true in so far
as its conclusions applied to the external world - and this in an age when any
Kantian solution based on the supposition of subjectively inevitable, and
therefore imposed, forms of knowledge, was undreamed of - appeared to Dee
and others to imply, though perhaps sometimes such a claim might be rather a
consequence of this prior belief, that the universe had been constructed by an
intellect working according to, or via the instrumentality of, such a system of
expression. Mathematics was therefore at once the participating framework of
the world, and its transcendent pattern, and its parts - numbers, figures, or
relations - were frequently ascribed ontological status within the universe, and
regarded as certainly possessed of spiritual significance or (as in practical magic
or ceremonial theurgy) some degree of efficient power, in so far as they were
thought to be original ideas or instruments of God. Very similar claims were
made by the Cabalah respecting Hebrew words and the letters of its alphabet.
The views of the Cabalist and the Platonic mathematicist may therefore be
considered to approach each other in that each depended on the acceptance of
the belief that a particular "intellectual" symbolic schematisation, existing in its
own right with independent validity, dominated and controlled the physical
world, to which it was logically prior, and the essence, the reality and true
pattern, of which it was able to reveal to the student.

There were many other reasons why Dee might feel the two subjects intimately
related. The Cabalistic analysis of words and letters and the transmutations they
subjected these to by the aid of numerical equivalencies, were governed by
formal rules, that might be supposed akin to mathematical procedure, and might
well tempt one fascinated by these, at least to investigate the Cabalah. But more
important was the conspicuous accord between the spirit of the Cabalah and
traditional academic instruction in the arithmetic of the quadrivium, which Dee
probably still encountered in his studies at Cambridge. This still closely
conformed to Boethius' exposition; it did not lay down rules for calculation but
concentrated solely on the study of the properties of particular numbers, and
ratios; and this frequently accompanied by discussions on their moral or
theological import. Its method stemmed from the ancient mathematicians, such
as Theon and Nicomachus, who had been considered to be links in a Platonic
"golden chain" (Proclus indeed believed "he possessed the soul of the
Pythagorean philosopher Nicomachus" (193)), and who in their works had largely
neglected any attempt at demonstration, but contented themselves with
enunciating various disconnected principles and illustrating them. Such a
process, if it were to avoid a charge of complete triviality, had to claim
metaphysical import, and the view of number of Nicomachus' Introductionthat it
made up the essence of the phenomenal world, and existed as the archetype of
all things in the mind of God, was consequently a persistent accompaniment of
this study; it was reproduced fairly exactly for instance in the discussion of
arithmetic supplied by Cassiodorus, Capella, Isidore, Bede, Alcuin, Gerbert, Hugh
of St. Victor, etc.(194) But early in the sixteenth century a new school - which
has been termed "algorist" to distinguish it from the older, "abacist" arithmetic -
makes its appearances, its productions, which were chiefly designed to be of
assistance for commercial practises and which also promoted the wider use of
Hindu numerals (195) concentrated on the teaching of rules for various
computations. Some of these, such as Tunstall's (1522), Recorde's (1540) which
Dee himself was later to revise and Stifels (1544) - which later editions of the
Grounde of Artes refer to and employ - and Gemma Frisius (1540) (that of Frisius
on the Continent and that of Recorde in England both ran through multitudinous
editions in the course of the next hundred years), would have been available to
Dee at this period of his life. However it is notable that, with one or two
exceptions these works betray no more concern for "proof" than do those of the
"formal number" theorists of the older school; at best they offer mechanical
devices for testing the correctness of results obtained (196). Dee from his period
at Louvain onwards had close connections with the leaders of the new school,
and may even have received some instruction while at Cambridge from Recorde
who was said according to Wood to have "publicly taught Arithmetic and the
grounds of Mathematics, with the art of true accompting, all which he rendered
so clear and obvious to capacities that none ever did the like before him in the
memory of man."(197) However the exponents of the new school of arithmetic
neither excluded nor opposed the older teachings, in general, which frequently
appear as important features of their thought elsewhere. Dee's Monas for
instance is an exercise in the investigation of the "symbolic" properties of
particular numbers, and appeared not long after his revision of Recorde. Thus
Dee inserts in the Euclid in addition to his more strictly "geometrical" expansions
of the text, several passages of this kind, there is a paean to the virtues of the
five regular solids for instance, for Dee declares, "They are as it were the end
and perfection of all Geometry, for whose sake is written whatsoever is written in
Geometry....The knowledge of them containeth infinite secretes of Nature.
Pythagoras, Timaeus, and Plato, but them searched out the composition of the
world, with the harmony and preservation thereof, and applied these five solides
to the simple partes thereof...." (198) - this last enthusiasm is perhaps reflected
in the production of what is itself a purely geometrical treatise on these bodies
by his pupil Digges, who elsewhere shows himself concerned almost solely with
the most practical aspects of applied mathematics (199). Mystical applications of
their science, extensions of it to the demonstration of theological dogma,
continue to be made on occasion by orthodox mathematicians of the
seventeenth century (200). Galileo of course entirely rejects such number
symbolism and it is significant that he makes Simplicius, the Aristotelian (who
presumably has mastered the usual contents of quadrivium), who displays an
invincible obtuseness in the face of the simplest piece of mathematical
reasoning, profess his belief in it. But the close connection it was still thought to
have with all mathematics, is shown by Galileo then being compelled to evolve a
tortuous explanation of how since he admits to holding a Pythagorean
metaphysic, he can account for the Pythagorean's attention to numerological
fantasies of this kind (201).

More important than any of the original contributions to mathematics, made in

Dee's age, perhaps, was the work then performed in resurrecting, studying and
diffusing ancient texts - a subject on which Ramus' correspondence with Dee has
been noted, and for which Dee always displayed considerable enthusiasm. This
work which still appeared of great scientific importance in the succeeding century
(202), directly contributing to many of the new "discoveries" then to be made
even when these appeared superficially strikingly dissimilar to Greek
achievements (203). Accompanying these revivals, and stimulated by them, is
also to be observed in Dee's age a tendency towards the synthesication of
mathematics, a constant attempt to unify them under some general logical
procedure; this shift in emphasis or displacement of attention from the objects -
the contents as it were of mathematics to the "form" and method, contributed to
the rise of algebra, which most purely exemplifies such a logical system, but it
was an endeavour conducted in the sixteenth century largely under the spell of
the Euclidean methods. The general lack of demonstration in the new algorist
textbooks has been noted previously, when thought necessary it was frequently
borrowed from and the process considered almost a part of, geometry (204).
Especially was this the case with any problems in which irrationals might figure,
as these were conceived of as being more properly magnitudes than numbers;
for, while they could not be given complete expression in numerals, they might
in many cases by geometrical constructions be exactly represented as lines
(numbers being held to be the province of discrete and length of continuous
quantity)(205). But the Greeks had rigidly separated arithmetic and geometry
and many in Dee's time continued to insist on their complete separation (206).
Dee on the other hand seems to have wished to establish closer relationships,
and show the unified structure maintaining between the various branches of
mathematics. Thus, under the title "Note M. Dee his chiefe purpose in his
additions" in the English Euclid (207) Dee explains, "My entent in additions is not
to amend Euclides Elements (which nedeth little adding or none at all) but my
desire is somwhat to furnish you toward a more general Art Mathematical than
Euclides Elements (remayning in the terms in which they are written) can
sufficiently helpe you unto." In accordance with this object he appends to Book
II demonstrations of all the prepositions it contains in arithmetical terms, from a
treatise by Baarlaan; he expands extraordinary care in setting out the fifth book,
in which the connection between geometry and arithmetic is most clearly
established, and the procedure employed equally applicable to both usually
omitted as irrelevant or over difficult, this book is here claimed as "a chiefe
treasure and a peculiar iuell much to be accompted of" and recognised as
fundamental to the knowledge of all the mathematical sciences (208); similarly
Dee points out how knowledge "of that more secret and subtill part of
Arithmetike, commonly called Algebra" is essential to the complete
understanding of the tenth book (209).

It was, however, geometrical procedures that still dominated ideas of

mathematical logic in the sixteenth century. This was so for instance in the case
of algebra, a science Dee describes along with the science of proportions, as one
of the most divine and secret parts of mathematics. Men, now he declares in the
Preface, "have found out, and atteyned to the very chief perfection (almost) of
Numbers practicall use. Which thing, is well to be perceived in that great
Arithmeticall Arte of Aequation: commonly called the Rule of Coss, or
Algebra....This Rule, and Arithmetike of Algiebar, is so profound, so general, and
so (in maner) conteyneth the whole power of Numbers Application practicall:
that man's witt, can deale with nothyng, more proffitable about numbers: nor
match, with a thyng, more mete for the diuine force of the Soule (in humane
Studies, affaires, or exercises) to be tryed in."(210) But although some striking
discoveries were made in Algebra, during Dee's early life (in 1544, for example,
Cardan published Tartaglia's solution of the cubic, and Ferrari's solution of the
biquadratic equation) its development was crippled by a cumbrous and obscuring
notation, and it was not until after the improvements of Vieta and Harriott at the
end of the century that it emerged as properly an independent, generalised
science. The Diophantine tradition moreover (Dee himself was able to study
Diophantus' own work, till his day believed lost, when he was lent a recently
discovered manuscript) offered merely a large number of manipulative methods
for dealing with a multitude of particular cases. Hence perhaps Dee's emphasis
on its practical rather than general methodological value. However algebra could
be made, as was no longer requisite or generally possible after seventeenth
century innovations, capable of geometrical representation, and was usually
conceived of in such terms (221). Thus for example, the solution of equations, a
problem in the reduction of complex to simple terms without change of value,
was in principle the same as the comparable geometrical process, then
considered of such importance, which Dee discussed in his notes to Euclid, and
which was one of the operations the "geometrical compass" - which Galileo
invented and published an account of in 1597 - was designed to assist: the
reduction of irregular to regular figures, and of several regular figures to a single
one in its simplest form Arithmetical and algebraic demonstration when
attempted looked for inspiration chiefly to the 2nd, 5th and 10th Books of Euclid
(for the divine doctrine of proportions, methods of manipulating various
progressions, provided the pattern for the majority of operations and types of
calculation then in use). On a simpler level, multiplication was conceived of as
constructing a rectangle from two given lines, division as the construction of a
third line having a given ratio to two other lines, the extraction of roots as the
finding of a square equal to a given rectangle, or the quadratic equation in its
normal form as the addition of a square of unknown size to a rectangle having
one side equal to it, the other being the known "coefficient," the area of the
whole figure being known; and so on.

The relationship of algebra to geometry and the logical primacy of the latter,
moreover had consequences of a more purely philosophical kind. Thus Boutroux
has defined two chief movements in the development of mathematical thought,
in which endeavours can be distinguished as conducted under the respective
influences of these two sciences (212). The one, existing unopposed and rapidly
achieving maturity in Dee's age, "se borne d'abord a constater," and
approximates to the outlook of Plato, it views the world around with
mathematical eyes, to discover its numerical "harmonies," it succeeds in
synthesising quantity and figure and reuniting in principle geometry and
arithmetic. With the rise of Algebra a revolution takes place, already apparent in
Descartes' approach (213) "De contemplative qu'elle etait, la science se fait
constructive," from simple elements it now aims to construct more and more
complex assemblies by its own industry (the mathematician inventing and
building, as it were his own science) and "son but principal n'est pas de connaitre
des faits nouveaux mais d'accroitre sa puissance creatrice et ses ressources de
constructeur en perfectionnent de plus en plus ses procedes." This ultimately has
as a consequence that of the two categories of mathematical procedure - the
initial selection of ideas, and demonstration - the first which had hardly been of
any prominence, since in the "geometrical" period, becomes of increasingly
preponderant importance, and the Euclidean singleness of form, and the earlier
acceptance of a necessary and integral connection between ends and methods,
problems studied and procedure applied to them, is abandoned. But in the
sixteenth century algebra was regarded as a rule or collection of rules (214); for
Dee, despite his praise of it, it remains "The Great Art of Algiebar," and he
employs "Art" here in the sense of technique and in opposition to "science," a
status he allows to arithmetic and geometry. It could not indeed be regarded, it
was supposed, as an objective science on a level with these other two, since it
could not, unlike them, be

defined by its matter, it was a technique of calculation void of peculiar content.

In this distinction lies the philosophical importance of the relative status of the
branches of mathematics in the sixteenth century, as it points directly to one of
the reasons why mathematicians of the day such as Dee so strongly tended to
embrace a Platonic realism. For the dominance of geometry and arithmetic over
algebra promoted the conception of mathematics as observational rather than
creative, the objects it dealt with, the number series, or points, lines, surfaces,
solids and spatial relations, seemed to be provided in advance, and the science
did not invent but examined and explored; and again the intellectually defined
space of Euclid, exhaustively described by a priori methods, since it seemed to
be so uniformly and exactly equivalent to "physical" space, seemed to suggest
that the universe might be altogether mathematically intelligible, and lent indirect
support to the speculations of the Timaeus on the constitution of matter, or to
the geometrical atomism which the recently discovered works of ancient
mechanical writers such as Hero and Philo, in their discussions of pneumatics,
presented.

XIII. Of the applications of mathematics, its immediate practical fruits, perhaps

that traditionally supposed most directly connected with it, was the art of making
machines, often spoken of as "mathematical magic." Dee's construction of a
device coming under this heading, the Scarab for the Trinity Greek play has
already been noted. He maintained always an interest in mechanical inventions;
but though he foresaw and announced enthusiastically that great material
powers could be won over nature by technical development in an age when
machines were few and crude, and economic incentives for discovery apparently
lacking (215), his sympathies remained entirely opposed to the type of view for
which Francis Bacon became so famous as a propagandist, and which Boylein
the mid-seventeenth century ascribed to the Royal Society, referring with
approval, to "our new philosophical college, that values no knowledge but as it
hath a tendency to use."(216) Nevertheless Dee's emphasis on the potential
utility of this science contrasts strongly with that of the ancient writers whose
works were stimulating interest in it at the time (217). The writings of Philo and
Hero are of the same type as that lost work of Ctesibius which, Vitruvius said,
was full of many things "quae non sunt ad necessitatem sed ad deliciarum
voluntatem" (218); with the exception of a few for weight lifting or military
purposes, ancient mechanical inventions appear as almost wholly directed to
amuse, astound or deceive a spectator (the name the art earned inconsequence,
Dee continues to employ, when he treats in the Preface of "Thaumaturgike"
among the "Arts Mathematicall," and is at pains to purge it from the imputation
of Sorcery (219)). Throughout his life Dee threw off from time to time casual
technical inventions; they were usually prompted by some specific need, and in
this sense "occasional," and though he may speak of them with pride, he seems
to have taken little care for their survival or dissemination by recording full
descriptions of them, and perhaps regarded them as chiefly important in
providing palpable evidence and illustration of those general cosmical
mathematical theories that had led him to attempt them. His acquaintance,
Robert Norman, an experimentally minded instrument maker, could grow lyrical
about how successful empirical practitioners were "caried and overcome with the
incredible delight conceived of their owne devices and inventions," (220) but for
Dee such exercises were far from being the most important aspect of the
knowledge he sought; the possibility of their performance would inevitably
accompany its attainment, but in the "scale of being" they represented a decline
from pure mathematics, a privation of its sphere of reference, and not the ascent
from it, which Dee held the mind capable of making and to be most worthily
employed at when essaying. (Nevertheless his unvarying use of "Mercury" as the
proper symbol of intellectual truth, and the soul's activity, of course carries with
it a subsidiary suggestion of practical application (221).) Over-attention to such
practises might carry with it a tendency to approach problems in mathematics in
a way Dee felt to be inadequate and dangerous. Archytas we are told, who was
the first to attempt the systematisation of mechanics, was also the first "to
employ mechanical motion in geometrical construction," and by such methods
duplicate the cube (222); or again, Iordanus Nemorarius, in the thirteenth
century, had claimed a successful trisection of the angle by allowing a sliding and
rotatory movement to a graduated ruler; both he and Campanus, following the
usage of some Arab mathematicians had not scrupled to introduce a notion of
the parts of a figure in geometrical procedure. Dee discusses such methods in his
Preface, and more fully in his notes, to Euclid; his position is strict but intelligent
and unpedantic; he himself is throughout fertile in similar suggestions - for the
determination by physical methods of the proportion of a square to circle when
the side of one equals the diameter of the other and so on, but he firmly
excludes them from the sphere of geometry proper, which he insists must
proceed only by demonstration, and never rely on intuitively plausible illustration,
and which must limit its constructions entirely to what can be achieved with
straight edge and compasses (nor may these last even be legitimately
transferred from one place to another, and remain open). The mechanical
devices, for attaining approximate results he adds by way of footnotes, for a
variety of extrinsic reasons. They are designed to assist artisans in performing
necessary constructions in connection with their crafts where only a certain
degree of accuracy is required; and, when not of so direct an utility, are intended
to convince the artisan of the applicability of mathematics to material things,
since he may approach, ever more exactly and as closely as he pleases by
increasing carefulness in performing the suggested experiments, to the result
arrived at by previous reasoning. Dee is careful to point out that such operations
must not be considered as superseding or as an adequate substitute for the
theoretical procedure of Euclid - and demands of his readers, however practical
their interests, that they only go on to them after mastering the logical
demonstrations.

Dee's experiments, his excursions into particularities, his useful or spectacular

inventions, he engaged on only as illustrations of his more abstract doctrines, to
entertain or impress, on occasion, those whose patronage he sought, or
sometimes when so requested to meet some specific need, that might be of
advantage to the commonwealth. A sidelight on the relatively early, fixed
direction in his views is provided by his notes and underlinings in his Greek and
Latin Euclid of 1557; in Gracilis' preface, which argues that numbers are the
"rational parts" of things, he particularly remarks (in addition to Archimedes'
claims for the powers of mechanics) the passage "Sic ergo censuit Plato, sic
Aristoteles sic deniq; philosophi omnes, Geometriam ipsam cognitionis gratia
exercendam, nec ex aliquo usu externo, sed exrerum intelligentia aestimanda
esse."(223) Dee compared himself once, in a well-known phrase, to Aristotle
(requesting Elizabeth to be a second Alexander), but it was Archimedes, whose
exploits, though almost fabulous in kind had been voluntarily restricted,
undertaken only reluctantly, that he seems to have regarded as in many ways
the true type of the investigator of phenomena, and searcher after knowledge,
and himself held, probably with conscious acknowledgment of the
correspondence, similar views on the purposes of mathematics to those which
Plutarch ascribes to Archimedes (224). The editio princeps of Archimedes' works
appeared at Basle in 1544, but portions of them had been available in various
sources since about 1500 (225); Dee's acquaintance Commandine composed a
commentary on them, and Dee, in a translation in the Preface, claimed to be the
first to give various propositions from the "statics" widespread circulation in
England, a proceeding which bore fruit in other contemporary works. Dee's
admiration was generally shared by mathematicians of the day; Cardan drew the
wrath of Scaliger, who branded Archimedes a mere artisan, for giving him first
place in his list of the great thinkers of the world (Aristotle and Euclid he placed
second and third)(226). There is much justification for accepting, with little
reservation, the frequently encountered descriptions of this period "the century
of Archimedes." Seailles writes: "des le XVe siecle le reveil et le progres
scientifique se mesurent a l'influence d'Archimede...Qu'Archimede ait ete
l'initiateur de la science moderne c'est une verite de fait."(227) At the end of the
century Galileo's original work may be said to have begun in many respects, his
transition from statical to dynamic problems, for instance, at precisely the point
where Archimedes broke off. Archimedes' approach, it is true - so lucid and
inevitable when offered as a finished product, but entirely mysterious, because
altogether unhelpful and unenlightening, as regards the manner in which he
must originally - as opposed to his subsequent exposition - have conceived, and
in fact arrived at the solution to problems (228) aroused wondering scientists
such as Dee and Pedro Nunez to speculations on the Greeks' possession of some
secret method of analysis that had never been divulged. Nevertheless
Archimedes' application of apparently entirely deductively founded methods of
demonstration to subjects hitherto considered remote from the sphere of pure
geometry, and offering a complete contrast to Aristotelian treatment of the
theory of the lever or general method in the Mechanical Problems, was to a large
extent responsible for the effect now produced by his writings - they set a model
which numbers of works on a variety of sciences followed (229).

XIV. The general picture Dee presents to us in the earlier periods of his life never
changes greatly. Although always professing a desire that fruits of his studies
might sometime be applied to the common good he is primarily a secret man
ardently pursuing secret knowledge (230). Trithemius, for whom he had
excessive admiration, had written to Agrippa on being shown the Occult
Philosophy that he should "speak of things public to the public but of things lofty
and secret only to the loftiest and most private of your friends."(231) In
accordance with such sentiments, Dee, however generously open in personal
intercourse, reserves his work from publication, or publishes in the most veiled
and obscure terms at his disposal, in the tradition of the great alchemists (232).
(Stressing this side of his nature - which appears clearly in his Monas only serves
to emphasise by contrast, the considerable prejudices he overcame later, when
in the Preface and other writings he championed the cause of the vernacular,
particularly as a medium for scientific and philosophic texts and attempted to
assist popular instruction.) However at the same time he invariably and clearly
asserts the general position that laws and harmonies are discoverable in nature
by observation and experiment which reveal God directly. A frequent and
important Hermetic dogma was the insistence on an original fall from grace
which deprived man of the perfect wisdom, which by nature he was capable of,
and which, however, he might still to varying extents recover and return to. Dee
would seem at times to have accepted this position, and regarded all new
knowledge only as a rediscovery; something proper to the soul, which, in Adam,
had possessed innately, or known as a matter of immediate experience, such
truths as could now only be attained by exercise of reason and represented to
the intellect in abstract formulae. Mathematics he held to be native to the mind,
and nature he held should be studied quantitatively because its essence was
mathematical, and the structure, in this respect, reflected truths in the mind of
God; the mysteries nature concealed and which were to be sought out were
theological statements in mathematical terms. Thus it has been observed that
"For Dee the realm of natural philosophy had no sharply defined boundaries, in
its farther limits it met the spirit world in a misty border region," and his deep
interest in this borderland has obscured his achievements to late generations
(233). But similar positions were almost forced upon many mathematicians of
the day who wished to justify their own attention to their subject and maintain
its fundamental importance in the fact of the only too common charge that, as
Herbert of Cherbury phrases it, while in method it was admittedly the most
certain of Sciences, yet its end and objects were "but ignoble in respect of others
as tending only to the measuring of heights, depths and distances, or the making
of some excellent engines and the like; all which are of so mean consideration,
that they can be in no ways esteemed, as objects adequated or proportioned to
the dignity of our souls, whose speculations reach much further."(234)
Chapter IV

FROM REFORMER TO CATHOLIC: DEE'S RELIGIOUS POSITION AND

CONTEMPORARY METAPHYSICS
(1548-1556).

I. Returns to Louvain, relations with continental scholars - the new science in

Germany and the Low Countries - studies in Law - acquaintance with Pickering -
work on Mercury - lectures on Euclid at paris, his Parish Circle (n. 21) - scientific
treatises for Ed. VI.

II. Among the reformers - their new educational programme - in

Northumberland's household - instructions on application of mathematics to
military affairs - work on symbols of the constellations - astronomical
observations.

III. Arrested on charges of practising witchcraft - acquitted and cleared of heresy

- serves as Bonner's chaplain - Foxe's picture of Dee as "the great conjuror" and
a persecutor of protestants.

IV. Dee's religious conformity - his syncretism and neo-Platonic intellectualisation

of religion - supported by historical tradition that all past knowledge derives from
Adam, Moses and the Jews - by metaphysical doctrines of the direct illumination
of man's mind by God - Philosophy as a divine revelation - Man and God, the
Platonic and Augustinian tradition in the Renaissance - Dee's belief in successive
particular revelations occurring through history and his own claims to inspiration.

V. His speculations on the soul - apparent discordance with his usually expressed
neo-Platonic theories - usual definite rejection of Aristotelian theories of the soul
- and belief that nature is subordinated to the soul's cogitations - the proof being
souls' grasp of mathematical truth - usual rejection of terms matter and form as
concepts through which to analyse nature - tendency to replace these by
mechanism and spirit - other neo-Platonic solutions of the problems raised by
defining soul as the form of the body - Roger Bacon - Ibn Gebirol - Cudworth's
similar speculations - Platonism and the resurrection of the body - the
foundations of knowledge and the soul's immortality - Dee's repudiation of
Aristotelian theories of dependance of thought upon the sense contrasted with
his temporary assumptions here.

VI. Dee's reflections, preceding propositions on soul in M.S. - ultimate

dependence of metaphysical knowledge on faith - this thesis and Christian
Platonism - an Aristotelian analysis of the mental faculties - apparently destroys
grounds of a defence of immortality - its petitio principi - the role of the intellect
- mathematical knowledge in Augustine and Dee - purpose of Dee's propositions
to show inadequacy of Aristotelian analysis of man, and fatal consequence of its
premisses for religious dogma of personal immortality - neo-Platonic criticism of
the defects of materialist explanation of soul in terms of body - alternative
explanation based on the Scale of Beings.

VII. Dee's propositions and their reflection of Pomponazzi's interpretation of

Aristotle - the problem of the generation of man if he is a genuine unity - natural
generation implies his entire mortality - relations of soul and body - soul cannot
control or move the body in any way on Aristotelian principles - if thus
dependent it will perish with the body - difficulties of their conjunction if soul
more than an Aristotelian "form" existing only through matter - doubts on the
unity of the soul - consequences of dependence of knowledge on sense - reason
in man and separated substances - permanent need of human soul for some
body - neo-Platonic solution and defects of Thomist theories.

VIII. Philosophical difficulties about admitting possibility of an infinite number of

souls - doubts about possible principle of distinction between separated souls -
inadequacy of either number or quality - the unity of the active intellect - change
and individual souls - Dee's neo-Platonic view of the relation between the
immortal intellect and the senses.

IX. Absence of any affirmation of specifically personal immortality in Dee's

writings - his entirely intellectually interpretation of Beatitude - the importance of
these propositions, nevertheless, for his more general rejection of Aristotelianism
- similarity with Nipho's criticism of Pomponazzi.

X. Potential unorthodoxy of Dee's more usual views - his statements on the

survival of the soul and the importance of mathematical knowledge in assisting
its ascent to God in the Preface attacked by Chamber as unchristian and
superstitiously numerological - defended by Heydon - Dee further denounced by
Carleton for Pythagoreanism - Pelagianism - disregarding sin and neglecting role
of Grace in salvation - Dee's own silence during this controversy.

Appendix (following notes) Facsimile and transcript of Ashmole M.S. 337 ff 56-
57.

CHAPTER IV (cont)

I. In the summer of 1548 Dee returned to Louvain, where he remained two

years (1). It is perhaps of interest to note, as an indication of the geographical
shift in the centres of scientific studies, that apart from one visit to Urbino to
confer with Commandine, on a specific publication (followed probably by
sometime in Rome), Dee's travels, undertaken for very serious, if undefined,
purposes (2), were invariably made in the Low Countries, or the Empire; here,
and at Paris, were also the majority of his foreign acquaintances, correspondents
and University connections. Dee was to receive many letters from "noble lovers
of good learning" in Verona, Padua, Ferrara, Bononia and Rome (3), but the
Italian universities, with the partial exception of Padua, which enjoyed under the
protection of the Venetian Republic, a greater measure of freedom and
independence than the rest, and attracted to itself, particularly on account of its
medical school, numbers of English and other foreign scholars, displayed in this
period little interest in the new sciences (4). Italy, in many cases the first to
produce in print editions of classical scientific works, gave small attention to their
actual study of further development; even Italian neo-Platonists display little
interest in mathematics,apart from the use that may be made of number in
"Pythagorean" or mystical speculations (5), and Italian mathematicians for the
most part show little discontent with the general Aristotelian picture of the world.
The reverse was true in Germany and the Low Countries, an effect partly
assisted by the more recent foundation of many of the Universities there; typical
is the statutory declaration at Wittenburg that mathematics were to be taught to
all students, one reason being that without them the works of Aristotle were not
to be understood (6). (The movement under Edward VI to reform Oxford and
Cambridge was perhaps in some measure an attempt to bring them into
conformity with continental instruction.) Moreover in some cases attempts were
made to integrate academic research into the practical life of the community.
Bishop Wilkins pointing out the advantageous effects of this, cites continental
practice as one example for "Ramus hath observed, (Schol.Math.1.7) that the
Reason why Germany hath been so Eminent for Mechanical Inventions, is
because there have been publick Lectures of this kind instituted amongst them,
and these not only in the Learned Languages, but also in the vulgar Tongue, for
the Capacity of every Unlettered Ingenious Artificer."(7) Dee among others, was
to lend his influence in support of instituting similar instruction in England,
proposals realised in some measure in London at the end of the century.
Germany had early become the centre of the new astronomy through the work
of such men as Peurbach, Regiomontanus, and Apianus, and in other respects it
enjoyed an era of intense and original mathematical productivity, particularly in
various fields of applied mathematics, of which the activities of Duerer - whose
works exercised considerable influence on both Recorde and Dee - are an
example (8).

At Louvain Dee records that he "did, for recreation, look into the method of the
civile law, and profited therein so much, that in antimonys, imagined to be in the
law, I had good hap to find out (well allowed of) their agreementes; and also to
enter into a plaine and due understanding of divers civill lawes, accounted very
intricate and darke." For these services he received a testimonial from the
University (9), but the only evidence as to the extent of Dee's knowledge of this
subject that remains is supplied by the various references to legal problem she
makes in later writings, which are all related to attempts to demonstrate how
necessary it is, even in this sphere, to have an understanding of mathematics; as
in dealing with questions of price regulations, or avoiding the errors of the
glossators on the various manners of dividing inheritances, and also in framing
correct ideas of the true natures of abstract Justice and Equity.

Dee's fame and the number of his distinguished foreign acquaintances increased
rapidly. Various noblemen came to visit him from the court of Charles V, then at
Brussels. But he declined, as did Gemma Frisius at the same period, an offer to
enter the service of Charles; the first of the five Emperors, under whom, as he
later reminded Elizabeth, he might, had he so cared, have had a highly salaried
position. Others, "with strange and no vulgar opinion, settled in their
imaginations, of my skill," came from Bohemia; and from Denmark arrived
"Mathias Hacus, Danus, Regis Daniae Mathematicus; Joannes Capito, Medicus
Regis Daniae, and a good mathematician also." Here too began Dee's long
friendship with William Pickering (10), later ambassador in France and Germany,
and in the early part of her reign seriously considered as a suitor for Elizabeth's
hand. A strange optical glass belonging to him is described in the Preface, which
he seems subsequently to have given or bequeathed to Dee, who exhibited its
wonders to Elizabeth and finally left it with Kelly on the Continent, perhaps as a
gift for transmission to Rudolf II (11).

Pickering, although some ten years older than Dee, and himself a graduate of
Cambridge, where he had been one of the young men who took up Cheke's new
pronunciation in Greek, came now to Dee for instruction not only in astronomy
and the use of instruments but also, it is of interest to note, in arithmetic,
rhetoric and logic (12).

In addition to his studies, tutoring, and conferences with his many visitors, Dee
still found time in his last year at Louvain to compose a work in twenty-four
books entitled Mercurius Coelestis. As so many of Dee's writings, this is now lost
and its contents a matter of conjecture. Mercury, whose sign forms the most
important constituent in his hieroglyph of the monad, remained for him always
an imaginative symbol - its meaning only too often thoroughly arcane - for
concepts he professed to regard as of the utmost importance. His use of the
symbol comprehends, but has more extensive reference than, the qualities
conventionally associated with the classical, alchemical or astrological mercury
(13). The implications of Dee's usage - his praise of "this mercurial dianoia" in
the Preface accord fairly closely with the adoption of Mercury in early neo-
Platonic writings as a representative of the divine reason of things, the creative
power - especially in the form in which this is accessible to the intellect - which
sustains and directs the universe (14). But an immediate source, or inspiration,
for the surviving works of Dee can be found almost invariably in Roger Bacon, for
whom he had an inordinate admiration, manuscripts of whose works he collected
with assiduity, and whose teachings he, in his own works, consciously sought to
revive and propagate; and Bacon, though largely unaware of the subtleties of
the neo_Platonic view of Mercury, adds another, and theologically important
attribute, which Dee may also have involved in his own interpretations of this
symbol. Bacon, following Albumazor, expounds a view of history as a series of
epochs, or cycles, produced by the successive conformations of the heavens,
which latter could be particularly correlated with the rise and fall of religions. It
was a theory held in various forms by many of those to whom Dee gave
particular attention, Trithemius, Agrippa, Cornelius Gemma; and one which, if
the pronouncements of Kelly's "Angels" on this topic be regarded as a more
elaborated reflection of Dee's own views, as they very often were on other
matters, may be supposed to have been held by Dee himself. Bacon proceeds
and Dee nowhere exhibits a disagreement or dissension from any of his
positions, to deduce the course and nature of the great religions of the world
from the qualities of the particular planet he ascribes to each. Mercury (15)
which has its potencies all in Virgo, signifies Christianity. (It was, he says, one of
its conjunctions in the twenty-fourth year of Augustus that caused Ovid - in the
work concerning the change in his life - to break forth in admiration of the sect
of Mercury destined to be introduced into the world by a prophet without human
father, born of a virgin.) "Mercury always has reference to deity and to the
oracular utterances of prophets, and to belief in prayer." "The law of Mercury is
harder to believe than the others and contains many difficulties beyond the
human intellect. This is in keeping with the difficult motion of Mercury, whose
circuit is in an epicycle and in an eccentric circle and in a concentric one...and
they (the motions) are more wonderful and more difficult than all the motions of
the planets....For this reason he has reference, as they say, to the law that
contains difficult articles and hidden truths of which kind is the Christian law....he
indicates (because he signifies also writing, and learning) that this law will be
defended by such authentic scriptures and by so many profound sciences and by
such potency and eloquence that it will always remain firm in its own strength
until the final law of the moon shall disrupt it for a time." Certainly the general
tone of this, and method of argument is reminiscent of Dee's in the Monas where
a correspondence is established between the parts of his hieroglyph and stages
in the life of Christ, and in which the general exaltation of Mercury perhaps casts
slight retrospectively on this lost work composed at Louvain. Dee may also have
taken hints for his work from Paracelsus' writings (16) in which Mercury was
spoken of as that spirit above nature by reason of which all things exist and was
even equated with the Joanine word.

In July 1550 Dee proceeded to Paris where "(for the honour of my country I did
undertake to read freely and publiquely Euclide's Elements Geometricall,
Mathematice Physice et Pythagorice; a thing never done publiquely in any
University of Christendome." He claims novelty for his methods of exposition; for
"by the first foure principall definitions representing to the eyes (which by
imagination onely are exactly to be conceived) a greater wonder arose among
the beholders, than of my Aristophanes Scarabeus mounting up to the top of
Trinity Hall in Cambridge."(18) The preface to Orontius Euclid (1544) informs us
that Paris candidates for a degree were required (by a regulation of 1536) to
give a most solemn assurance that they had attended lectures on the first six
books of Euclid (Dee confined himself to books I and II) (19). No other test than
this declaration on oath was imposed; moreover if one may judge from the
"Euclid" Ramus prepared for university purposes (Paris, 1549) which consists of
nothing but the bare enunciation of the propositions, the degree of knowledge
expected was not necessarily very high. Dee's audience however far exceeded
the capacity of the mathematical schools of Rheims College. The three levels on
which he treated his subject recall the familiar "three worlds" of the Hermetics -
which underlie the scheme of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and more particularly
the specific cognitive interpretation Dee gave this doctrine in the Preface, where
the central theme is the insistence on the mind's potentialities for descent to
things physical or ascent to things divine, when it has become fully acquainted
with the mediant realm of things mathematical, natural to itself. But the
trichotomy later became so usual (Browne's Quincunx is "artificially, naturally
and spiritually, considered") (20) as to lose any precise metaphysical import.
Dee's methods of "physical" exposition are perhaps those represented so
frequently in the Euclid, where, strictly distinguishing this from demonstration,
sensible "tests" of propositions or intuitive illustration of axioms are suggested
and cut-out paste-board figures which can be moved over the plane,
superimposed on each other, or turned over, are employed. Of his
Pythagoreanising the Monas which will be examined later, offers an example.

The bare list of the few selected names Dee mentions as among the many who
sought his acquaintance in Paris at this time and with whom he enjoyed some
intimacy is impressive in its scope; there were he says some 40,000 "accounted
students" at Paris and among these "very many of all estates and professions
were desirous of my acquaintance and conference as Mizaldus, Petrus
Montaureus, Ranconetus, Danesius, Jacobus Sylvius, Jacobus Goupylus,
Turnebus, Straselius, Vicomercatus, Paschasius Hamelius, Petrus Ramus,
Gulielmus Postellus, Fernelius, Jo. Magnionus, Johannes a Pena "&c."(21) Fernel,
it may be noted, had a few years previously been compelled to give up his
mathematical studies on account of the expenses they entailed in this age and
the lack of return they brought and to devote himself to the more immediately
profitable practise of medicine (22). Pena's views seem to have been similar to
Dee's own; he was one of the most promising pupils of Ramus, who wrote that
he had devoted himself to the study of mathematics "ut ardentius aut flagrantius
nihil unquam viderim,"(23) he found in optics the pattern for the applied
sciences, and Kepler later mentioned him in the Dioptrica (1611) (24) as the
chief of those earlier thinkers who had arrived, by long chains of inferences and
abstract reasoning, at correct conclusions about the nature of the moon, and had
dared to maintain that it was no smooth chrystalline sphere of some unearthly
substance, but was similar in its surface irregularity and in composition to the
earth (facts, said Kepler, which were now at last made evident to the sense by
Galileo's telescope). Dee recurs several times to his friendship with Orontius
Finaeus: though the first Royal Professor of Mathematics, in France, Fine has
usually been judged harshly by posterity, while better scholars than himself, such
as Pedro Nunez, did not scruple in his own day to brand him as a pretentious
ignoramus, and castigated the palpable errors in the works he produced,
claiming to have solved all three of those hoary problems, the squaring of the
circle, duplication of the cube, and trisection of the angle. Nevertheless despite
the deceit, or vanity, which led him to continue to reprint these books with no
reference to the criticisms that were levelled at his solutions, his reputation
seems to have been high, and his general influence beneficial, and Ramus
praises him for being the man originally responsible for the Renaissance of
mathematical studies in France (25). Dee refused several positions in the houses
of private gentlemen, as well as that of Mathematical Reader to the French King
with a stipend of 200 crowns at this time (26). He returned to England in 1551,
and was recommended by Cheke to Cecil and Edward VI, an event he seems to
have anticipated, since one of the two treatises he composed for the king's use is
dated 1550. This was De usu Globi Coelestis followed the next year by the
second, De Nubium, Solis, Lunae, ac reliquorum Planetarum, immo ipsius
stelliferi Coeli, ab infimo Terrae Centro, distantiis, mutuises intervallis, et
eorundemomnium Magnitudine liber . He received from Edward a pension of 100
crowns, which was exchanged in March 1553 for the rectory of Upton upon
Severn, to which Long Headenham was added later in the year; the two having
together an annual value of L50 (27).

II. Under Edward, Dee seems to have been attached to the group of scholars
and humanists who had suddenly come to have considerable influence in state
affairs, and who had attempted a thoroughgoing reform of University education.
This, it is true, had perhaps been somewhat hastily devised and peremptorily
enforced, so that much confusion and disorganization resulted, aggravated by
the Visitation which preceded the promulgation, and which, as its reports
witness, busied itself mainly with a strict enquiry into particularities of religious
observances, and carried out extensive purges in the various colleges, expelling
many of the older fellows and putting younger men in their places. Nevertheless
theoretically, in its aims and broad outline, the new dispensation appears to
accord closely with the views Dee in general advocated. In the student's first
year mathematics was now to be taught, in the second dialectic, in the third and
fourth philosophy. The further three years course necessary for an M.A. degree
included philosophy, astronomy, perspective and Greek (28). To hold the study
of mathematics to be a necessary preparatory discipline to dialectic - as Dee,
Recorde and others suggested it was - even though not advocated for such
reasons as Plotinus urged, that it was only thus the philosopher could become
properly familiar with incorporeal essences (29) - was usually taken at the time
as indicative of a Platonic standpoint, certainly of one divergent from
Aristotelianism, and the new statutes did in fact order the reading in philosophy
of the works of Plato equally with those of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, Strabo, and
Pliny were also prescribed, and arithmetic was to be now taught from modern
"algoristic" text books__those of Tunstall and Cardan. (Cardan was himself
resident in Cheke's London house in 1552 and it seems that Dee, to whom he
was in many points not dissimilar in personality or interests though their
philosophical views differ fundamentally, made his acquaintance at this time
(301).) Cheke had a number of copies of Euclid distributed at his own expense to
the students of St. Johns, and despatched Buckley to that college to lecture on
arithmetic and geometry. Dee was offered, but declined a similar post at Oxford
(31). But the new order was swept away under Mary, and its innovations set
down to the "sensuall mindes and rashe determinations of a few men."
Constitutions drawn up in 1558 reaffirm that, although Porphyry and Rudolphus
Agricola might be utilised as well as Aristotle, "all other dialectics should be
rejected," and "that in natural and moral philosophy Aristotle only should be
read." The conservative revision effected by Elizabeth's statutes of 1564/1565
reverted to, or rather confirmed, a pre-Edwardian curriculum, with grammar,
logic, and rhetoric as its B.A. course, considerably abridging the time occupied on
"philosophy, making Greek no longer necessary for the M.A. and allowing
Boethius' arithmetic in place of Tunstall's, and Witelo's Perspective in place of
Euclid; and those of 1570, which continued the complete exclusion of
mathematics from undergraduate studies, remained in force until 1858. Had the
Edwardian design succeeded it might well have done much to bridge "the gap
between the Latinized university doctors and the "uncouth" teachers of
arithmetic, technicians and book-keepers of the commercial cities (which) existed
to the disadvantage of both throughout the 16th century and later."(32)
Mulcaster, one of those who, then at Cambridge, received one of Cheke's Euclids
(and also a Xenophon) years later praises Cheke's attempted reforms of this
period, and advocates the establishment of a college of mathematics, defending
and urging the advantages of this knowledge in phrases which closely parallel
Dee's Preface; he lists the many trades not granted the title of learning, in which
it played a great part and had been responsible for many inventions. "Then
gather I" he argues, "if bare experience, and ordinarie imitation do cause so
great things to be done by the meere shadow and roate of these sciences, what
would judiciale cunning do, being joined with so well affected experience?"(33)

Dee's relations with court circles at this time seems chiefly to have been with the
extreme religious reform party. An entry, among other memoranda he entered
on the errata page of a work of Cardan's, states that he entered the service of
Pembroke in 1552 (34). Subsequently he would appear to have been attached to
the household of Northumberland, Lord Protector and Chancellor of Cambridge
University, since in the Preface he celebrates the memory of Northumberland's
eldest son John, Earl of Warwick, who had married Seymour's daughter, as one
"thoroughly known to very few" but whose "Heroical Meditations, forecastings
and determinations, no twayne (I thinke) beside my selfe, can so perfectly, and
truely report." The Earl of Warwick, to whom the Ramist Thomas Wilson
dedicated The Art of Rhetoriqua in 1552, and whose early death the Preface
laments (for though pardoned, after being condemned with his father in 1553 he
died in prison the following year aged 24), Dee especially lauds for the pains he
took to reduce military organisation and tactics to geometrical or arithmetical
rules, which were then inscribed on vellum "and all these Rules and descriptions
Arithmeticall, inclosed in a riche Case of Golde, he used to weare about his
necke, as his Juell most precious, and Counsaylour most trusty. Thus,
Arithmeticke, of him, was shryned in gold: of Numbers fruite, he had good hope.
Now, Numbers therefore innumerable, in Numbers prayse, his shryne shall
finde."(35) At the request of the Duchess of Northumberland Dee wrote two
works for her in 1553. The true cause and account (not vulgar) of Fluds and
Ebbs (36) and The Philosophicall and Poeticall Original occasions of the
Configurations and names of the heavenly Asterismes. This last subject
frequently formed part of regular astronomical instruction. Thus Thomas Hood,
Mathematical Lecturer to the City of London, adds to his handbook of practical
instruction, The Use of the Celestial Globe in Plane (1590), a description of the
"Nature and the poeticall reason of each several Constellation." Nor was such
addition necessarily made, as is perhaps the case with Hood, merely for pleasure
rather than for edification (though the subject was a popular one for such purely
"literary" productions as Christopher Middleton's Historie of Heaven 1596); much
of astrological dogma might be deduced from such considerations; Dee looked
upon the ancient poets as prophets and sages; their works were to be
interpreted, after the manner of Porphyry's exegesis of Homer; they should be
considered as receptacles of secret wisdom, and the Pagan gods, their names
and myths, not as arbitrary fancies, but as obscurely signifying genuine
information in natural philosophy - as being as Cusa and other Christian
Platonists had held (37), neither fictions, nor deceits of the devil, but powers or
aspects of God discovered and worshipped by the ancients in the created world.
The configurations of the constellations, the signs by which men represented
these and the planets, Dee believed were not random or conventional, but
symbolised deep natural and religious truths - this is the central premise in his
analysis of some of them in the Monas. It may be also not wholly a coincidence
that this same year, 1553, Postel in Paris produced a work with a similar title to
Dee's, in which he treats the whole subject as being of the utmost philosophical
importance (38); Postel and Dee had perhaps discussed the topic together
during their acquaintanceship of 1550.

In London at this time Dee had made connections - which were to increase in
numbers throughout most of his life - with navigators, instrument makers and
practising craftsmen, and his interest in turning his knowledge to practical
account and the solution of technological problems has already awakened. Thus
in 1553 besides his Aphorismi Astrologici 300, he composed Astronomicall and
logisticall rules and Canons, to calculate the Ephemerides by, and other
necessary accounts of heavenly motions: written at the request, and for the use
of that excellent Mechanicien Master Richard Chauncelor, at his last voyage into
Moschovia. He also made with Chancellor numerous astronomicall observations,
employing instruments of an unusual size and incorporating a new device
allowing of fractional readings (39). This was the use of transversals, the
invention of which Digges attributes to Chancellor and which he describes in the
Alae of 1573. They cannot have become public knowledge, for Tycho Brahe also
claimed to have originated the device in 1564, but it had had at least in theory a
much longer history, the suggestion dating back to Levi ben Gerson (d. 1344)
and was later claimed to have been known to Peurbach and Regiomantus,
though the first printed description is probably in Puehler's Geomatria of 1561
(40). A not unrelated idea (which is also perhaps a remote ancestor of the
Vernier) was known to Dee from Pedro Nunez 's De Crepusculia of 1542, where
(41) it is suggested that the astrolabe be inscribed with 44 concentric quarter
circles, the outer edge marked off as usual into 90 whole degree divisions, the
first inner arc into 89, the second into 88 and so on; theoretically this would
allow os such exact readings of results that the only source of significant error
would be the original observation; but it is doubtful whether such an instrument
could have been constructed with any accuracy. (Dee and Chancellor may have
utilised the data they obtained in the preparation of an Ephemeris, but Dee's
expression concerning their observations is ambiguous and probably does not
imply that he brought out tables himself in 1554 and 5 - which would if this were
in fact the case, be Dee's first printed works (42)). Such practical preoccupations
may have contributed to his refusal in 1554 of the offer of a readership in
Mathematics at Oxford, but his reasons according to Smith (43) were that he
regarded such a position as too public, wished his life rather to become more
solitary and retired, and that he had a disinclination to be tied to one narrow
place but desired freedom to travel.

An indication that Dee already enjoyed some reputation at this time is provided
by the otherwise rather inaccurate entry in Bale's "Catalogue of British Writers,"
an entry made some time during this decade, and probably before Dee's only too
widely publicised association with Bonner, whom Bale designated in the title of a
work of 1561 (A declaration of E. Bonner's articles...) as "that execrable
Antychrist." The entry runs "Joannes Dinus seu Deus, astronomus peritissimus, in
Italia ac Parisijs studens, pleraque edidit."(44) Another indication is the invitation
he is said to have received from Mary after her accession in July 1553 to cast her
horoscope (45); his long continued friendship with Elizabeth also dates from this
time, as after rendering her the same service (46) he remained in
correspondence with her while she resided in Woodstock and Milton.
III. In 1555 Dee met with the first of the major misfortunes of his life, echoes of
which followed him long after, and were even perhaps contributories to his
difficulties in Manchester at the close of the century. Though the initial
accusation was of another sort, political and religious considerations probably
entered into the investigations; for a number of Dee's associates were in similar
trouble at this time: Pickering had been indicted for treason while still abroad in
1554; Day, "the English Plantin," who brought out Dee's later works including the
English Euclid, was imprisoned for a time with the martyr Thomas Rogers and
then took refuge on the continent; Cheke who had served as one of Lady Jane
Grey's secretaries of state, though pardoned after his first imprisonment, was
rearrested in 1556 and only released from the Tower after a public recantation of
his protestant opinions (47). On the 28th May the Privy Council (48) directed "A
lettre to Sir Fraunces Englefelde to make search for oone John Dye, dwelling in
London, and to apprehend him and send him hither, and make searche for suche
papers and bookes as he maye thinke may touwche the same Dye or Beger."(49)
A private letter of June 8th (50) states that Dee, Cary and Butler, who calculated
the nativities of the King, Queen, and Princess Elizabeth, were apprehended on
the accusation of one Ferys whose children had thereupon been struck, one with
death, the other with blindness. Dee adds the name of another accusor, writing
that he was imprisoned "Upon suspicion of which my service then, (i.e., `some
travailles he had made on Elizabeth's behalf') and upon the false information
given in by one George Ferrys and Prideaux (51) that I endeavoured by
enchantments to destroy Queene Mary."(52) He elsewhere states that "a certain
Doctor" whom in Paris he had "used with friendship and humanity," now
proceeded to urge the Lord Chancellor "with whom he could do very much" that
Dee "bee kept in Perpetuall Prison."(53) Dee was first examined by Sir John
Bourne "the Secretary to the Queene...an especiall stirrer up in suche cases
[Foxe is here speaking particularly of heresy investigations], yea and an entiser
of others of the counsell, who (if for feare they durste) would have bene content
to have lette suche matters alone," (54) and Bourne Dee later speaks of with
much bitterness, numbering him with the slanderous informers who have
troubled his life as one actuated by deep seated malice towards himself. Dee
answered to four and then to eighteen articles submitted to him by the Privy
Council, and was then committed to the Justice of the Common Pleas (55) and
later appeared before the Star Chamber. Though Dee's horoscope casting had
received royal encouragement it remained of doubtful legality, for the stringent
laws against sorcery of 1541/2, declaring this crime a felony without benefit of
clergy, were accepted as covering all forms of astrological predictions (56),
though they do not seem to have been enforced except when the prognosticator
was rash enough or so unwary as to touch upon matters of state. A further letter
of the 5th June from the Privy Council (57) authorised certain persons "to
proceede to a further examinacioun of Benger, Carye, Dye and Felde (an
astronomical coadjutator of Dee's to whose Ephemeris Dee later contributed a
prefatory letter) uppon suche poyntes as by their wisdomes they shall gather out
of their former confessions towching thiere lewde and vayne practises of
calculing and conjuring"; all persons found to be concerned with them were to
be immediately arrested. Dee cleared himself of the original charges and was
handed over to Bonner's custody for an examination on points of religion. On the
29th August were despatched (58) "a lettre to the Master of the Rolles to cause
Carye, remayning in his custodie, to be bounde for his goode a bearing betwist
this and Christmans next, and fourth comyng when he shal be called, and
thereupon to set hym at libertie," and "a like lettre to the Bishop of London for
John Dee."

In later years Dee used to say of this event "I was prisoner long and bedfellow
with Barthlet Grene who was burnt" (59) and he recurs several times to his
imprisonment with this martyr. The statement has been generally repeated and
the references in Foxe to "Master Dee Bachelor of Divinity" and Bonner's chaplain
have in consequence sometimes been put down to error, or as referring to
another person of the same name (60) or as the results of gross exaggeration.
However, though Foxe's accuracy in matters of detail has sometimes been
impugned (61) yet the accounts of Dee's activities, after his release, in Bonner's
household that are given in Acts and Monuments in the Latin version of 1559,
and the first two English editions, 1563 and 1570, are quite specific and are
reproduced by Foxe from a number of independent sources; descriptions
rendered by those who came into contact with Dee or were in correspondence
with those that did at this time. Moreover Dee's own statement of the case are
misleading, thus the sentence in which he speaks of his imprisonment with
Green, just quoted, continues "and at length upon the King and Queenes
clemency and justice, I was (A.1555 Augusti 19) enlarged by the Councells
letters; being notwithstanding first bound in recognizance for ready appearance
and the good abearing for about some four months after." Yet Barthlet Green
who like Dee had originally been arrested on a charge of treason was not passed
over to Bonner for religious examination in Bonner's household at which he
shared a chamber with Dee - who must then have been nominally a free agent -
until Nov. 1555 (62). Further evidence of Dee's good relations with Bonner now,
"his father in Christ," and that he remained with him after his release, is provided
by an entry he made in a mathematical work he was studying at this time (63).
Dee's protests against Foxe's statements, apparently procured their suppression
from the third and fourth editions of Acts and Monuments in 1576 and 1583, but
before describing these complaints a summary, noting later modifications made
in the texts, is desirable of Foxe's account of Dee's service as one of Bonner's
chaplains, in which capacity he is presented as a ready instrument in heresy
hunting.

A certain Robert Smith supplied Foxe with an account of his first examination
before bonner in November 1555. Afterwards in the garden "there cometh one of
my lord's Chaplains that much desired to commune with me" and "This was Dr.
Dee a conjurer by report."(64) Dee began" "I do much desire to talk with you
lovingly, because ye are a man that I much lament"; an argument developed in
which, as Smith reports, Dee was rapidly driven into absurd contradictions in
maintaining transubstantiation, whereupon "he made many scoffings" and
departed; afterwards, "we were baited of my lords band almost all the day." At
the seventh examination of Philpots on the 19th November this year, Bonner's
words are given as "Master Philpot I charge you to answer unto such articles as
my chaplain Master Dee and my registrar have from me to object against you." If
accurately reported, there followed a sorry exhibition of browbeating on the
chaplain's part. A sharp argument about the teachings of St. Cyprian (in its
bearings on the authority of the pope) which Philpots describes as going very
much in his own favour, was concluded by a reproof administered by Philpots,
which indicates that the Chaplain, though perhaps an allowed authority in other
fields had taken but recently to Theology: "M. Dee: You are young in divinity to
teach me in the matters of my fayth, though you bee lerned in other thyngs
more than I, yet in divinitie I have been longer practised than you, for anything I
can heare of you, therefore be not too hasty to judge that you do not perfectly
knowe."(65) As to Barthlet Green, a passage describes an interrogation of
Philpots about a letter he was supposed to have written describing Green's
imprisonment in which it was said "that he was first committed to Dr. Chedsey
and after to Dr. Dee the great conjuror"; whereupon Bonner exclaimed "he hath
written a shameful lie that he was in Dr. Chedsey's keeping," which was
confirmed by Chedsey who was then present, but Bonner's only recorded remark
on Dee here, was when he turned to the other "judges," saying "How think you
my Lords is not this an honest man to belie me and to call my chaplain a great
conjuror (my Lord of Durham smiled thereat)."(66) Green himself wrote to
Philpots that after an examination on November 17th, in which his caution of
expression had aroused hopes of his ultimate conversion, "then was I brought
into my lordes inner chamber (where you were) and there was committed to
Maister Dee, who entreated me very frendly; that night I supped at my Lordes
table and lay with Maister Dee in the Chamber you did see."(67) But, proving
obdurate, his treatment became much harsher - finally he was shut up in
Bonner's notorious coal cellar - and a friend of his wrote to Philpots, though the
mention of Dee in this place may not be justified, in the light of Green's own
words: "They have not onely taken from him such libertie of bookes (as
previously), but all other bookes, not leavinge hym so much as the newe
Testament, and have sythens committed him in chamber to Doctor Dee the great
Coniurer. Whereunto conjecture you sithens they have bayted and used him
most cruelly."(68)

The accusations made against Dee in this year would seem to form the initiaI
occasion for what Dee, writing n 1576, calls "this very Iniurious Report (for these
XX yeres last past and somewhat longer) spred and credited all this realm over
that the Foresaid Gentleman (i.e., himself) is, or was, Not only a Coniurer, or
Caller of Divels, but a Great doer therein: yea the Great Coniurer and so (as
some would say) the Arche Coniurer of the whole kingdom."(69) That the
mentions of him in Foxe did his reputation much damage would appear from this
same passage; for Dee complains that the powers of evil have so worked against
him that "divers untrue and Infamous Reports, by their Sinister Information,
have bin given up to such, as have gathered Records of those Men's Acts who
died in the Cause of Veritie....and credited by reason of the Dignity of the places
wherein they were installed," and he complains of those who "counterfit letters
or discourses, answerable to the foresayd fowle untruthes, unadvisedly recorded"
(70). In the next paragraph he again returns to the complaint of how "this
slanderous untruth" has been published, spread and finally credited "in respect
to the honorable seat, wherein, it was (very unadvisedly) set downe. In dede,
even he: who at the beginning sayd Ascendam in coelum, etsimilis ero altissimo;
even he, hath settled this intolerable sklander of the virtuous, among the
glorious renown of the righteous." The reference to Foxe is unmistakeable; the
report, says Dee, was originally "rashly and even thus recorded, when this
courteous gentleman was also a prisoner himself: (and bedfellow with one
Maister Barthelet Greene)" and wishes it "utterly cancelled, or razed out of all
records." This protest was effective for when the third edition of the Acts and
Monuments appeared this same year all the offending passages were omitted, or
modified in such a way that Dee's identity with "one of Bonners Chaplains," who
was no longer described as a conjurer, was not apparent (71). But the "untruth"
of the accounts of which Dee complained would largely seem to be in the
recurrent epithet of "conjuror" rather than in the factual narrative of his activities
(72). Perhaps the only objection that could now be made as to Foxe's account, is
the undecided question as to whether Dee possessed a degree in divinity or had
been ordained. That he held, as an absentee, livings from Edward and Elizabeth,
is of little moment, for many others did so, without being clergy and without
having in consequence the right to administer the sacrament. Indeed in 1576
later in the work in which he protested against Foxe's reports, Dee seems flatly
to deny it. After quoting a text he goes on "Syr, pardon me I pray you: for
though I meddle not with the Mysticall and Spirituall sense, hereof: (for I am
neither Doctor nor Bachelor of Divinity, no nor of any calling Leviticall)" (73). But
this may be a mere convenient quibble in which Dee takes advantage of the
literary device he is employing - for the writer is supposed merely to be a humble
"Mechanicien" reporting conversations had with Dee, the Philosopher; the
statutes of Manchester College, of which he became Warden in 1596, state
categorically that the "College" (or Collegiate Church) was to consist of "One
Warden, priest by degrees bachelor of divinity, four fellows, priests...." etc.(74)

Dee was then bedfellow to Green, as he claimed, but as keeper rather than
fellow prisoner, nor does Green appear to have been under much duress and
discomfort; his account of his treatment at this time indeed throws light on the
conditions under which Dee may be supposed to have lived in Bonner's
household, which approach the luxurious, for Greene's letter continues, after his
statement that he was put in a chamber with Master Dee." "On the morrow, I
was served at dinner from my lord's table....I had my liberty within the bounds of
his lordships house: for my lodging and fare, scarce have I been at any time
abroad in better case so long together, and have found so much gentleness of
my lord, and his chaplains and other servants, that I should easily have forgotten
that I was in prison, were it not that this great cheer was often powdered with
unsavoury causes of examinations, exhortations, posings and disputations."(75)
It was probably after his release in August and when living with Bonner - rather
than in the short time between the beginning of the year in March and his arrest
in May - that Dee composed a work in 1555 - "volumen magnum, sexdecim
continens libros" - with the highly suggestive title de Acribologia Mathematica,
which might seem to imply that it was a work on the foundations of precise
mathematical method. The work is now lost, but there is however a brief
mention of it by Dee in 1570, which shows that it contained an analytic
catalogue; though it gives no clue to Dee's treatment of these, of various
geometrical "entities" or concepts. The mention occurs when he suggests that
the title of a supposedly lost work of Euclid's, mentioned by Proclus, on which
Dee is founding an argument for ascribing the work, passing under the name of
Mahomet Bagdedinus, to Euclid, might be thought by some not to refer to the
division of figures into parts "sed generam per differentias in species divisiones,
veluti punctorum, linearum, angulorum, figuraru, & similiu divisiones methodicas,
quales nos plures quam quingentas in nostro de scribologia mathematica,
demonstrato opere exhibuimus."(76) Dee, it may be noted, was thrown, on
Foxe's evidence, into close acquaintance with Tunstall, the first great English
Algorist of the sixteenth century, whom Mary had restored to the bishopric of
Durham, and who was very frequently present at interrogations conducted by
Bonner, including some of those where Dee was also present. (Tunstall, even in
Foxe's records, shows in a fairly amiable light, exhibiting some distaste for
inquisitional duties which he escapes from on occasion, seeking to find forms
that would allow a compromise at least in appearance between the accused and
the authorities or to pacify the intemperance that frequently was provoked on
both sides during Bonner's interrogations (77)).

IV. There were excellent reasons why Dee should wish to conceal in later years
any association he might have had with Bonner, who was the object of
widespread sentiments of hatred of intense virulence, that found frequent
expression in print after the death of Mary, and the publication of Acts and
Monuments (78). At the same time there is nothing inherently improbable in
Foxe's accounts of Dee's activities, even of his functioning as Bonner's chaplain
at this period, in so far as it is possible to reconstruct Dee's religious views.
Whatever the ardour of his inner convictions Dee's life and surviving writings
indicate that these never expressed themselves in outward fanaticism or
immoveable partisanship of particular creeds. He seems invariably to have
pursued a policy of conformity with the official form of Christianity, prevailing in
any locality in which he found himself - in his years on the continent between
1583-8, he apparently outwardly returned to catholic practises, though there is
no hint in his "Spiritual Diary" at this time that he felt this to be in any way a
departure from the religious principles governing all his previous conduct. Dee
indeed betrays no concern at the fact that various public modes of worship, or
openly enunciated and publicly received dogmas of various churches, exhibited
dissimilarities or might be flatly antithetical, and one may with some probability
suppose that he rather regarded them all as different vehicles of a single truth,
of which they were inevitably loose and inexact expressions; they were
separated but as spoken at a circumference which nevertheless led into one
centre. Further, he was desirous of avoiding all impediments to his studies and
researches that a too nice or inflexible adherence to any particular sectarian
formulation might have provoked, and as many of his schemes demanded
national support he was anxious to cultivate the favour of the authorities.

Dee described himself, as contrasted with his membership of the body politic of
which he acknowledged Elizabeth to be the supreme head, as "a lively
sympathicall, and true symetricall fellow-member, of that holy and mysticall
body, Catholicklie extended and placed (wheresoever) on the earth; in the view,
knowledge, direction, protection, illumination, and consolation of the Almighty"
having Christ only as its single head (79). Dee was here making a profession of
faith, to rebut slanders circulating about him, to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and though there is nothing in this description of the mystical unlocalised nature
of the church, that was not compatible with Anglican Orthodoxy (80),
nevertheless the terms Dee selects, so much less precise than might have been
thought advisable on such an occasion, have suggestive affinities with doctrines
of the "Invisible Church" as taught by such non-conforming suspiciously regarded
figures as Christian Franken or Acontius. Unfortunately with the exception of an
uninformative correspondence with Edwards (81) all Dee's theological writings
such as (1558) (the title is interesting in its implied acceptance of a plurality of
possible paths to truth) are lost. However from a variety of indications -
incidental pronouncements in other writings or his selection or emphasis of
certain philosophical arguments to the neglect of others - a fairly clear general
picture in outline of Dee's view of the nature of religion, one not unusual to
Renaissance neo-Platonists, can be arrived at. Such indications, some of which,
will be apparent as marked features of his writings, when these are discussed in
detail later, are an interest in the Greek patristic writers particularly Clement (82)
contrasting with his relative neglect of the Latin fathers, implied by an absence
of citations from them in his work; his acceptance of myths, as in the Monas, as
allegories not merely of hidden natural truths but also of spiritual ones; his
admission of the Greek and Latin alphabets almost to the same level of
significance as the Hebrew (which was directly revealed by God) for Cabalistic
analysis, and on this subject his remarks in the Prefatory Letter to the Monas on
the two Cabalas, the one divine and innate in the minds of all men, the other
more vulgar in which letters or figures, and concrete symbols were employed as
means for discovering religious truths are also suggestive; his reverence for the
hermetic texts and "ancient wisdom" generally, so that he will employ adjectives
such as "druidical" (83) eulogistically to esoteric doctrines, as much to indicate
his belief in their content as their supposed historical origin; his association with
Acontius, whose Stratagemata Satanae of 1565 was not only a plea for complete
religious toleration which represented the particularities of all sects; if upheld too
firmly as snares of the devil, but was an attempt to distinguish between
fundamental aid accessory dogmas of Christianity, and the former which were
absolutely necessary, Acontius reduces to very few (they do not include that of
the real presence, or even of the Trinity) (84); his invariable emphasis on the
intellect of man, especially in its activity of comprehending mathematical
abstractions, as being specifically that which not only distinguishes man from the
brute creation, but certifies that man's nature partakes in some measure of the
divine, some of his declarations in this kind in fact led him into being accused,
from a Calvinist standpoint, of pelogianism and neglecting the importance both
of original sin, human frailty and grace (85); and assertion of the entire unity of
truth, that all his own studies have therefore had a religious end in view, and
that the acquisition of knowledge is a process that is essentially an ascent to
God. "I have wonderfully labored," he wrote in his latter years "to finde, follow,
use and haunt the true straight and most narrow path, leading all true devout,
zealous, faithfull, and constant Christian students ex valle hac miserae, et miseria
istius vallis: et tenebrarum Regno: ad montem sanctum Syon, et ad occlestia
tabernacula for it pleased the Almighty (even from my youth, by his divine
favour, grace and help) to insinuate into my hart, an insatiable zeale and desire,
to knowe his truth....by the true philosophicall method and harmony proceeding
and ascending (as it were) gradatim, from things visible to consider of thinges
invisible from thinges bodily, to conceive of thinges spirituall from things
transitorie and momentarie to meditate of things permanent, by things mortall
(visible and invisible) to have some perceiverance of immortality, and to
conclude most briefly, by the most mervailous frame of the whole world,
philosophically viewed, and circumspectly wayed, numbred and measured
(according to the talent, and gift of God, from above allotted, for his divine
purposes effecting) most faithfully to love, honor and glorifie alwaies the Framer
and Creator thereof."(86)

Two major lines of argument, often in practice inseparably fused, may be

distinguished as usually accompanying in the Renaissance an advocacy of that
type of eclectic universalism in regard to the nature of religion to which it seems
probable that Dee's position should be assimilated. These may be briefly noted
here for they embody important fundamental assumptions, and despite the
comparative absence in his work of overt religious pronouncements, both these
arguments are important for Dee's thought, and figure prominently in his
speculations on other matters. One of these may be described as "historical" - an
attempt to trace the provenance of all pagan thought, and thus justify the
elements in it that could be conciliated with Christian doctrine - back to some
warrantedly divine source; the other philosophical thesis asserted the universal
accessibility of some part of religious truth to men in a manner which was not
dependent upon their acquaintance with any particular revelation of localised
historical origin. Neither necessarily involved any unorthodoxy, as is apparent
from one of the most influential sixteenth century expressions of them - where
they appear as is usually the case, very closely intertwinedSteucho's de Perenni
Philosophia (87). In the seventeenth century, when only the second is perhaps
usually encountered among serious thinkers and that generally diluted to a
matter of common notions; serving as natural evidences for the truth of Deism,
the first still receives learned expression in Cudworth's contention that the
systems of Greek philosophy are really wrought out of piecemeal fragments of
that "true Moschical philosophy" which the Greeks had once possessed entire. It
is an argument which in so far as it was used to justify an interest in ancient
cults or teachings of early Eastern or classic sages amounting almost to
veneration, partly reflects that Renaissance temper that Earle satirised in the
"Character" of the antiquarian: "He is of our Religion, because wee say it is most
ancient: and yet a broken Statue would almost make him an Idolater."(88) The
establishment of this justificatory genealogy for pagan learning, involved the
tracing back of classic thought through various Eastern channels to some point
where the patriarchs might be presumed to have originated it. This task was not
particularly difficult, since for instance Greek testimony to the antiquity of
Babylonian astronomical observation, to the Egyptian invention of arithmetic, and
the admission of the derivation of their own science from these sources, were
not infrequent (89), while Plato's account of Solon's discovery in Egypt (and
Moses was often taken as the teacher rather than the pupil of the Egyptians)
that the Greeks were a race of children, with no knowledge, worth mentioning,
of antiquity, nor any acquaintance with ancient wisdom, could be pressed into
service (90). Later, Diogenes Laertius attributed to many of the foremost
philosophers long journeyings in the orient (and underlining the importance of
barbarian religions for Greek philosophy he states that some believed it had its
beginnings among the Magi, Chaldeans, Gymnosophists and Druids - or Holy
ones of the Celts and Gauls(91)); while the spread of Egyptians' influence in late
Hellenistic times produced innumerable corroborating assertions (92); and the
equation of Hermes with Thoth and thence with Hermes Trismegistus was widely
accepted in the Renaissance. An exaggerated estimation of the age of the
Hermetic writings (22 editions of which were brought out between 1471 and
1641) allowed these to be regarded as the original doctrines which led on to
Plato's or Aristotle's thought. Their author, Ficino believed, had lived at the time
of Moses (93); others asserted that Hermes was the nephew of Abraham who
had first introduced the arts and sciences, of which by revelation he was entire
master, to Egypt (94) while as to their religious importance of the writings even
Augustine, who suspected that Hermes had got his knowledge from devils,
declared "This Hermes says much of God according to truth" and prophesied the
coming of Christianity (95). Zoroaster could similarly be linked with biblical
characters (he was most frequently conjectured to be Cham) on the one hand
and classic thought on the other. Pico prided himself on the possession of
"Zoroastrian writings in the Chaldean tongue," which, although it does not
appear he ever succeeded in deciphering, he asserted to be of great mystical
importance, and "in which" he further claimed, "those particulars also which have
been carried about by the Greeks, maim'd and miserably corrupted, are here to
be read perfect and intire."(96)

This historical argument had made an early appearance in patristic writings. It is

the Greek fathers especially - though Augustine had wondered in the individual
case of Plato, because of certain coincidences of doctrine and expression,
whether he must not have been conversant with the Jewish scriptures (97) - that
give it full expression. Thus Clement makes the Jews the common fount of
barbarian knowledge, compiling lists of Greek "plagiarisms" of Hebrew writings,
and examples to show the dependency of Plato's ideal codes of laws on the
books of Moses (98). To provide Greek philosophy with such roots meant in
effect that it was to be regarded as disguised theology, its import as essentially
religious; Science, for the pagan philosophers had been a covenant with God,
according to Clement. (Indeed the inevitability of such an attitude, if great
weight were placed on tracing such a continuity of thought from a Hebrew
source, may be seen in the conclusion Roger Bacon leads up to after he has
pointed out that Noah was the teacher of the Chaldeans, Abraham of the
Egyptians, that Zoroaster was Noah's son, and the Greek gods were sages living
at the time of Moses, that Plato had heard the preachings of Jeremiah and
borrowed the creation in the Timaeus from Genesis: "Philosophy is merely the
unfolding of divine wisdom by learning and art." (99)) That Plato's philosophy
could be viewed as the embodiment of religious truths, generally dispersed about
the world, was perhaps a necessary premiss to permit that incorporation of
Plato's writings into the Christian framework the Greek fathers had wished to
effect. Thus one of the extracts Eusebius cites approvingly from the work of the
Pythagorean Numenius on the Good is "Qui hanc, inquit, in disputationem
ingressus Platonis testimoniis obsignarit, eadem ab ipso quoque superiorem ad
aetatem redeunte, cum ipsius Pythagorae verbis praeceptisque copulari
oportebit. Gentes ei pralterea celeberrimae appellandae erunt, singularia que
sacrificia, ritus, instituta quae cum Platonicis omnino consentiunt, preferenca,
quotquot a Brachmanis, Judaeis, Magis, Aegytiis sancita sunt."(100) The view
was widely revived by Renaissance Platonists - indeed one of the features of
Pletho's teachings and which had perhaps given definite form to the doctrine in
the neo-Platonic philosophy in the west, had been the historical concept of a
secret unbroken theological tradition underlying Greek philosophy, running back
through Plato, Pythagoras, Orpheus, the Magi, Zoroaster, Trismegistus and so to
Adam. It may be noted that a similar scheme frequently occurs in Alchemical
writings, especially of a Hermetic type which claims Alchemy as the universal and
most ancient science, in which writings Dee was deeply interested (101).

All this touches at many points a second line of argument, a mingling of stoic
and Platonic elements, which led to that Renaissance view of the interrelation of
creeds and systems which Dee takes almost for granted. It was based on the
supposed innate capacities of man's understanding, and perhaps also implied
that his nature in so far as it was able to comprehend, or achieve unity with the
divine had not been irretrievably - that is apart from the special intervention of
Grace - ruined by the fall. The eternal law of right reason, Cicero had declared in
de Republica was written on the human heart, a saying even Lactantius hailed as
"almost inspired."(102) This had only to be extended from ethical to intellectual
and spiritual matters - as indeed the context with its stoic assumption of man as
an integral part of a great national whole implied that it was meant to be - and
we have Ficino's assertion that religion "is more common and more constant
than all things and thus it is more natural than all things" and "the worship of
God is as natural to man as neighing to the horse or barking to the dog."(103)
Similar pronouncements are frequent among Renaissance Platonists (104), and
specifically Christian, writings of this type - as in the case of Charron who was a
firm Catholic, but in Les Trois Verites had distinguished natural, revealed and
Catholic religion, and had admitted the possibility of virtue divorced from any
particular religious practice (105). These were often drawn upon by later Deists.
However in a neo-Platonic metaphysic this "religious faculty" implied usually
much more than man's possession of good natural habits of behaviour or
devotion, it was accepted as also implying man's ability to acquire intellectual
knowledge and certainty as regards religious doctrine on a priori grounds, or by
introspective investigation - in this sense however this "religious faculty" was not
necessarily regarded as self-sufficient, as containing in itself all the springs of its
own activity, rather was it awakened to activity by the experience it suffered so
far as it was the passive recipient of "illumination" - which emanating from some
external source was therefore not essentially inseparable from man, though, as a
fact it might be judged to be unchangingly accessible to all (106). On the
assumption, however, of man's ability in this respect, and ascribing - as would
also seem necessary - an unvaryingly uniform constitution to the human mind - it
is hardly surprising to find, for example, Pietho exhibiting, as the complete
antithesis of Pyrrhus the doubter, Protagoras as the typical upholder of noble
philosophic certainty; interpreting the dictum "Man is the measure of all things"
as an assertion of human infallibility (107). Closely related is the stressing of
"Nosce teipsum," as the essential beginning of the ascent to religious knowledge
and experience - a theme on which Dee was once to contemplate writing a
philosophical work. The dissemination of such views is again partly related to an
increasing knowledge of the Greek fathers, whose works, though some Cistercian
translations had been made in the middle ages, do not seem to have been fully
available or widely read until the age of the humanists. In them the doctrine and
its consequences as regards pagan religion, philosophy and literature are clearly
developed; it is they who first attempt the reconciliation of this "naturalism" with
Christianity, though it had appeared to many of the Latins, since Christianity was
adequately founded on a particular historical revelation, with an authorised
scriptural expression, an unnecessary and sophisticated adjunct. Clement's high
estimate of the powers of the naked mind, his confidence in what it could
achieve, his relative lack of consciousness of "sin," his "Platonic intellectualism"
with its consequent belittling of the importance of the practical moral virtues
(108), which figure only as preliminary disciplines to the true activity of the soul
("let us strive to do good by union with the monadic essence") are still
sometimes stigmatised as foreign to the genuine spirit of Christianity (109). The
gospel he does not regard as a new departure but rather as representing a
convergence of Hellenism and Judaism. In contrast with the denunciations of
pagan learning as the invention of devils such as Tertullian and other Latin
fathers sometimes indulged in, Clement asserts that all philosophies contain a
part of truth, the sects having distributed it amongst themselves as the
Bacchantes did the body of Pentheus; but all are illuminated by the same source
of light, which is Christ, and their dogmas "though appearing unlike one another,
correspond in their origin, and with the truth as a whole"; they differ but as
various numbers which are nonetheless all needed in arithmetic, or as the
separate notes of a harmony (110) for truth, moral, spiritual, intellectual, was in
itself single and uniform, but there were many ways of approaching it, and it was
only the imperfection of a temporary form of expression, or the limitation of the
understanding that could make those things that might be known, and
legitimately asserted, by different methods, appear mutually antagonistic.
Similarly Justin Martyr defends the truth of pagan philosophy on the ground that
its teachings are derived from internal revelation by the logus (and also as being
part of a tradition with an authentic divine beginning) saying of the differing
philosophic sects which nevertheless all possess some doctrine similar to those of
Christianity "for each seeing through a part of the Seminal divine word, that
which was kindred to those, discoursed rightly.... Whatever all men have uttered
aright belongs to us Christians....For all writers through the engrafted seed, of
the Word which was planted in them, were able to see the truth darkly."(111)
Even in pagan religion and mythology there was no need, from such a position,
to dismiss out of hand as illusory or diabolical, since the neo-Platonic and stoic
custom could be followed of interpreting the gods as personifications of genuine
powers and functions of deity, which had been observed in creatures and natural
processes, and properly reverenced under the guise of allegorical fiction or
symbolic concrete representations (112), while the inevitability of this natural
reflection of God in man's best acts and thoughts could be adopted into
Christianity almost in the form in which Plotinus expounded it (Augustine's
thought is not dissimilar to this with certain reservations (113))__that God being
internal to man, providing the very basis of his nature in all its positive aspects,
and remaining the goal towards which his self-realisation tends, an attempt to
escape Him involves man in the attempting of an impossible divorce from his
own nature, resulting eventually, through such a consequent decline towards
non-being, in his utter destruction, "while he who knows himself, will also know
from whence he derives."(114)

The revival of such thought in the west, with its implication of the universality of
religions, has been held to have begun with Cusa (115). But certain of its
features had been embedded in the Augustinian tradition, which for instance, in
contrast with the strict Thomist position that demanded proof of a specific
revelation on matters of faith and formal dogma before any pagan thinker might
be accounted saved through Christ, had been able by its refusal to draw a sharp
boundary line between the provinces of philosophy and theology, reason and
faith, and by asserting the derivation of all knowledge to depend on the mind's
relation to God, to allow religious importance to pagan writers, justifying them
further by the claim that they also had been "illuminated," as part of a general
revelation to mankind. Such is the ground of many of Roger Bacon's remarks on
classic writers, as for instance on Apuleius' Apologya work Dee cites in his own
defence against charges of conjuring (116)__that "it contains well_known articles
belonging to the faith (and)...is consistent with the truth in a wonderful
way."(117) However, it is only with the revival of classic learning and neo-
Platonism in the Renaissance that the doctrines become fully recognised, explicit
and developed. But it should perhaps be stated that the eclectic toleration,
manifested, for instance, in Boccaccio's story of the "Three Rings," is far from
indicating merely religious indifference as Burckhardt claimed (118) while, to
pursue his interpretation further, it is inadequate and misleading to describe its
postulate as "Deism," so pronounced are the negative implications of that term
as regards particular creeds - nor can the acceptance of three revelations be
properly considered as merely the same as the libertine rejection of three
impostures. More usually the spirit that accompanies such wide toleration
evidences something of the ardour and ambition of Proclus who wished to be a
priest of all the religions of the world at once (119). Even adoption of a
metaphysic which ultimately implied adherence to the Platonic tradition of a
"Negative Theology," in the Renaissance would seem to have produced a temper
which less generally stresses the inadequacies of various religions (the most
obvious consequence of such a completely transcendental position) than one
that insisted on what was of positive value in each by assisting the mind to form
conceptions of truth by diverse representations, and found even in their apparent
contradictions, their supplementation of each other. Every religion, Agrippa
observes, contains much that is good and which proceeds from God, who,
although he has now declared His approval to be henceforth limited to one form,
yet He does not disapprove of the honour and worship offered formerly in other
manners and will not fail to reward these (120). It was perhaps only through a
Platonic conception of mind as characterised by a natural tendency and native
ability to ascend from the contemplation of things visible to a knowledge of
things invisible, which last could only hope to be represented to the imagination
in the form of myth and symbol - a conception intrinsic to many Renaissance
encomia on the excellence and dignity of man, such as Pico's or Manetti's - His
that such a position could be conciliated with orthodox Christianity (Trebizond,
eschewing these premisses, could see in Pletho nothing but a second Mahomet,
a dangerous viper attempting the destruction of true religion and the
re_introduction of paganism (121)). For though in one sense the "origin" and
establishment of Christian dogma was by a historical revelation, yet the grounds
of its certainty, its verification, it was argued, were the facts that it had only to
be interpreted properly to be recognised as that goal to which man's mind had,
albeit unwittingly, always aspired (122), and its complete conformity with all the
partial truths and discrete fragments of knowledge otherwise attained, which it
now unified in a fully articulated system, whose coherency and adequacy was an
immediate demonstration of its correctness. This view - that Christianity, though
a revelation, was a goal already surely defined if not attained by human
philosophy - underlies Petrarch's well-known affirmation - in which the position is
of course somewhat rhetorically exaggerated - that Cicero would have embraced
the faith had he but heard the name of Christ. Not philosophy merely, but
ancient religions are thus frequently justified in the Renaissance; those who
worshipped idols, wrote Salutati, nevertheless "semper tamen in eis aliquam
essentiam divini numinis somniabant," (123) and argued that paganism was a
necessary preparation to the reception of Christianity. Frequently, on similar
grounds, the use of pagan deities, and invocations to them by the poets are
defended; they are not passed off as mere pleasant fictions, literary ornaments
of legitimate artificiality. Rather it is by employing these that "tu te montreras
religieux et craignant Dieu....Car les Muses, Apollon, Mercure, Pallas, Venus, et
autres telles deitez, ne nous representent autres chose que les puissances de
Dieu, auquel les premiers hommes avoient donne plusiers noms pour les divers
effectz de son incomprehensible majeste."(124) Elyot, who judges Plato to be
the thinker "whyche approched nexte unto the catholike writers," similarly
allegorises, the Muses are born of Jupiter and Memory, and he declares, very
seriously, "Musa is that part of the soule that induceth and moveth a man to
serche for knowledge."(125) The underlying presupposition is always that
religious truth is in some measure native to the mind, though its essential unity
is concealed under a multiplicity of expressions. Herbert of Cherburg in the
seventeenth century was thus able to produce a formidable list of authorities -
including of course Clement - both ancient and modern, to support his
contention that "Philosophy did heretofore justify the Greeks," accompanied by
the assertion that "within the scriptures there are many things delivered to us, as
the dictates of the spirit, which are indeed but articles founded upon
reason."(126) Herbert himself sought the foundations of religion merely in this
universal reason, and the "common notions," which are ineradicable instincts of
all men, and his system offers an interesting transitional example of the
separation of such views from the Renaissance Platonic metaphysic, employed
within a Christian framework, and their restatement as independent premisses to
a Deism of specifically "modern" cast (127).

Many points in Dee's though rely both on the belief that a single historical
tradition may be traced back through the various philosophies and religions of
the world, and also that a general illumination of the human spirit is also to be
presupposed; these contribute to an attitude towards religion that combined
devotional enthusiasm with a far reaching eclecticism as regards explicit dogma,
and meet and fuse in the doctrine that foundations of necessarily transcendental
origin must be ascribed to knowledge, if truth or certainty were to be held
attainable by man at all. In addition to these two beliefs, Dee would seem to
have accepted the occurrence of a successive direct revelations, of a limited kind
on either intellectual or spiritual matters to individuals. (On a theoretical level
this belief is reflected in his cabalistic approach to the scriptures, and his scrutiny
of them to discover new and important allegorical interpretations after the
matter of Philo which implies the supposition that the revelation made through
them has not yet been definitively exhausted but that there is still much more
light and truth that will breakout of the Word. In this, he perhaps consciously,
not only resembles, as in so many other respects Roger Bacon, who held that
complete revelations of all Science had been made - to Adam and Noah, and
later to Solomon, and partial ones to Aristotle and Avicenna - but also Joachim of
Ficera, whose doctrines and prophecies Dee speaks of with respect (128) who
supposed a continuous progressive revelation of God to be taking place through
time, of which the Scriptures, and the Church built upon them, represented only
one phase. Dee's own claims that some of his writings - such as the Monas -
were produced not merely at divine directions but under divine guidance are
made with a solemnity emphasized by the cryptic nature of his references to this
process of inspiration, and his later investigations with Kelly seem undertaken in
the belief that he himself was to become the channel of a new revelation to the
world (129).

V. Although none of Dee's finished, full-scale theological or metaphysical works

were printed and all are now lost, a number of his speculations on one subject
survive, which while they perhaps represent only somewhat exploratory or
tentative inquiries yet demand a fairly full treatment here in so far as they deal
with a problem which suddenly, for a variety of reasons, assumed considerable
importance in Renaissance philosophy, particularly as regards current
interpretations of Aristotle's teachings, and also since they show Dee grappling
with certain fundamental questions and along thoroughly scholastic lines, and
reveal aspects of his thought not represented in his other known writings.

They are also of interest in the light of the number of statements that have been
detected, as of novel occurrence in England, of about this time, such as
Latimer's, in a sermon of 1549, "There is a saying that ther be greate maenye in
Englande that saye there is no soule, that thynke it is not eternal, but lyke a
dogges soul, that thynke there is neyther haven nor hell"; or the note Robinson
inserted against a passage of the Utopia of 1551: "The immortalitie of the soule,
whereof these dayes certeine Christianes be in doubte."(130) Dee's contribution
to this subject occurs in a section of a little memorandum book which he used
for various purposes at intervals throughout his life; after some pages of
miscellaneous extracts from Plato, Aristotle - chiefly from the de Animaand
others, with a summarised list of the opinions of ancient philosophers upon the
composition of the stars, and after some preliminary reflections, there occurs, in
the minute crabbed hand he employed when his purposes were purely private,
and written with extensive use of abbreviation, a set of fourteen propositions
that he claims in the heading as his own, upon the nature of the soul (131).
Dee's conclusions are indecisive or wholly negative; but it is unlikely from their
probable period of composition that their sceptical tenour represents Dee's own
frame of mind at some particular time but rather, it would seem, Dee's object in
them is to expose the in adequacy, and general unsatisfactoriness of the
assumptions and method - which are those of Aristotle - he is here exploring. For
they would seem to be written, or copied out, about 1566 - a horoscope cast in
this year appears on the same page of the notebook as Dee's propositions, and
in one or two cases letters of words in these impinging on this seem to be
written over rather than under it. Other horoscopes of the same period occur on
previous pages of the notebook, some of which seem to be later and partly
superimposed on, other notes of Dee concerning topics related to the present
speculations. But these can hardly be accepted, if written at such a date, as
expressing Dee's positive opinions; their content might be accepted as just
compatible with the general scheme of his naturalistic Aphorisms of 1558, which
bears some resemblance to Averroist physical cosmologies of certain
Renaissance philosophers - as that for instance presupposed as the basis of
Pomponazzi's de Incantationibusbut are quite discordant with the mystical,
Cabalistical and Paracelsian Monas of 1564, or the neo-Platonic epistemology of
the Preface of 1570 or indeed with what would seem to be the nature of many of
his writings now known only by the full titles Dee recorded. Thus in these
propositions man is treated as a by no means exceptional phenomenon of
sublunar nature, a mortal organism compounded like any other of matter (the
body) and form (the soul), but Dee's usual view of man, traces of which are
found in most of his writings is to accept him as the Microcosm, the exemplar
and mirror of the universe, summing up in his constitution the mysteries of the
Three Worlds, of infinite potentialities, innately possessed of the seeds or ideas
of all things, a mingling of the eternal and temporal and occupying in
consequence a privileged medial position in the scale of existence; thus in 1591
he wrote a work entitled De hominis Corpore, Spiritu et Anima: sive
Microcosmicum totius Philosophiae Naturalis Compendium (132). The most
probable explanation of these notes - and it is of some significance for Dee's
general thought - would seem to be that they are an illustration of the reasons
which led Dee to break with a conventional Aristotelianism and adopt a Platonic
metaphysic and a Pythagorean mathematicism in preference, and turn
increasingly to an investigation of cabalistic, magical, theurgic and spiritualistic
subjects. The implications of the propositions in the context of Dee's opinions
would seem to be that the concepts of "matter" and "form," interpreted in terms
of Aristotle's philosophical system, would have to be abandoned, or their content
and definitions radically altered if they were still to be employed as instruments
in the analysis of Nature. Here it may be noted that while Dee's preoccupation
with mathematics led him to stress continually quantitative considerations in
observation and experiment and towards an atomism in chemical speculation,
and is responsible for his emphasis on purely mechanical interpretations in
physics with its accompanying approach towards such a division, into primary
and secondary qualities as became commonplace in the succeeding century, yet
the renunciation of those subtle, and useful, categories matter and form, or the
substitution for them of the simple dualism that was regarded as increasingly
possible with the growth and spread of such consideration as those just
remarked on, of soul and matter, presented grave difficulties in the sixteenth
century. Mechanical interpretation for instance could be readily extended only to
a restricted range of phenomena, nearly all in biology, many in chemistry or even
physics - such as the powers of the magnet - seemed to require resort to the
rather indefinite term, between soul and body: "spirit," which designated a force
in body, but one perhaps not separable from it, of which the activity in any
particular case might be taken as a function of the specific "form." While as
regards the immediate subject of Dee's notes, as late as 624 the Sorbonne
condemned as "fort impertinentes" the theories of atomist chemists who denied
"matter" and "form," denouncing these as opposed to the Catholic faith "cor s'il
n'y a point de forme ny de matiere, l'homme n'a donc ny corps, ny ame," (133)
while at the end of the century Malebranche, accepting - as did the Cambridge
Platonists in the interests of establishing a similar simple dualism - a
thoroughgoing Cortesianism restricting the essential properties of matter to two
faculties ("La premiere faculte est celle de recevoir differentes figures, et la
seconde est la capacite d'etre mu") and setting it over against soul, which was
essentially a combination of will and understanding - was able to declare "On
peut dire avec quelque assurance qu'on n'a point assez clairement connu la
difference de l'esprit et du corps que depuis quelques annees."(134)

But before any detailed examination of the individual proportions, since these are
so compressed, and take so much for granted in their terms of expression, which
are themselves very rich in implication, a more general discussion of some of
their presuppositions and terminology emphasizing the most prominent contrasts
with what may be determined as more usual characteristics of Dee's thought
would seem desirable. As to the substance of Dee's speculations here, though he
touches on some of the main questions at issue between Avicenna and Averroes,
Crescas and Maimonides, he is mainly drawing upon Aristotle's de Anima, and
interpreting it strictly along the lines Pomponazzi adopted - many of the
propositions indeed would seem, in part at least, to be verbal reminiscences of
the de Immortalitate. One of the important achievements of the School of Padua
in their concentration on and reestimate of Aristotle's work in the Renaissance
had been to establish that a "naturalistic" interpretation was at least as
legitimate, if not closer to the original intentions of Aristotle, as that of the
Scholastics, which had attempted to view his thought as concordant with the
"dualism" that Christian orthodoxy seemed to demand. Dee accepts this view of
Aristotle as correct, and emphasizes the rift between Aristotelian and neo-
Platonic teachings on the soul, which had often passed unnoticed in the Middle
Ages, when the soul had frequently been defined with Aristotle as the form of
the body, but nonetheless considered as a substance sui juris whose union with
the body represented a degradation. Dee here rejects, or rather does not admit
as consonant with Aristotle the attempt, as made for instance by Aquinas to
defend both views at once, he understands by the Aristotelian "Form" something
only existing in composition with matter, which is to be considered as something
not "quod est" but "A quo aliud est," and thus excludes the rational soul, if so
defined from being accepted as "essentiae per se statis." The acute awareness
he shows of this incompatibility perhaps supplies one of the reasons for the
almost complete absence of Aristotelian terminology of analysis in his later
writings and his adoption of a purely Platonic view of the relations between body
and soul; for Pomponazzi unequivocally suggests that this is the only
philosophical position from which immortality could consistently be maintained;
for when criticising the Thomist position as untenable and self-contradictory, he
adds "Quare sapienter mihi visus est Plato dicere ponens animam immortalem,
quod verius homo est ut anima utens corpore, quam compositum ex anima et
corpore et verius eius motor scilicet corporis quam eius forma; cum anima sit
illud quod vere est, et vere existit, et potest induere corpore et eo spoliari. Non
video enim quin D. Thomas non habeat hoc dicere."(135)

The view of the soul and the manner in which it is assumed knowledge of its
functions must be gained, from which, as consequences, Dee develops his
propositions, is a noticeably different one from that which emerges usually from
his writings and of which he would seem profoundly convinced. Thus the
description of the soul as a harmony, which the de Anima refutes at length, or as
a "self moving number," there stigmatised as "the most irrational of all theories
ever suggested,"(136) are both spoken of by Dee with respect as valuable
aspects of the truth (137), or again, the particular view of "generation" assumed
in the present case, differs widely from that of Avicenna, which involved
separable forms, which Dee, in notes to a work of Bacon's discussing
"speculative alchemy" as the universal science, declares to be the only true
account (138). Normally Dee's position accords with that, which, Agrippa says,
"Plotinus and all Platonists have followed Trismegistus in adopting," that the Soul
has three parts, inseparable in the sense that the lower develop from and are
included in the higher: "idolum" governed by "ratio," which functions in the light
of the illuminated "mens," which in turn is dependent either directly upon God or
some mediate separated intelligence (139). Moreover when Dee describes, as in
the Preface, the proper objects corresponding to each of these three levels of
cognition; the schema, though outwardly the same as Aristotle's tripartite
division of the sciences, exactly reverses the relations of mutual dependency
holding between these. Dee's descriptions, indeed, as so often, have their
precise prototypes in Roger Bacon: "Unde mobile corruptible, ut sic est,
apprehenditur ab intellectu depresso circa sensum, de quo est physicum naturale
negotium, mobile autem incorruptibile ab intellectu elevato supra sensum
apprehenditur, circum ymaginem tantum vel fantasiam depresso; de quo est
mathematica doctrina, immobile autem et incorruptible ab intellectu maxime
elevato puro et separato speculatur de quo est metaphysica."(140) Again Dee
normally assumes that the soul can exercise control over natural processes,
apart from those of the particular body it occupies; for though in early
neo_Platonic doctrines the thesis is maintained, as by Plotinus for example, that
human souls effect what they perform as servants do by direct contact, mingled
with their work, and the World soul alone, rules, like a master, by mere
command from a distance, yet that even human souls might act in this manner
had become an important tenet of the magical theories to which Dee inclined.
Thus Roger Bacon, explaining these, calls Avicenna as witness that "Nature
obeys the cogitations of the soul," and since it is evident by experience that even
the sensitive souls of brutes produce strange changes in things "how much more
will it obey those of the intellectual souls of those who are only one degree
below the angels."(141) Moreover Dee's usual line of thought is to stress that the
realm of intelligibles, represented primarily for him by the objects of
mathematics, is the natural level of the mind, where it operates free from direct
dependence on either higher or lower externals, and is to follow the customary
Platonic argument from the premiss that "like knows like" in deducing the
qualities of the soul from the nature of these, i.e., that it must be incorporeal (a
term somewhat ambiguous of course as many found the assertion of this
Platonic position quite compatible with Ibn Gebirol's theories that stated that all
substances, in a rather special sense, were compounds of matter and form, and
allowed soul itself to act as a sustaining corporeality for higher principles) - not
subject to magnitude, imparticle and so on (142), leading to the conclusion,
which is very different from that of the present propositions, thus expressed by
Chapman after developing a similar argument, "And that our souls in reason are
immortal Their natural and proper objects prove."(143) Indeed Dee finds such
significance in the mind's grasp on abstractions, and so values the conceptions
native to the intellect, that he claims that it is only by the contemplation of such
entities as those of the mathematics that man can attain to knowledge and
certitude upon matters as to which he must otherwise wholly rely on revelation.
He writes in the Preface: "And for us Christen men, a thousand thousand mo
occasions are, to have nede of the helpe of Megethologicall contemplations:
wherby, to trayne our Imaginations and Myndes, by litle and litle, to forsake and
abandon the grosse and corruptible obiectes of our vtward senses: and to
apprehend, by sure doctrine demonstrative, Things Mathematicall. And by them,
readily to be holpen and conducted to conceive, discourse, and conclude of
things Intellectuall, Spirituall, Aeternal, and such as concerne cure Blisse
everlasting: which, otherwise (without speciall privilege of Illumination or
Revelation from heaven) No morall mans wyt (naturally) is hable to reach unto,
or to Compasse."(144) Such arguments it should be noted are not available to
Dee, in resolving the dilemmas he sets out in his propositions; since the status of
the intellect which permits the apprehension of such objects, whether it be a part
of the soul at all or be not itself common and separate is one of the fundamental
questions here admitted as in dispute, and Aquinas' assertion for instance in the
face of this difficulty that Intellect was a part of soul, and the whole cannot be
considered as of less value than one of its parts (145) is, on the premisses from
which Dee is approaching this subject here, a palpable petitio principi.

Here too is the only instance of Dee's use of "matter" and "form" in a strictly
Aristotelian sense, as the two fundamental concepts in an analysis of reality.
Usually the primary distinction he establishes is between "reason," or "life"; and
the sensible world which can be exhaustively described in terms of number,
measure and weight (admitting of course spirit as an intermediary category
which might be thought of as forces employed by the soul - vis Imaginativa;
perhaps, as forces dwelling inseparably in organic bodies or as a particular type
of refined but possibly corporeal fluid - as the vital spirits; or emissions, such as
species given off by all entities, or certain type of stellar radiation of astrological
importance). This setting of body, possessed of some natural or separable
properties over against soul which, substantially existing, acts as its organizing
principle is, however, a view compatible with Platonic, as it is not with
Aristotelian, teachings, as compared with which also it had more obviously
satisfactory theological implications. It is very much the situation in the Timaeus
after the creation of the geometrical atoms, Avicenna employs it in describing the
relations between the human soul and the particular body with which it is
associated (146). For Crescas, while "matter" is a general indeterminate
substrate, it is not in pure unconditioned state that it enters into combination
with forms, but as body which has already the inherent characterisation of
quantity (including weight), figure and position; the Aristotelian thesis that all
that is in an object either exists through it as an accident or is the form through
which this exists as an entity, though a form itself incapable of independent
existence, is rebutted with the suggestion that there is a "corporeal form"
indissociable from the first matter; and since it sustains other forms these can no
longer be thought of as that through which "bodies" exist, but have rather the
status of accidents in regard to them (147). Such doctrines, which closely
resemble the theories to which Dee's mathematically based scientific practice led
him are in sharp distinction to those he assumes for his propositions. They are
presented with attractive clarity and very explicitly, and their importance in
relation to the subject of these speculations of Dee's made very clear by
Cudworth: in the subsequent century, when the apparent triumph of a
methodology in science, which Dee advocated at a rudimentary stage of its
development when all its fundamental implications were by no means obvious,
had made it possible to state the problem more directly or in simpler terms -
Cudworth openly advocates "the atomical or mechanical physiology" not merely
because it is the only "physiology capable of rendering sensible things in any
degree intelligible," the only one not "altogether incomprehensible and
inconceivable to our human understandings, "but because once accepted as true,
since it cannot give a full account of all that is known of the world, since
perception of qualities involves "fancy" which "is not mode of body," it
necessitates the existence of a second principle to which the name "soul" is
given. The disadvantages of describing everything in terms of "matter" and
"form" being that "in this way of philosophising the notions of body and spirit,
corporeal and incorporeal, are so confounded that it is impossible to prove
anything at all concerning them....life and understanding may be supposed to be
certain forms or qualities of body and then the souls of men may be nothing else
but blood or brains, endued with the qualities of sense and understanding." But
the advantage of atomism is "that it prepares an easy and clear way for the
demonstration of incorporeal substances, by settling a distinct notion of body." It
asserts that "there is nothing in body or matter but magnitude, figure, site and
motion or rest: now it is mathematically certain, that these however combined
together, can never possibly compound, or make up life or cogitation, which
therefore cannot be an accident of matter, but must of necessity be a substantial
thing." He recurs frequently to this point, insisting that "Life, cogitation and
understanding are entities really distinct from local motion and mechanism, and
that therefore they cannot be generated out of dead and stupid matter, but must
needs be somewhere in the world, originally, essentially and
fundamentally."(148)

One of the reasons why Dee does not describe "body" in this way, and why he
attains only negative conclusions upon immortality, in these "Propositions," is
that he here, as he does not elsewhere, restricts the concept "matter" to
conform with Aristotle's usage, taking it as the purely potential, and uniform,
substrate of all sublunar entities, but which is a necessary generic principle of
forms - since they cannot exist in separation from it, and to which, or rather to
the composite substance it composes with these, Aristotle allows qualities and
capacities which Plato strictly confines to soul. The doctrines which most readily
allowed the retention of the concepts "matter" and "form," while avoiding all the
difficulties Dee develops in the Propositions, have their source for mediaeval
thought in Ibn Gebirol's Fons Vitae (a return to them, or revival of them is
noticeable among protestant theologians of Dee's age - perhaps largely
suggested by considerations of the Christian dogma of the resurrection of the
body - which contributed perhaps to Cudworth's confident later adoption of them
as the solution of various metaphysical dilemmas). Though Dee may have had no
acquaintance with this work, he was familiar with its teaching as presented by
other writers who influenced his thought, particularly Duns Scotus (Dee notes in
his "Spiritual Diary" that Scotus was guided by the same angel as himself (149))
and Roger Bacon. Bacon, holding that all things apart from God himself are
composed of matter and form insists in consequence that matter must differ
from matter as form from form. He distinguishes three main species: Spiritual,
which is not subject to quantity, movement or contrariety; Sensible, which is
subject to all three; and Celestial, subject only to the first two, but not to
contrariety. But none of its varieties are mere unconditioned potentiality, all have
a certain positive nature which governs their respective receptions, and limits the
realisation in them, of the forms to which they may be subject (150). Bacon
foresees disastrous consequences from the admission of only one type of matter
- he attributes to it a unity "secundum essentiam" and multiplicity "secundum
esse": "Et cum omnes ponant quod materia sit una numero in omnibus rebus...et
cum hic sit error pessimus qui unquam fuit in philosopho positus, ideo aggredior
hanc positionem, et huius modi positionis destructio est valde necessaria....Non
solum igitur est error, sed haeresis quia blasphemai inducit."(151) The relevance
here of the doctrines of the Fons Vitae as found in such analyses as this of
Bacon's is that they offer an escape from the dilemmas propounded by Dee as
resulting from a strictly Aristotelian analysis, and suggest a solution along lines
fairly close to Dee's usual attitude, and do this by a reinterpretation and not an
out of hand rejection of the fundamental terminology employed. "Materiality"
which enters into all existence is carefully distinguished from "corporeality" or
extension, composed of the lowest matter and subject only to quantity,
magnitude, figure and colour. Matter varies in its potentialities for receiving form,
it is not purely passive, but has positive appetencies towards these, and the
individual entelechies of Aristotle, are submerged in one universal tendency of
progress toward God. Thus, "Hyle particularis desiderat formam particularem"
and "materia movetur ad recipiendum formam propter suam inquisitionem
consequendi bonitatem, quae est unitas," and when it has formed a substance,
by sustaining the lowest, primary, qualities, it is impelled "postea ad recipiendum
formam metallinam, deinde formam vegetabilem deinde sensibilem, deinde
rationalem, deinde intelligibilem, donec coniungatur formae intellegentiae
universalis." A continuous hierarchy of substances is thus constructed, each of
which can serve as "matter" to the higher and as "form" to the lower; for the
answer is given to an objection (that, from a previous statement it would appear
that "intelligentia et anima et omnino omnes substantiae sieplices debent esse
sicut hyle. Sed tu iam praedixeras eas esse formas"). "Oportet ut inferius sit hyle
superiori, quia superius est agens in inferiori."(152) In this way therefore that
sharp discontinuity could be avoided which Pomponazzi's Aristotelianism
established between Sublunar Nature - including man - where all things were
generable and corruptible, and cognition was never totally independent of sense
experience, and the separated Intelligences - a discontinuity entirely foreign to
Dee's thought, but towards which his present discussion of the soul seems to
point. The importance of one feature of Gebirol's metaphysic as a solution to
some of the problems Dee raises is evidenced by Cudworth, who devotes a large
portion of his work to attempting to prove a variation of this doctrine (he does
not distinguish very obviously between "corporeality" and "materiality," and as
his chief authorities uses Philoponus and Origen). Cudworth's version, which he
calls "this ancient Pythagorick cabala," maintains "that God should be the only
incorporeal being in this sense, such whose essence is compleat, and life intire
within itself, without the conjunction or appendage of any body, but that all
other incorporeal substances created should be compleated and made up by a
vital union with matter, so that the whole of them is neither corporeal nor
incorporeal but a complication of both," so that, "it being natural to souls, as
such, to actuate or enliven some body," then according to various stages of their
perpetual existence, "the souls not only of men but also of other animals have
sometimes a thicker and sometimes a thinner indument or clothing."(153) This
according to Cudworth represents the only way of overcoming otherwise
inseparable difficulties in conceding the soul a continued existence after death,
and of conceiving at all the future states, or its transition to them. As to the
relation of such doctrines to more usual and self-acknowledged neo-Platonic
theory, it is noticeable that Ibn Gebirol's hierarchy in terms of matter and form,
might be viewed as a transformation of Proclus' closely linked scale of existence
in different relations, being the effect of the immediately superior one, and
functioning as the cause of that below, so that each as it were impressed, as
though it were a form, its character on its adjacent inferior, while at the same
time in one sense being "sustained" by it insofar as its own existence could not
be described as complete until it had realised itself, by activity in the effect
(162). Again, as to the necessity of the soul surviving in some other type of body
after the death of the mortal organism, as will be shown - the only apparent
solution it would seem to some of Dee's queries - because all substances apart
from God are combinations of matter and form, fairly explicit statements of this
position occur in the Hermetic texts (163); while Augustine had invoked Plato's
authority against those philosophers who "think they give us a witty scoff for
saying that the soul's separation from the body is to be held as part of the
punishment [of Adam]....Plato affirming plainly that the Gods that the Creator
made have incorruptible bodies, and bringing in their Maker as Himself promising
them (as a great benefit) to remain therein eternally, and never be separated
from them," and had argued "the eternity of the body" to be a necessary
assumption if full survival and resurrection were to be accepted (164) or again
citing Plato to the same effect "Therefore it must not be the lack of a body, but
the possession of one utterly incorruptible that the soul shall be blessed in,"
adding "Plato and Porphyry held diverse opinions, which if they could have come
to reconcile, they might perhaps have proved Christians. Plato said that the soul
could not be always without a body, but that the souls of the wisest at length
should return into bodies again" and "Porphyry says `the holy souls shall not
return to the evils of this world." The injunction follows "Wherefore let Plato and
Porphyry, or such rather as do follow them and are now living," combine their
views, when "there shall be a sweet harmony" conforming to Christian doctrine
(165). This bears on Dee's propositions insofar as it would represent perhaps the
only means of preserving the doctrine of the soul's immortality, without rejecting
the terms of the argument outright, for apart from this solution it would seem
only possible by restricting participation in eternity to those faculties in man that
could be conceived of as parts of the separated but universal active intellect
which survived, impersonally, after death enjoying a felicity in the contemplation
of Intelligibles - a theory, however, which one cannot definitely affirm not to
have been that actually accepted by Dee.

A further fundamental difference between the position Dee now explores and his
usual opinions concerns the question of the dependency of knowledge upon the
sense and the source of conceptual thought in man. Normally his position
approaches Pico's - whose "Theses" he strongly recommends in the Preface
(166) - that the soul can grasp truly and directly only itself; a "thesis" - it was
one of the thirteen officially condemned - explained in Pico's Apology, as
meaning in fact its apparent converse, since such is the nature of the soul that in
its understanding of itself it comes to know all things in the universe (167). Dee's
usual stress on the a priori, on the innateness of mathematics in the mind, is
perhaps in part a consequence of the unsatisfactory conclusions he reaches here,
where such considerations are left out of account; for such assumptions would
be necessary, Pomponazzi had observed, if immortality were to be reasonably
(and not merely as an act of faith) ascribed to the soul; for if all the objects of
knowledge are known only through or by the assistance of the operations of the
mortal body, that which knows these, must, in nature, be perishable laos, but
Pomponazzi himself adopts the view that no other forms of cognition are
revealed by our experience, "quare concluditur, quod hic modus intelligendi est
essentialis homini" and inseparable from him (168). But the consequence of
holding the mind when considered wholly apart from any operations of externals
affecting it, a tablet, in Aristotle's senses waiting to be inscribed, ("a meer blank,
or whole sheet of paper, that hath nothing at all in it, but what was scribbled
upon it by the objects of sense") was, the Platonists invariably contended, to
"make knowledge and understanding to be in its own nature, junior to sense,
and the very creature of sensibles....(and) imply the rational soul, and mind
itself, to be as well generated as the sensitive, wherein it is virtually
contained."(169) Nor was the position altered as regards personal immortality by
Aristotle's supplementation of this account of cognition by allowing the mind also
to be affected by the separated active intellect which is eternal and divine, which
knows without the interposition of sense, in which there is no distinction
between knower and known; for this is an impersonal agency which supervenes
from outside, is quite apart from the individualised human soul which is the form
of the body, and which in its intellectual part remains wholly passive, receptive,
and perishable (170). Hence Dee would elsewhere seem to have adopted the
metaphysically more fruitful neo-Platonic interpretation of the "tablet" theory -
suggested by his use of particular "symbols" as avenues to truth in the Monas, or
his stress on the mind's ascent from sensibles to levels where it functions
independently of these, dealing directly with abstract realities - in which the mind
though possibly needing initially the illumination of externals nevertheless
possesses forms and positive qualities of itself; they are possessed, Pico argued,
as an object retains its colours in darkness, which require the presence of light
not to create these but that they may be perceived (171). Thus Plato had
endeavoured in a number of profound psychological analyses to show that it
followed from the contents of thought that a demonstrable separation could be
made between the particular attributes of soul and those of the body it utilised.
Assuming a complete qualitative difference in the data of the various senses, it
followed that what could be known as applying to these generally was known
independently of them: thus such knowledge as that a sound and colour both
are, and are different, that each is one, and together they are two, must hence
be an apprehension of the soul having a non_sensible source; and this he had
held to be further apparent from the reflection that concepts apprehended by the
soul such as equality, are never fully or exactly manifest in sensibles, and are
therefore prior elements of knowledge to their approximate sensible imitations
(172). Aristotle on the other hand ascribes merely to the operation of sense as a
whole ("sensus communis") the origin of many of these notions which can be
subsumed under the presentations of no single sense organ: "Nor can there be
any special organs for the common sensibles, which we perceive incidentally by
every sense, for example, motion, rest magnitude, number, unity. For all of
these we perceive by motion" (173) (and "motion" here radically differs from the
Platonic account of it). Moreover he insists that knowledge of abstract concepts,
and "forms" in man, whatever part be allowed to the active intellect informing
thought, must remain dependent upon a perception of the sensible
exemplifications of these. Dee's contribution to this controversy, as ancient as it
is perennial (174) seems designed to make clear that the adoption of this last
position as a ground for speculation involves, as a necessary consequence, the
impossibility of obtaining any assistance from philosophy in the comprehension
or investigation of large areas of truth which in outline were already certified by
religion. But this is a conclusion not at all consonant with Dee's philosophic
temper, which is rather akin to that of Augustine, who at the beginning of a
similar enquiry exclaims "Sed ego quid scieam quaero, non quid credam," that is,
he demands to grasp with rational certitude matters of faith (175) - and who on
another occasion, once more discussing the subject of Dee's propositions, praises
in Euvodius "cupiditatem istam....qua tibi persuasisti ratione pervenire ad
veritatem" (176) as a legitimate aim distinct from the meritorious but over easy
acquiescence in authority which suffices for the multitude and those of low
intelligence.

VI. Preceding the propositions Dee places a number of reflections bearing on his
theme. They occur on a page (177) largely occupied with a summary of the
conflicting views of Greek philosophers on the nature of the world and Soul's
function in it, ending with Plato's opinion, that it is composed of intelligible
incorporeal elements moved and controlled by harmony, or proportion. They
open with the statement that no man, unless he is divinely excited and
instructed, can by any method of investigation attain an absolute belief in the
immortality of the soul. Interpreted in the general context of Dee's thought, this
is to be distinguished from Pomponazzi's conclusion, which it superficially
resembles, but which is content to leave belief and reason in apparent
opposition: "Mihi namque videtur quod nullae rationes naturales adduci possunt
cogentes animam esse immortalem....Cum itaque tam ill stres viri inter se
ambigant, nisi per Deum hoc certificare non posse existimo"; the question has
been settled by revelation testified to by the authority of the church, "Quare, si
quae rationes probare videntur mortalitatem animae, sunt falsae et apparentes,
cum prima lux et prima veritas ostendant oppositum," and this will serve as a
lesson to the heathen on the vanity of trusting in the powers of the intellect
(178). Such a separation is foreign to Dee's thought which usually makes faith
and reason freely supplement each other, discounting any possibility of a
genuine conflict between them. The assertion he makes here is a familiar tenet
of neo-Platonism, where it appears neither to denigrate the capacities of the
human mind, nor to invalidate at all doctrines of the universality of religions or
the real unity of the various philosophic systems. Thus Clement combines with
his extreme "intellectualism," the assertion that "faith" must be the foundation,
criterion, and justification of knowledge, on the grounds that all can be shown
ultimately to rest on principles incapable of demonstration, and discovered
neither by art nor sagacity (179). Similarly Crescas' professed object, in criticising
Maimonides' proofs of the twenty-five metaphysical propositions drawn from
Aristotle, was to demonstrate that a full understanding of such principles is
necessarily based on revelation - through prophecy recorded in scriptures or by
tradition - which nevertheless accords with reason and can be explored by its
means (180). Cusa also develops the thesis of this reciprocal relationship - faith
supplies the intellect with the material for its consideration, and includes
implicitly all that is intelligible, but at the same time the specific quality of the
operations of the intellect is that they themselves imply and point towards this
same faith (181).

Dee continues by stating what is in effect the principal reason for the justification
of his subsequent analysis of the soul; observing that the substance of the soul
can never be conceived by the imagination, the consequent lack of immediate
certainty being evidenced by the way in which questions relating to it are
subjects of such emotions as hope and desire. It is only possible therefore (apart
one should add as apparently implied by his previous remark, from methods
resting upon principles having an extra human, divine warrant) to attain to a
knowledge of the soul by a posteriori reasoning, from examination of its
apparent operations and effects. Dee follows this statement by a tabulation of
the faculties of the soul, discoverable in this way, under the headings vegetative
(three divisions), sensitive (eleven divisions) and conative (three divisions). The
purely intellective powers on whose importance Dee elsewhere invariably lays so
much stress are significantly not included, and the whole induction, which closely
resembles Aristotle's procedure in de Anima, largely begs the chief question at
issue in Dee's propositions which arise out of it: it makes implicit appeal to the
conventional axiom that "operari sequitur esse" but restricts its survey of the
functions of the soul to those which invariably involve in their effects an apparent
bodily concomitant. Dee's most usual procedure would seem, by its results, to
have been that which Aristotle criticises as one followed by nearly all his
predecessors - they commenced by propounding theories explaining the nature
of the soul, and not by examining the particular body which was to receive this,
from which it might be concluded that it was possible for a soul to animate
various bodies, as in the Pythagorean fables, a view Aristotle finds as ridiculous
as "talking of a transmigration of carpentry into flutes."(182) He himself lays it
down that the attributes of the soul are to be defined in terms of motions in the
body, and hence the whole investigation falls within the province of natural
philosophy (183). Hence it follows almost automatically that "there is no need to
enquire whether soul and body are one any more than whether the wax and
imprint are one"; soul is therefore "the first entelechy of a natural body having in
it the capacity of life"; its relation to the body is that of the cutting power to the
axe which manifests it, of the power of seeing to the eye (184). The inevitability
of Dee's conclusions here as to immortality from such a starting point, and also
of the very different ones reached from another, is apparent from the
consideration that they both alike follow from the position - as expressed by
Augustine - "Monstruosum enim et a veritate alienissimum est ut id quod non
esset nisi in ipso (i.e., in subjecto) esset, etiam cum ipsum non fuerit possit esse"
(185); for if the soul be regarded as the form of the body and only existent
through it, then since that in which it is realised is demonstrably perishable, it
must be similarly mortal; yet Augustine himself applies this principle to different
data (that the soul is necessary substance for the expression of truth which is
therefore inseparable from it, while truth in itself is demonstrably eternal); and a
contrary conclusion is deduced: Omnis in subjecto est anima disciplina. Necesse
est igitur semper ut animus maneat si semper manet disciplina. Est autem
disciplina veritas, et semper....veritas manet."(186)

This argument reappears in Augustine's work in forms closely paralleling many of

Dee's characteristic statements apropos of mathematics, as for instance "Si enim
manet aliquid immutabile in animo, quod sine vita esse non possit; animo etiam
vita sempiterna maneat necesse est....Quis enim, ut alia omnitam, aut rationem
numerorum mutabilem esse audeat dicere, aut artem quam libet non ista ratione
constare - aut artem non esse in artifice etiam cum eam non exercet; aut ejus
esse, nisi in animo....aut quod immutabile est, esse aliquando non
posse....?"(187) But this type of reasoning is of necessity excluded from Dee's
present enquiry. Parts of the soul, Aristotle allowed, might be adjudged capable
of existing in separation from body, if they could be shown as not being the
actuality of any body whatsoever. Intellect he conceded was something of this
kind; for although love and memory will perish with man, the intellect "would
seem to be developed in us as a self-existing substance, and to be imperishable,"
for though it appears to be enfeebled by age, this is caused "through the loss of
something else within"; it is not in itself affected; man as a composite whole dies
"while the intellect is doubtless a thing more divine and impassive."(188) But
these concessions are of no assistance to Dee in resolving the dilemmas in his
propositions since they do not of themselves allow the determination of how far
this intellect may be considered as individualised, as a true part of the particular
soul, whether in fact it descends at all into man otherwise than in power,
producing effects upon him, whether the material passive intellect men may be
said to possess of themselves, is not a mere aptitude for thinking under such a
stimulus, an aptitude which thus seems to comprehend intelligibles but is
nonetheless corruptible and mortal. Indeed Aristotle has now established such
radical distinctions between the operations of the Intellect and all other human
faculties that conclusions about the attributes of this intellect could not be
automatically extended to that soul which may be properly said to inform the
body and is active through it and is the foundation of the individual personality.

Dee's usual philosophical method would seem to be to proceed from the firm
ground of the understanding downwards to sensibles and the external world
(189), he does not believe any preliminary consideration of these last to be
necessary for dealing with subjects peculiar to the superior levels of intellectual
or spiritual existence and he only resorts to them in such investigations of
non_evident reality in so far as they offer some convenient illustration that may
intuitively assist comprehension, and persuasively fortify conviction ("Respuis
igitur in hoc causa omne testimonium sensuum?" is the first demand of "Ratio"
to Augustine when he would embark on an enquiry into the nature of God and
the soul (190)). "Thinges Supernaturall are of the mind onely, comprehended"
writes Dee, "...in thinges Naturall, probabilitie and conjecture hath place: But in
things Supernaturall, chief demonstration, and most sure Science is to be
had....nor yet (in mathematical reasoning) the testimony of sense, any whit
credited."(191) One may remark that on the one hand Plotinus' description of the
soul as a light derived from and subsisting about intellect, that it acts as the
principle of the phenomenal world (192) and on the other the view that it is "the
form of the body" - in the sense employed in the present "propositions" - are
typical contrasting results of two different approaches. Now that which
elsewhere characterises Dee's thought is what has been termed by Urban -
quoting the statement of Pierce that "the one intelligible theory of the universe is
that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits become
physical laws," - "speculative deduction," which takes the principle that it is only
possible to derive the less from the more, never the more from the less, as "the
condition of all philosophical intelligibility."(193) From this same principle
Cudworth develops his arguments on the relations between soul and body,
expressing it in a neo-Platonic hierarchical scheme which is here not
unconnected with the ancient and persistent conception of the Great Chain of
Being. It is impossible, he writes for "a substance as hath a lower degres of
entitie and perfection in it, to create that which hath a higher. There is a scale,
or ladder or entities and perfections in the universe, one above another, and the
production of things cannot possibly be in way of ascent from lower to higher,
but must of necessity be in way of descent from higher to lower. Now to produce
any one higher rank of being from the lower, as cogitation from magnitude and
body, is plainly to invert this order in the scale of the universe...."(194)
Innumerable invocations from all periods can be found of this principle made by
neo-Platonic thinkers who employ it to produce a framework for some thoroughly
objectified cosmology (195), and the resulting schemes in which lower entities
are defluxions from, and limitations of those immediately above, invariably
emphasize the hierarchic transcendance of the soul over the body. For this last is
the basis of Plotinus' criticism of materialism, that the soul can only be described
in phrases nonsensical if applied in toto to body and its qualities, as would be
necessary if this produces soul, but once a conception of the soul has been fixed,
body then admits of explanation in terms of soul only one of whose many
properties and functions is then to endow body with form (196). It is true that
the Aristotelian doctrines explored by Dee in his propositions have some
appearance of evading this criticism; for they make no pretence of explaining
soul in terms of matter possessed of intrinsic qualities - all positive characteristics
of any object derive from its non-material form. But although the term
"substance" is applied indiscriminately in de Anima to matter, form, and the
composite whole they make, only the last is allowed a genuine existence, and
the presence of a certain type of organic body is made the sine qua non not
merely of the sensible manifestation, but of the existence of soul which is its
form, and this view of soul as no more than the organisation which maintains for
a time in a specific, sensible, body does imply in effect a violation of the
neo_Platonic "scale of perfections." This emerges clearly, to take a minor
example, from Aristotle's treatment of the theory that the soul is able to move
itself and is the cause of the motions of the body; this Plato defended in the
Laws by a classification of kinds of motion, in which all physical change is
subsumed under the one real activity, the motion of "thought."(197) Aristotle's
"refutation" has for its starting point the limitation of motion to four species,
locomotion, qualitative alteration, diminution and augmentation. From which
classification, if it is accepted as exhaustive, it follows therefore that if the soul is
to be attributed motion it must occupy a place; further, if it can move naturally,
it will move under constraint, and therefore under the action of sensible things;
and further, if the soul moves the body, it must impart to it the same kind of
motions as it possesses itself, and these, since the nature of the body's motion
are known to be so by observation, must be motions in space (198).

VII. Dee raises one other question before setting out the propositions, and as he
recurs to it in them it will serve for a convenient starting point for a detailed
examination of these for their order seeming largely casual, some regrouping of
them is desirable in any case. If, Dee observes, "sol et homo generent hominem"
and together produce all that is in man, the sun supplying some vital power to
the seed, then it follows that the soul must be mortal. This cryptic phrase of
Aristotle's (199) Dee repeats in later writings, but only with the limited purpose
of engaging Aristotle's authority on the side of astrology (200) - the passage
thus employed is almost a locus classicus in the Renaissance. But Dee, as is
evident from the consequence he draws, is here thinking of it chiefly with respect
to the strictly correct Aristotelian view of "generation," and of "man" as a unified,
and so far as body and spirit are concerned, impartible, organism. Pomponazzi
makes the same quotation "dicimus, quod anima humana est facta, sed non per
creationem, verum per generationem, cum sol et homo generent hominem,
secundum Physicorum, et ipso ultima in consideratione naturale"; subsequently
arguing from this that if the soul were immortal despite being part of the result
of such a process then there would have to occur at death a transmutation of
human nature into divine, after the fashion of a fable in Ovid (201). Dee appends
the quotation "man is begotten by man, each by a single father. Met. 12 ch. 3,"
but the relevance of this reference is perhaps only clear from its context in
Aristotle's argument in that place, where it is produced as an example of the way
in which things come to be whose individual characteristics cannot exist apart
from the composite substance that embodies these, and which shows why it is
impossible for all "souls" - whatever may be adjudged to be the case of the
reason which is in man, if this should be considered a type of soul - to survive
the dissolution of the body. The definition of "man" implied by making "man" as
such subject to natural generation is inevitably at odds with such definitions as
"Homo igitur, ut homini apparet, anima rationalis est mortali atque terreno utens
corpore" of Augustine (202). Such a view Pomponazzi declares to be typical of
Platonists, and totally ruinous to the unity of human nature, since it makes the
union of soul and body no more intimate "quam boves et plaustrum," whereas it
is truer to say "homines esse compositum ex anima et corpore," (203) which is
the position of Aristotle, who insists always on taking "man" as the real entity,
and soul and body as separate aspects of faculties of "man." ("Doubtless it would
be better not to say that the soul pities or learns or thinks, but that the man
does so with the soul."(204) The dilemma then arises that, as in Aristotle's
hypothetical argument about the whole world, "to assert that it was generated
and yet is eternal is to assert the impossible...generated things are always seen
to be destroyed."(205) From such a point, and it is a rephrasing of the question
Dee commences with, Plotinus began his discussion on immortality; "Hence if
body is a part of us we are not wholly immortal," but if it is only an instrument of
the soul, or the soul be its "form," in a Platonic sense - a redefinition of man is
required for "in each way the soul is the man himself."(206) Dee's comment
forms his sixth proposition; those who assert the immortality of the soul must
deny that man is either generated or perishes; since his superior part endures, or
must even have existed before the (natural) man. This parallels Pompanazzi's
remark "Stat et altera dubitatio: (his earlier doubts appear in Dee's propositions
immediately preceding the present one) ai anima esset vere generabilis et
corruptibilis."(207) The gravity and long persistence of this problem of the
implications of generation and in what sense man could be said to be subject to
it, is apparent from Cudworth's later lengthy discussion of it, who takes up the
subject in order to condemn "that doctrine of some professed theists, and
Christians of latter times, who generate all souls, not only the sensitive in brutes
but also the rational in men....because of life and understanding, in their own
nature be factitious and generable out of matter, then they are no substantial
things, but accidental only"; elsewhere calling this "the grand mystery of
atheism, that everything besides the substance of matter is made or generated,
and may be again unmade or corrupted"; so that Cudworth himself is driven to
maintain that it is better, if it be necessary to save immortality, to hold "the
ancient Pythagorick and Empedoclean hypothesis that all lives and souls
whatsoever are as old as the first creation" - as Dee seems to suggest, is the
consequence, than to admit an entire generation of Manor animals, which
"leaves us also in an absolute impossibility of proving the immortality of the
rational soul, the incorporeity of any substance, and by consequence, the
existence of any Deity distinct from the corporeal world."(208) Dee's 9th
proposition, which is brief and cryptic, seems to relate to the same theme:
Aristotle affirms de gen. anim. 11. chap. 5 that all the soul is entirely present
potentially in the seed (in fact only the sentient soul is directly mentioned there).
Dee comments that the actualisation (the operations, end and purpose must lie
where the potentiality is. This is an opinion which Pico, who declares "Anima est
fones motus et gubernatrix materiae," finds important enough to contravert in
several theses; order, fate, purposefulness must not be sought merely in seminal
principles, but in the higher existences such as intellect which are the real
powers controlling and guiding material change (200). Dee's proposition in effect
amounts to an assertion of the invalidity of that reflexive teleological reasoning
which seeks information about the nature of man and the soul by an examination
of the adequate and to which his fully developed spiritual capacities seem to
point; for as Pompanazzi argues, rejecting in this manner all such considerations,
because the soul is generated, and therefore mortal, "tune non dabitur ultimus
finis hominis, qua homo est" etc.(210)

Another group of propositions discuss the relations between soul and body in the
mature whole. The fourth states that the soul cannot be incorporeal (and a
substance), for there is no manner in which the incorporeal can be considered to
exist in conjunction with a body for this would be contrary to its nature, unless it
be only a quality, form, affection or power of the body. The necessary similarity
that must exist in some measure between soul and body has always presented a
problem to those who held the soul capable of a separate existence. A typical
neo-Platonic solution is Olympiodorus, who can only thus account for the soul's
descent: "it is necessary that she should first establish an image of herself in the
body, and in the second place that she should sympathise with the image
according to a similitude of form. For every form hastens into a sameness with
itself through an innate convergency to itself...."(211) Dee insisting here on the
unity of nature in the composite of soul and body is stating the grounds for the
Aristotelian induction, previously mentioned, that concluded, to select one
instance, that if the soul communicated motion to the body, then the type of
motion it had of its own nature must be identical with the body's locomotion.
Dee's limitation of the types of the incorporeal which might be conjoined to the
body is a consequence of the axiom that forms the basis of so much of
Pomponazzi's reasoning on this point__that plurality of substantial forms in a
single body is impossible, that there is no interpenetration of self-subsistent
beings (212). Such an interpenetration seemed for Aristotle to be equivalent to
the Democritean view of the soul as a real substance composed of fine atoms,
which had "an especial absurdity of its own" in that it meant that two bodies
would have to occupy the same place (213), and the assumption of this
equivalence, arising from his idea of substance, plays a large part in his rejection
of the Platonic "participations" of the separated ideas (214). The solution to the
problem of uniting the two distinct and dissimilar entities which faced those who
rejected the Aristotelian position was frequently supposed to lie in the
postulation of some intermediate links. Thus Ibn Gebirol: "Si inter distantia non
esset distantia...anima distat a corpore...si non esset spiritus, qui est medius
inter animam et corpus, alterum non coniungeretur alteri."(215) Similarly Roger
Bacon, accepting Aristotle's "actus dividit" and interpreting "actus" as "actuality,"
admits that two completely realised beings cannot be united to form one; the
soul therefore as it is both "ultimate form" and separable substance, cannot be
united directly to the body, but is so only through the media provided by the
nutritive and sensitive "souls" which precede the presence of the former in the
body in time and which are not "created" but arise out of the potentialities of
matter, and are corruptible (216). Dee, in his tenth proposition, returns to the
problem presented by postulating a union between entities so different as body
and soul must be if the latter is separable and incorruptible: even supposing the
soul not to arise from the seed, and to be exterior to the generated man, it
enters that place where it must exercise its specific operation - and all forms
have such definite operations - therefore for this reason it will only preserve this
in union with the body it has entered. A further difficulty is stated in the eleventh
proposition: If the soul were eternal the body could not contain (seize hold of) it,
since according to Aristotle nothing can hold the eternal. The reference is
possibly to Aristotle's discussion of the function of reproduction in living things;
they yearn for a share in the eternal and divine, which is the Final Cause of their
activity, but no individuals can lay hold of it; though by reproduction each
partakes of it in a sense, persisting in some sort, by this attempt at self
duplication and transmission of life, in another entity which is specifically though
not numerically one with itself (217).

Dee continues the argument through the next two propositions. The twelfth
extracts a contradiction from its initial premiss: The soules immortal and also the
form of the body (218); (the Philosopher laughs at the Pythagoreans who say
the soul uses the body as an instrument, and the same soul may enter the
bodies of diverse animals), for is it possible for the soul to be the form of the
body without being dependent on the body, and to any less degree than accident
must adhere in substance? Indeed since a truer unity is formed out of soul and
body than from substance and quality then insofar as accident is denied to
endure without substance, even less could the soul endure without the body.
Dee follows here the Averroist interpretation of the Aristotelian formula, he
states in effect one of the Averroist positions condemned at Paris at the end of
the thirteenth century (219) and which Pomponazzi revives arguing that "forma
simul incipit esse cum ea cuius est forma" that forms only continue to exist in
composition with matter, that therefore, as a particular body was essential for
the existence of a soul, it could not be immortal, and that if the soul were a self-
sufficient essence, as Aquinas claimed, then it was excluded from functioning as
a form (220). Dee continues (proposition 13): If man's soul is a unity, then it is
either a sensitive soul that also understands, or an intellectual soul that feels;
either type of being is liable to death. While if these are separate, man will be
two; he will take on the character of two animals and three living beings. This
question again runs like a thread through Pomponazzi's discussion. He begins by
taking it as generally admitted that the sensitive and vegetative souls are bound
up with bodily operations, and that the only remaining question is whether the
understanding and the will are separable and immortal. He then enquires
whether the soul as a whole is not a unity and whether "Socrates" can really be
mortal in one part, and possess another soul that is immortal, and concludes that
the intellective and sensitive souls are not absolutely distinguishable and
therefore his opponents must in effect assert that the same thing is both mortal
and immortal (221). The argument for the unity of the various "souls" in man
and the necessary admission of the perishableness of this totality that follows,
arises here, as in Dee, from the dependence of both on the senses; this
Pomponazzi cites Averroes: that if we understand "quod intelligere non sit nisi
cum imaginatione, tunc enim intellectus materialis erit generabilis et corruptibilis,
sicut intelligit Alexander."(222)

Dee's seventh proposition states this position: Intellectis moved according to its
objects; actual objects are sensible, therefore the character of the intellect is
dependent on sensible things; if the sensible perishes, so must the intellect. This,
though the de Anima contains passages on the separability of mind contrasted
with the dependence of the imagination on bodily function, which might indicate
the reverse of this conclusion, accords well with its general drift, which
emphasises that lower faculties of the soul, as is obvious from the scale of actual
beings, can exist apart from the higher, but that the presence of the latter must
always presuppose the lower; that "intellect (....whereby the soul thinks and
conceives) is nothing at all actually before it thinks," and that "Nihil est in
intellectu quod non prius in sensu"; for "since apart from sensible magnitudes
there is nothing, as it would seem, independently existent, it is in the sensible
forms that the intelligible form sexist, both the abstractions of mathematics as
they are called, and attributes of sensible things, and for this reason, as without
sensation a man would not learn or understand anything, so at the very time
when he is thinking he must have an image before him."(223) This, leading to
the conclusion Dee draws, is a frequent argument of Pompanazzi, who insists
that for man, the universal can only be known in the particular, the idea in the
image, the intelligible through the sensible, that, however spiritual the functions
of the intellect seem, they can be only exercised through the organised body.
Thus, since from Aristotle's authority it appears that "intelligere aut esse
phantasiam aut non esse sine phantasia....Nullum igitur modo intellectus
humanus, secundum Aristotelem, habet operationem prorsus a corpore
independentem....Ergo anima intellectiva est actus corporis organici quantum ad
sensationem, hoc est pro suo intellectione, ergo in omni suo intelligere, indiget
phantasia. Sed si est, ipso est materialis, ergo anima intellectiva est materialis"
and consequently perishable (224). It is of interest, in view of Dee's elsewhere
professed predilection for the metaphysics of Avicenna, to note the reiterated
demonstration of that philosopher that at least some knowledge must be
independent of perception and also positive in content and certain. This Avicenna
holds, is proved by supposing a perfect man created in the void, and thus
receiving no data from any of his sense organ: such a being, he argues, would
still consider its own existence proved, which knowledge must therefore be a
primary intuition, reached by the pure operations of reason unassisted by sense
(225). This of course was only cogent on the supposition, accepted by all parties,
that separated intelligences existed which made use of reason, and the
concealed, and disputed, assumption that the "reason" employed by these was
identical in kind with that employed by man, and also that the development of
the faculties of the body and mind to "perfection" or maturity (in which condition
Avicenna's hypothetical man is created) is a simple form of growth from within,
like physical increase, and not a result of complex processes of interaction with
an external world through the various organs of the body which alone transforms
what is potentially an ability of the mind into actuality. That this is necessarily
the case is of course the precise claim of Aristotle, who declares this abstract
self-consciousness (which Avicenna's man is supposed to enjoy) to be only the
final stage in the cognitive process, beginning in simple reaction to sensible
stimulation; it is only "when the intellect has become everything," when it has
"learned and discovered" all lower, more concretely representable things, that
then "at this stage intellect is capable of thinking itself," (226) that is: mind
perceives itself not directly but per accidens and only in contra-distinction from
all other things it thinks.

Dee's second proposition is also upon this theme; he demands: whether man's
soul can be considered to have been made immortal in order that it might be
able to use reason, and the use of reason be the criterion that distinguishes man
from other souls (animated beings), when actual reason by man is no more than
a certain "power of jumping" (via resiliendi) from one imagination to another and
from one thought to another. This description seems very inadequate to the high
idea of Reason usually found in Dee and on which, as a divinely guided
purposeful process, almost creative in the originality of its operations, capable of
discovering through its own activities the secrets of nature and of
comprehending the underlying reality of the universe he later lavishes his praise.
but the present proposition reflects the sharp rift occurring in Pomponazzi's
cosmology between the sublunar and supralunar realms, which extends to the
modes of cognition proper to man, and to the celestial intelligences and God,
who alone have full and immediate knowledge of universals and intelligibles,
which subsist in them unconditioned by, and in complete independence of
images founded on sensations. Dee's proposition arises out of the previous one
which heads his list, summing up many of those previously discussed in its
juxtaposition of the implications of these and the thesis of the soul's survival
after death in separation from a body: to what end will it be eternal? And can
there be substance unoccupied and without function (ociosa sine opere)?
Otherwise, since it will henceforward use neither senses nor life, so will have to
be newly endowed with some other functions. Once more there seems to be a
direct echo of Pomponazzi, who declares that a postulated survival of the soul, if
in all other respects this is regarded in conformity with Aristotle's deposition,
leads to contradictions: "vel, si esset, sine opere esset, cum sine phantasmate,
per positionem intelligere non posset, et sic otiaretur"; and again "Vel igitur, post
separationem habet potentias quibus exercere possit sua opera, vel non. Si
secundum videtur contra naturam, quod aeterno tempore sit manca et totaliter
privata, nisi recurratur ad resurrectionem Democriti vel ad fabulas Pythagoreas,
si autem habet, cum careat organis, quibus fungitur proprie opere, sequitur
iterum quod illae potentiae sint vanae."(227) Or elsewhere "Altera difficultas est
quod operetur anima a corpore separata. Si nihil anima erit frustra, nihil autem
videtur operari, quia hoc maxime esset intelligere, quia anima per phantasmata
intellegit, quae sint in corpore, si autem non habet intelligere, nec habet
velle."(228) The future state of the soul, as envisaged by Dee, unless it be given
new faculties is precisely that which Cudworth, holding that "soul" needs always
to be united to some body, ascribes to "those of animals," if one lets his
suggestion of the "serial vehicles of the souls of brutes go for a whimsey or meer
figment, nor let them be allowed to act or enliven any other than terrestrial
bodies only, by means whereof they must needs be, immediately after death,
quite destitute of all body; They subsisting nevertheless, and not vanishing into
nothing, because they are not meer accidents, but substantial things: we say
that in this case, though the substances of them remain, yet must they needs
continue in a state of insensibility and inactivity unless they are subsequently
reunited to a body"; this state he finds less inconceivable from the proximate
examples of sleep and hibernation, adding "Upon which account, though these
souls of brutes may be said in one sense to be immortal, because the substance
of them, and the root of life in them, remains, yet may they in another sense, be
said also to be mortal, as having the exercise of that life, for a time at least,
quite suspended."(229) The possibility that the soul on separation from the body
is deprived of all the knowledge and abilities it has acquired in life as here
envisaged by Dee, is mentioned also by Augustine, and with extreme horror, as
removing all purpose from the immortality it is supposed thus to participate in;
the final theme of the Soliloquia is the expression of the fear "ne mors humana,
etiamsi non interficiat animam, rerum tamen omnium, et ipsius, siqua comperta
fuerit, veritatis oblivionem inferat....Qualis enim erit illa aeterna vita, vel quae
mors mon ei praeponenda est, si sic vivit anima ut videmus eam vivere in puero
mox nato...."(230) Upon the theme that men exist only as composite beings,
that the activity of their souls, insofar as they are individual men, is inseparable
from their bodies, Ronsard builds an entire elegy, which bears in some editions
the marginal annotation that "this is the opinion of Aristotle which is false"; the
whole might figure, as an illuminating and faithful expansion of Dee's brief text
(231). Its grounds here are to be found in the later propositions, that a thing is
to be known by, and is in fact in itself, what its essential operations are, and, as
Pomponazzi affirms, "Unius rei est tantum unus modus operandi essentialis";
from which premisses the mortality of the soul, or at least the uselessness of its
survival, is to be inferred - "Tota radix hujus positionis innititur ei fundamento,
scilicet quod intellectus humanus non habet nisi unum modum intelligendi" (232)
and that therefore the Thomists' acceptance of the Aristotelian epistemology, not
only as casually but as necessarily true for the soul in its earthly existence, must
render it impossible for them to establish any logical connection between the
soul as known in this state, and a continuance of its being, while retaining its
identity, in conditions where they allowed that a totally different cognitional
situation must maintain. For Pomponazzi argues, diversity in types of knowledge
- that is as images are or are not a necessary accompaniment of thought -
indicates diversity of essence; he quotes Averroes: "Si qui essent homines, qui
non eodem modo cognoscerent sicut nos, non essent eiusdem generis
nobiscum."(233) Roger Bacon escaped the difficulty by declaring that for beings
limited by composition such as man, operations are distinct from essence
(quoting Boethius' dictum "Nobis vero non est idem esse quod agens, non enim
simplices sumus,"), that the "species" of all things must be innate in the soul,
since even if they be judged superfluous in the present life they will be requisite
hereafter (234) and by following Avicenna in an account of this future state
which seems in close accord with Dee's own usual intellectualised "Platonism":
"As regards the speculative intellect the soul will become, according to Avicenna,
an intelligible world, and there will be described in it the form of the whole
universe and the order of all things from the beginning, namely God, both
through all spiritual substances, and the heavens etc. until there is perfected in it
the arrangement of the universe so that it may thus pass into the world of
intellect, perceiving that which is perfect beauty and true grace," while the active
intellect will, by absorption into this world and by total diffusion through "soul"
be also capable of apprehending other delights than those arising from the
arrangements it has hitherto perceived merely in sensible things (235).

VIII. Dee draws another consequence of the soul's survival in the third
proposition: No extent suffices to contain an infinity. The number of souls is
infinite, therefore the world (i.e., the universe) cannot contain them. This
certainly is most absurd, that this infinity of souls increases in number daily
which is contrary to the nature of infinity. The "absurdity" of the second
argument, Dee's formulation seems to imply, renders the first almost
unnecessary, since, granted the Aristotelian eternity of the world, the second
reason follows automatically and there is no need to find another in the
supposed occupation of space by such entities. The dilemma appears in
Pomponazzi also; if generation of souls is denied, recourse would have had to be
had to a Democritean or Pythagorean recurrence, or an actual infinity results;
and later, "Immo si mundus est aeternis, ut opinatus est Aristoteles, infinities
infinitae formae sunt actualiter sine Corpore. Quod apud Aristotelem ridiculum
videtur."(236) But the point at issue goes deeper than the merely physical
problem of the possibility of the existence of an infinite magnitude or the
coexistence of an infinite number of magnitudes or the coexistence of an infinite
number of magnitudes which Crescas undertook to maintain against the
Aristotelians: though it is of interest that, apart from his instancing of the "void,"
Crescas' arguments are only drawn from mathematical conceptions, such as the
infinite divisibility of a line, and that he resolves the query Dee makes about an
augmenting infinity, by arguing that one infinity can only be said not to be
greater than another in the sense that neither would be directly measurable, but
at the same time two lines, he suggests, can be imagined both, in one direction,
extending to infinity, while as to their opposite extremities we are at liberty to
terminate the one as far short of the other as we like, in which case they both
remain infinite in length and the one is never then greater than the other, while
both are capable of increase on the side at which they are limited (237), and he
thus applies to space, which he conceives of on the Euclidean model, what
Aristotle had admitted to be true for time, that it was infinite as to its past,
limited at the present and capable of extension into the future. But the central
problem here was whether the infinite, in distinction from the merely indefinite,
should be admitted as having any place in mathematics or thought, whether it
could be a genuine concept at all, or predicated of any reality, and again what it
was that rendered a thing numerable. Plotinus seems to have been the first
philosopher to have admitted infinity (which had been associated by the Greeks
with all their horrors of the Indefinite and Unconditioned) into the "intelligible
world," when he postulated the existence of separable "forms" of human
individuals (238). Aristotle had held that there could never be an infinity of
objects, if these admitted of "order" with the possible exception of occurrences in
temporal sequence. Avicenna had therefore attempted to interpret "order" in a
way which would not apply to souls or intelligibles, but Averroes had rigidly
maintained that the totality of all things that could be distinguished one from the
other must of necessity be finite (239). In the long and involved controversy of
the latter with El Ghazali the nature of "the infinite" was one of the principal
questions at issue (240); when however El Ghazali writes "Furthermore we argue
against the philosophers thus: even according to your own principles it is not
impossible to assume at the present moment there exist things which are units
qualitatively different from one another and still are infinite in number, namely
the souls of men which have been separated from their bodies at death..." (241)
his reasoning is not directed to establishing this as a fact__he holds it to be an
absurd conclusion - but to refuting "the philosophers'" doctrine of the eternity of
the world from the assumption of the separate existence of the soul, which he
holds to be comparatively more certain, and thus establishing the necessity of a
special creation in time. Dee's argument is two edged, and it is not impossible
that he was himself ultimately prepared to employ it in this way against the
Aristotelian eternity of the world (the Aphorisms of 1558 open with the assertion
of a general Creation). Superficially however, despite the possible interpretation
of "absurd" as applying to the notion that souls were numerable at all in an
ordinary sense, since this was sometimes held to be only true of what was
conjoined with matter, he seems to be putting the orthodox Averroist view. Thus
Averroes writes "I do not know anyone who makes a distinction between that
which has position and that which has no position with reference to infinity
except Avicenna....the philosophers reject an actually infinite number of forms
whether it be corporeal or incorporeal, inasmuch as that would imply that one
infinite can be greater than another infinite. Avicenna only meant to ingratiate
himself with the multitude by advancing a view concerning the soul which they
had been accustomed to hear"; he adds that its absurdity is further evident from
the consequence that if there were an actual infinity the part would be equal to
the whole (242).

Dee examines another aspect of this question of the numerability of the souls of
the dead in his fourteenth and final thesis: If there are many [immortal souls]
they must then differ either in number [i.e., as individuals, numerability is the
necessary accompaniment of any real differentiation] or species, and there would
then be as many species of men as there are individual men. For if they do so in
number, and the differences arise from the "form" it is again necessary to accept
different species of men; and if they arise from matter then the differences are
liable to corruption on account of this, or if they are supposed incorruptible they
cannot have depended on the material. Hence by this reason men have no
[immortal] soul unless it is actually one, and common to all. Here Dee turns to
the second horn of the very ancient dilemma he has been examining: that is,
either all the powers of the soul, including the "nous" evolve from or develop in
conjunction with the senses and organic functioning of the body in which case
they will perish with these; or, as here, it may be suggested that these powers
are due to the supervenience of something from outside men considered as
particular organic bodies in which case this will be necessarily impersonal
transcending all individuality. It would of course be a very thorny question to
enquire whether Dee's simple diaeresis into differences resulting from species
and number represents a truly exhaustive disjunction, and a point of some
delicacy is also whether in fact a certain amphibology does not enter into his use
of the term "species." (He perhaps has in mind Aquinas' doctrine that individual
angels were all distinct species and each the only member of its kind.) Dee
appears to regard these as produced by separate forms, all differences in which
were necessarily essential, and therefore could in one sense be said to result in
separate species, at the same time he does not question the equivalence of such
a definition with the more familiar use of the term arising from an empirically
based classification of organisms - with reference to which "Man" is accepted as
designating a single species; and thus Dee seems to reject out of hand the
possibility that acknowledged members of the same species in this last sense
could possess any difference of "form." His conclusion as regards their "souls"
may be illustrated from a passage of De Anima, which arises from some
reflections which seem to be the source for Dee's immediately preceding (13th)
proposition, in which he considered whether one or several souls should be
ascribed to the individual. Aristotle after considering how far the soul is a unity,
suggests that it is logically divisible according to function, but only actually in so
far as fission will alter it numerically though not qualitatively: thus the imposition
of material discreteness can multiply individuals from the same soul: "It is found
that plants, and among animals certain insects or annelida, live when divided,
which implies that the soul in their segments is specifically, though not
numerically the same....But none the less all the parts of the soul are contained
in each of the two segments and the two halves of the soul are homogeneous
alike with one another and with the wholes, a fact that implies that, while the
parts of the soul are inseparable one from another, the soul as a whole is
divisible."(243) Dee's conclusion relies on the doctrine that incorporeal beings
are not numerable (subject to number), except when incarnate in bodies, since
plurality is an accident of body. The dispute was of long standing; early in the
twelfth century Guillaume d'Auvergne had already attacked the Arab Aristotelian
commentators for making matter the principle of numerical discreteness, since
the consequence of this doctrine must clearly be that after death all souls
become a single substance losing their particular faculties, personalities and
individualized knowledge (244). Crescas similarly, pointing out that, unless the
immortal part of man "is only the predisposition which unites with the active
intellect and becomes one with it," which is false, souls as such must be
numerable, seeks to discover some other criterion of difference by which they
may remain so after separation from the body but can only suggest that it is to
be found in the varying degrees of the comparative completeness of their
subsequent union with God (245); he does not attempt to meet the formidable,
though perhaps not insuperable objections, that at once present themselves - for
proof is required that a one to one relation between the members of the group
of souls and of such discrete stages in a hierarchy of value levels must
necessarily maintain, since individuality can only result in this scheme from the
unshared singular possession by the soul of one such level, or degree of
absorption. The difficulties illustrate the strength of the solution that a universal
hylomorphism claimed to offer, of which Cudworth, previously quoted on this
point, was a late exponent. But it is interesting that Augustine setting out the
same problem as Dee displays as pointing such a sceptical conclusion, is able to
offer only a theological not a natural solution (though he finds it in Plato's
words). Insisting that the soul can survive only in a body, yet he admits that,
naturally, it is impossible, as Dee points out for matter, and composite
substances to be considered incorruptible - therefore the impossible in this case
will be performed by the fiat of God; his authority is the speech Plato gives to
the Demiurge, addressing the incarnate gods "these your bodies by My will are
indissoluble, although every compound may be dissolved...seeing you are
created, you are neither immortal nor indissoluble; yet shall you never be
dissolved, nor die: these shall not prevail against My will, which is a greater
assurance of your eternity than all your forms and compositions are."(246)
Finally it may be noted how in one respect Dee's proposition offers a curious
echo of one of Ibn Gebirol's arguments on the theme that all things corporeal
and incorporeal are composed of matter and form. Dee is here asserting that no
particularity is eternal if it is a function of what is composite and therefore
perishable, but differences between forms considered in themselves are
imperishable; these are simple substances, but for this reason such differences
between them must denote difference in essence, and cannot make appearance
in what are known to be members of the same species (the immortal part of
these - the soul - being their form). Ibn Gebirol, discussing "simple substances,"
decides that these could not be "matter," "quia materia rei una erat, non diversa
in se, et quia actiones formarum sunt, non materiarum," but if they are
considered to be "forms" then "Si hae substantiae simplices sunt una forma,
unde factae sunt diversae?....Si diversae essent se ipsis, in nullo convenirent
umquam....Si sic essent diversae in perfectione et imperfectione, deberet hic
esse sustinens aliquid perfectionem et sustinens imperfectionem etc." (247)
which lead to a denial of their possibility.

Dee's fifth proposition formulates other difficulties in considering the soul as

capable of existing apart from the body; it consists of a loose linked, rather
lengthy and involved string of questions and statements; it begins: The soul is
"in place," hence perishes: for form must necessarily be in place, since body and
man are, and even God and celestial intelligences can be said to be in place by
substantive operations - phys. 8 de Caelo I - (248) after death where will the
soul be? or by what means can it be thought to proceed to such a place? By
locomotion or change? (i.e., the two possible alternatives in Aristotle's four types
of motion). Neither; since in separation from the body it can neither move nor
change merely of itself, nor can it totally transform itself as it was made to
function in that place. It first began to be there when the carcass became an
animated body; and Dee therefore considers what must consequently be the
purpose and limits of its functions, concluding that the "higher" part of man
existing as quality in the body and not occupying space by its own nature will
effect changes of quality per se, and be moved locally per accidens. But
nevertheless this active motion that takes place according to quality, has its
results in the body not in the soul, and therefore the soul, at death, cannot make
use of this kind of change to attain another place for its further existence, place
is the prerogative solely of the carcass. The theme is paralleled in Pompanazzi,
who on the postulate that the soul is not corrupted at death, and assuming
additionally metemsychosis to be fabulous, finds these same difficulties will arise
in allowing the soul on separation to proceed to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory
"Quaero per quid fit iste motus; vel per alterationem, vel per motum localem, et
quaro de via perquam vadet...."(249) The source is Aristotle's argument on the
nature of motion and how far it may be ascribed to soul in De Anima I, 3, and
book 8 of the Physics; perhaps particularly his statement that nothing which has
not parts can be in motion, and that which moves itself, though not every cause
of motion in some other entity, must have magnitude (250). This last implied,
according to Crescas, that anything that could move was divisible and hence not
eternal, but he proceeded to suggest therefore, as Dee, that this was only true
of what "moved essentially, for that which has only accidental motion we
sometimes find to be indivisible" as the soul, moved through the body (251).
This of course is Aristotle's own theory of local motion as admitted by the soul;
but in addition Aristotle denies to it any type of self-originated motion,
particularly the capacity for "qualitative change," for "all motion being defined as
displacement of the thing moved qua moved, it will follow that the soul will be
displaced from its own essential nature, if it be true that its self-movement is not
an accident, but that motion belongs to the soul in and of itself," (252) while
"motion in respect of place" is the only type he allows as possible to eternal
beings (e.g., the stars) and all things that move of themselves, and makes it
indeed the primary type and "the principle of all motion."(253)

Dee's eighth proposition is the only one in which there seems to be a hint -
though it is little more, of a possible deviation from Aristotelian doctrine;
significantly the subject which suggests this is the nature of the understanding.
It declares: Neither the active nor passive intellects would be of use to us, even
granting that both the one and the other may be immortal. Aristotle denies that
the active intellect without passive, or passive without sense can understand;
thus the intellects' understanding would be extinguished with the senses, even
though both survived them. He (Aristotle) does not say that understanding must
involve the consideration of images of things by a more inward (more secret)
sense; i.e., Aristotle's position implies that the intellect has not the active
property of considering things under representations of a kind peculiar to itself;
that is, essentially different in kind to images based on the phantasms of the
passive receptions of the senses. Here perhaps are suggestions of a view of the
function of sense, which is typical of a neo-Platonist scheme. Very many only
superficially different formulations of such a view - that the sense while it offers
indispensable assistance to the incarnate mind in realising its potentialities, is
none the less not an invariable accompaniment or the necessary foundation of its
operations. Thus for Grosseteste the senses excited the soul to a memory of a
former knowledge of intelligibles, or in Culverwell's phrase, which sums up the
doctrine of many of the Cambridge Platonists on this point they allow "sparks" to
enter which light the internal candle flame of knowledge (254); Avicenna holding
the soul was born with the body, allowed the senses a necessary role in its
development and in the elaboration of concepts, while finally they stimulated it
to a direct reception of intelligibles from the separated active intellect, the soul
thus in association with the body acquiring a "habit of existence" and
individuality which persisted after the dissolution of its original host (255). Dee's
view here finds expression in Augustine, with the same type of example from
mathematics Dee himself usually produced; speaking of the "understanding" as
for instance evidenced in the study of geometry and how in investigating all
abstract or metaphysical subjects generally the senses play the role of a ship
that can carry one only part of a journey, since limited to one type of region,
Augustine writes "Imo sensus in hoc negotio quasi navim sum expertus. Nam
cum ipsi me ad locum quo tendebam pervexerint, ubi eos dimisi (he continued
the journey on land, that is the investigation by pure reason)...Quare citius mihi
videtur in terra posse navigari, quam geometricam sensibus percipi, quamvis
rimo discentes aliquantum adjuvare videantur."(256) It was perhaps important
for Dee to insist on the possible immortality of the passive intellect; for it might
prove necessary to admit the impersonal status of the active intellect as a
consequence of the attempt to maintain both the "unity of truth," and that in
some way this was uniformly accessible to all men, for otherwise the foundation
of any genuine certainty of any statement surpassing the record of immediate
personal sensation, dissolved into subjectivism. Thus Roger Bacon, in order to
maintain the Augustinian position that all knowledge is a result of Divine
illumination, and to explain his defence of its - at least partial - revelation to
ancient ethnic philosophers, proclaims the Unity of the Active intellect and makes
the passive the immortal personal part of man (257). Dee's proposition is not
necessarily in disaccord with all interpretations of Aristotle, despite Dee's
apparent feeling here that the thesis on which the Averroists and Pomponazzi
insisted so continually that thought was either a matter of images or could not
take place without these, suggesting the complete dependence of the mind on
sense, contradicted the obvious faculties of the Intellect. For passages in
Aristotle also admitted that the intellect was orientated towards different objects
from the sensible and possessed a faculty for knowing these in a form differing
from any presentations of sense: "if thinking is analogous to perceiving, it will
consist in a being acted upon by the object of thought....This part of the soul,
then, must be impassive, but receptive of the form and potentially like the form,
though not identical with it, and as the faculty of the sense is to sensible objects,
so must intellect be related to intelligible objects."(258) This last comparison
becomes a commonplace in all schools, except that in neo-Platonist writings the
concept of the self-existing "soul" tends to replace the material intellect as that
to which is ascribed this natural similarity to forms, and ability to receive them
directly. Thus Ibn Gebirol: "intelligentia est locus formarum intelligibilium....(and)
Sicuthyle est virtus receptibilis formarum sensibilium, similiteranima est virtus
receptibilis formarum intelligibilium."(259)

IX. Now although these propositions differ radically in many respects from Dee's
established views, the possibility cannot perhaps be definitely excluded that he,
in fact, held the soul's immortality to consist merely in some sort of
depersonalised survival as a part of the Active Intellect, which is the only kind his
arguments here would at all permit. He firmly accepted the real existence of
Intelligibles, and also of "Thinges Spirituall" which "are immateriall, simple,
indivisible, incorruptible and unchangeable," (260) but he gives no hint as to a
principle of individuation among these things that would escape the dilemma he
has propounded that the souls of men in a future existence must either differ by
material features that are corruptible and therefore still only temporary, or
essentially so that each is a distinct species. Indeed no quality is obvious in his
contrasting of things spiritual with the mathematicals, among which the last
principle of differentiation must presumably be the criterion for distinguishing the
individual entity, which would suggest that any other principle by which this
could be effected, maintained in the spiritual world. Entities at the two levels
rational and supernatural are presented as similar except in degree of
abstraction, and intellectual comprehensiveness, the mathematicals "are not so
absolute or excellent," they are above sensibles "Nor yet, for all that, in the royall
mynde of man, first conceived," they are above opinion but "commyng short of
high intellectual coceptio [the essence of spiritual things], are the Mercurial fruits
of Dianoeticall discourse, in perfect imagination subsysting."(261) Now although
Dee sometimes refers to "the Life and Blisse Aeternall," nowhere does he
indicate that this is "personal" in the usual sense of the word, he would seem to
conceive it after so intellectualised a fashion - the Benefits that the soul enjoys
being increase in knowledge, apprehension of truth immediately, an
approximation to the condition of a pure intelligence - that the implications of
this expression as employed by Dee would seem to be quite consonant with a
fusion with the common Active Intellect. Indeed the Preface commences with an
account of how many drawn by curiosity rather than love of truth to learn of the
Good from Divine Plato, were disappointed in "hys profound and profitable
doctrine," when they "perceaved that the drift of his discourses issued out, to
conclude, this Unum, Ronum and Ens to be Spiritually Infinite, Aeternall,
Omnipotent, &c. Nothyng being alledged or expressed, How, worldly goods,
how, worldly dignitie: how health, strength or lustiness of body: nor yet the
meanes, how a merveillous sensible and bodyly blysse and felicitie hereafter,
myght be atteyned."(262) Indeed it is probable that Dee placed the "felicitie" of
the separated soul, as Avicenna held it to be, in the mere eternal contemplation
of the intelligibles. A frequent tenet of neo_Platonist systems was that all
existence was derived from such a process, its various levels resulting in the case
of inanimate entities from the degree to which they manifested intelligibility and
in the case of animate beings from the developed capacity of their
understandings. Thus Malebranche quotes from Augustine "La Sagesse eternelle
est le principe de toutes les creatures capables d'intelligence...elles se tournent
vers leurs principes: parce qu'il n'y a que la vue de la sagesse eternelle qui
donne l'etre aux esprits...."(263) The relevance of this arises from the fact that
analyses of the nature of the soul made from such a position do not easily
ascribe characteristics to it that would seem in any way to preserve its singularity
or separation. Thus to cite a specific instance - from a later thinker, but not
wholly disparate from Renaissance Platonists in this respect, though his
formulation is perhaps simpler and more explicit - Malebranche reduces the
qualities or essential operations of the soul to two, Will, which is "le mouvement
naturel qui nous porte vers le bien indetermine et en general" and the
Understanding, but this "faculte de recevoir differentes idees et differentes
modifications dans l'esprit est entierement passive."(264) Applying such a
description to the problem of souls' survival as individual entities as Dee presents
it, it follows from the singleness of truth and passivity of the understanding that
the principle of differentiation should be sought in the Will. But the Will is never
unmotivated and therefore though it may serve this purpose while the soul
inhabits a body and is aware of multitudinous and conflicting "motives," affected
by sensible delights, the passions, or intellectual "values," and where the level
attained by the intellect in some sort results from the variations possible in the
Will (since knowledge is attained in that state only, by a concentration and
application which are themselves voluntary actions) yet in the case of the
discarnate spirit it can no longer be invoked for this end, since the motives
impelling the Will are then confined to the presentations of the only remaining
faculty, the soul, now utilises - that is the understanding, and must therefore be
dependent on it, a pure function of this - while the understanding itself is now a
vision common to all, insofar as it is no longer variously distorted by the
impediments resulting from the imperfections of particular bodies, and as
intellectual truth is then known without a discursus, the objectivity Platonic
thought ascribed to it being then directly contemplated - the possibility of
diversity in this supposedly particular understanding such as could have arisen in
a previous state when error could creep undetected into the long chains of
deductions by which only intellectual knowledge might be attained, is excluded.
but one must perhaps conclude that although the notion Dee apparently held of
the soul's functions and future felicity in so far as it was eternal would lose
nothing at all had he considered man's immortality to consist merely in that part
of him that now and hereafter participated in the universal Active Intellect, his
lack of any explicit declaration that would contradict this cannot be regarded as
very sure evidence that he embraced a doctrine of this sort.

These notes of Dee then, which would seem to be of an entirely private

character are of interest in that they perhaps point to a transitional stage that
was of some importance in his philosophical development; since what he takes
as "Aristotelian" premisses he shows here lead to conclusions incompatible or at
least discordant with what could be known as true in another universe of
discourse, or could be accepted on other, for example, religious grounds. (It is of
interest that many opponents of Aristotle in the sixteenth century demand the
rejection of his system on the grounds that denial of the immortality of the soul
was an intrinsic part of it (265) a complaint that compared with the other
charges of irreligion previously often brought against him such as the denial of a
creation in time, seems to become prominent in the Renaissance.) Therefore, the
alternative would remain of altering the premisses and method of enquiry, or
denying at once the possibility of attaining intellectual certainty, and the validity
of any philosophical investigation with regard to large, and the more important,
sections of the real world. Dee's propositions are however also of interest as
showing a thinker of the late Renaissance of predominantly scientific interests,
and closely connected with practical and technological progress, pursuing a
profound and speculation in thoroughly "scholastic" terms, and one founded
largely on the authority of a text - in the sense that propositions from it are
taken as the starting point from which deductions are to be made - and one that
had given rise to a multitude of philosophicad commentaries through the
centuries, Aristotle's de Anima. It should perhaps be pointed out that, despite
close parallels almost throughout with Pompanazzi, Dee who claims these
reflections as his own, neither here nor elsewhere directly mentions him. It is
even possible that his acquaintance with his thought - with the exception of de
Incantationibuswas made chiefly through the "confutation" produced by Nipho,
from whom indeed Dee appends a quotation at the end of his own propositions
(to the effect that according to Alexander the soul arises from the seed, and
unless the intellective soul is generated in this way man cannot be the result of
only a single generation - its joining to him as form will constitute a second
according to Aristotle's definition). The writings of Nipho Dee seems to have
collected assiduously throughout his life, more especially his Aristotelian
commentaries in many cases accumulating duplicates as well as the various
separate editions. In some respects he was of a similar cast to Nipho, whose
thought is a typical example of Renaissance syncretism, and of whom, though he
professed himself a follower of Aristotle, it has been observed "Il suo
aristotelismo era il ritorno, su quante v'era di Platonico in aristotele
medesimo."(266) He employs all the Platonic arguments in defence of
immortality, though he remains undecided, as Dee does here, between accepting
the Averroist unity of the separated intellect and the multiplicity of souls of the
Florentine Platonists. His position is perhaps medial; for taking Averroes'
description of "felicity" as resulting from the joining of the potential to the active
intellect, he proceeds to identify the active with God and the "potential" with the
individual human soul, and he addressed Pompanazzi in one of his polemics in
words that are very similar to Dee's usual tone, in contrast with that position
which he seems temporarily to have assumed in these propositions: "Come puo
una forza, in nulla superiore ai corpi, cose paramente bramare cio che e
spirituale, venerarlo, sequirlo? Si tu avessi letto il De Pulchro Platonico vi avresti
facilmente appreso che Dio - come dice giustamente pitagora - plasmando
l'uomo, affinche potesse scorgere le cose sublimi, sante e piu lo alzo da terra
volgendolo alla contemplazione del sui fattore."(267)

X. The sceptical nature of these propositions and the preoccupation with Aristotle
they reveal make them very unrepresentative of Dee's thought in general. But no
other writing of his survives dealing philosophically with matters of such
theological consequence. However, the implications of many passages in his
works are unmistakeable. They were evident to his contemporaries and accepted
or denounced as representing a very definite metaphysical doctrine, and one that
was regarded by many as quite as dangerously heterodox, though in a very
different manner than the position he expounds in his proposition would have
been. This can best be shown and the awareness of others of the neo-Platonic
intellectualism in his work (which was closer at times to Proclus than to Clement
- so that he was accused of Pelagianism, ignoring original sin, belittling the
function of Grace and concentrating on such abstraction as the Trinity with an
accompanying neglect of Christ), illustrated by selecting the relevant passages
from a controversy that broke out in his latter years - though he neither
personally participated in it nor was ever referred to by name - over some
statements he had made in the Preface to the English Euclid.

The theologian John Chamber in 1601, more than thirty years after the
publication of Dee's Preface brought out his sweeping attack on astrology, the
general character of which has been already noticed - it was virulent, anti-
scientific and ill-informed as to the doctrines it denounced. In it he had occasion
to ridicule Pythagoreanism and numerology and seems to have selected Dee as
an extreme example of the pernicious pretensions of believers in these. He
writes "Some do not sticke to affirme that by the misteries of numbers we may
attain to know the mistery of our salvation, and election, and how are names are
registered recorded in God's booke. Because I would not do any man wrong in
so waightie a point I will set the words downe as they lie in a certaine
Mathematicall Preface, and they be these. `Yet from these grosse and materiall
thynges, may be led vpward, by degrees, so, informyng our rude imagination
toward the conceiying of Numbers absolutely (Not supposing, nor admyting any
thyng created, Corporall or Spirituall, to support, conteyne, or represent those
Numbers imagined:) that at length, we may be hable, to find the number of our
owne name, gloriously exemplified and registred in the booke of the Trinitie most
blessed and aeternall? What can here be meant, but that by numbers we may
finde out in what state we stand with God? We are taught that the spirit of God
testifieth to our spirit, that we are the Sonnes of God, but of the testimony of
numbers, I do not remember. Againe, what is here meant by numbers, I cannot
readily say; but if it may be lawfull to ghesse I would take it to be those numbers
which Horace ed. 9 Lib. I calleth Babyloni, that is certaine conjuring numbers, by
which to seeke to know things to come, as is there said, is Nefas. Thus we see
that even the heathen and infidels shall rise to condemme us in this point."(268)

In 1603 Sir Christopher Heydon, an associate of Essex who writes here as if he

were a personal friend of Dee (268A), produced a closely printed volume of
some 558 pages in refutation of Chamber's criticisms of astrology. In the course
of this point-by-point examination of Chamber's work, Heydon takes up the
cudgels in defence of Dee, exclaiming of Chamber, "What liberty he takes to
deprave the, who having shewed great variety of learning, are compared by him
to Aesop's dogge that could not content himself with the bone, but would be
snatching at the shadowes, and lose all." He continues, "He had as good name
the partie as describe him by his Mathematicall preface, out of which though
very uncharitably and like the horsefly (as Plutarch saith) that is ever sucking in
sores, and such places as are unsound, he feedeth this detracting humor of his,
with a conceipt that this learned man doth irreligiously ascribe so to numbers
that thereby he thinketh to attaine the mystery of his salvation, and to find his
name registered in the booke of God. Yet others can make a more Christian
interpretation of his words. Since it is evident to him that is not blind by malice,
that he intendeth nothing in that Hyperbolical, and excessive speech, but such a
sequestration of our thoughts from all material things as thereby we may the
more freely contemplate the mysterie of the Trinity in vnity, vntill through our
whole conversion to the same, we come to be registred in the number of those
that are sealed to salvation. But he lives whome it most concernes, and that can
best interpret his owne minde, who if he will vouchsafe to answer it, will teach
him that he hath waked a sleeping lyon and that male mereri de immerente,
inscitia est. In the meantime I have thought of that Qui non defendit alio
calpante; though I know he hath no need of that weake defence, that I am able
to afford him."(269)

This same year George Carleton, Bishop of Chichester ("a bitter enemy to the
papists and a severe Calvinist" said Anthony a Wood) wrote a reply to Heydon's
work proving the original inventor of astrology was the devil, though he did not
publish it until 1624, the year after Heydon's death. He may have had some
direct knowledge of Dee who was a friend of Camden's, who wrote of Carleton
as one "whome I have loved in regard of his singular knowledge in divinity and
in other more delightful literature and am loved again of him."(270)
Nevertheless, he makes the climax and conclusion of his work a section entitled
"An irreligious speech of an astrologer, who thought by Numbers to attaine the
Mystery of Salvation, sifted punctually" in which he sets out thoroughly to
"reprove that profane speech." He is much more aware of the finer points at
issue than Chamber, but is no less severe. "Some of your Astrologers have told
us" he writes, "of great power of some names of God abused, and of some
words spoken without understanding. They tell us also of the Language that the
angels use among themselves," all these he passes by and does not profess to
criticize but Dee's statement is another matter, and he attacks its implications
under some twelve heads. His first point is that numbers cannot be necessary to
salvation, as all things so necessary are contained in the Scriptures. His second
"We say this sequestration of our thought from Materialls, is neither Divinity nor
true Philosophy; for what doe yhou meane by it? If you meane Mathematicall
abstractions which consider magnitude and number, without matter, then is it
impious in Divinity, to say that such a sequestration can bring to vs any Mystery
of Salvation, and absurd amongst Philosophers, who put not man's felicity in
that." Thirdly he declares "You erre in setting the knowledge of a believer in
Contemplation; For our knowledge is in the heart, working in love and not in the
braine and idle contemplation." Fourthly he finds it blasphemy to claim that the
Trinity "can bee apprehended by numbers," and fifthly, such an attempt, possible
or no, "is against Divinity...for, a man is not taught to know his salvation by
looking upon the Mystery of the Trinity; but by looking into the Mystery of Christ
his Incarnation, and Passion, wherein hee findeth his redemption; for heerin hee
may finde himselfe; in the Mystery of the Trinity no man can see or find
himselfe." In the seventh place (the objections not noticed here are merely
elaborations of preceding ones). "Our conversion to God is not either by
contemplation of numbers, or by abstraction of our thoughts from Materialls but
by faith and repentence." Then he finds that Dee's statement contradicts
predestination and in his eleventh objection reaches the climax of his
denunciation "The manner of your speech doth breath out Pelagianisme. For you
say, we may by sequestration of our thoughts come to be registred &c. Doe you
not attribute this power to Man, that by the use of his natural faculties, hee may
purchase this registring as you call it? For by naturall meanes, wee may
contemplate numbers; by naturall meanes we may sequestrate our thoughts
from all things Materiall. If by this meanes wee may come to be registred, as you
say, in the number of those that are sealed to Salvation, may we not then by
naturall meanes obtaine that Grace? and do you know Sir, how to distinguish this
Doctrine from the Doctrine of Pelagius?" After which the final point merely
repeats the same charge, with a different name attached - that Dee's statement
embodies the "Damned error raked up from Hell by Pigghius that men may
Predestinate themselves."(271)

Dee himself took no part in this controversy. He was probably unaware of

Carleton's denunciation, which did not appear in print until many years after his
death. Chamber's attack on the other hand, though Dee's silence may have
indicated his satisfaction with Haydon's defence, may also perhaps have been in
part responsible for his complaint to James in 1604 protesting against renewed
accusations of conjuring that had been made against him and his petition, arising
from this, for an Act Generall against slander. But though Dee then demanded a
public trial, in order to clear himself from suspicions of necromancy, which he
was fully confident he could do, whether had he elaborated his religious position
he would have been able to explain away in an equally satisfactory manner the
heresies apparently implied in some of his incidental pronouncements as
detected by Carleton, is more doubtful. That these, in the main, were of a
radically different kind from the scepticism of the propositions on the soul there
is no doubt, equally, there can be no question of his profound piety and deep
religious sincerity, but he must probably nevertheless be placed with such
thinkers as Bruno who were led to transgress in some measure the limits of
orthodoxy by their "humanist" syncretism - which eclectically embraced pagan
philosophy and symbol and by an independently minded Platonic "rationalism";
which tempted them continually to an intellectual exploration of the mysteries of
the Christian religion, and to prefer to an implicit faith in generally received
dogma founded on humility and distrust of man's natural capacities, the
conclusions of their own original ability to discover, demonstrate and adequately
to comprehend all truths whether concerned with supernatural, "logical," or
physical levels of existence.

Chapter V.

SCIENTIFIC LABOURS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE

(1556-1558)

I. Dee restored to favour - the Supplication to Queen Mary for the preservation
of ancient monuments with a plan for a Library Royall - contemporary book
collecting and the dissolution of the monasteries - details of Dee's proposals - his
general view of learning and the desirability of increasing public knowledge.

II. Copernicanism. Dee's preface to Feild's Ephemeris - his praise of Copernicus -

his own astronomical reputation - his suspension of judgment on the Copernican
hypothesis - but rejects certain features in Ptolemaic and Aristotelian celestial
mechanics - reason for Dee's attitude: the equal merits of Copernicanism and
Ptolemaicism in saving the appearances - many difficulties for a full acceptance
of Copernicanism - its chief advantage based on abstract principle of equal
motion - relies on a particular evaluation of importance of numerical "harmonies"
in universe - violates accepted physical principles - the new theory of gravitation
it involved since it dispensed with a single universal centre - its supposedly
extravagant neglect of sense - lack of any decisive experimental evidence - the
type of arguments employed by Copernicans and Ptolemaicists drawn from
principles common to both sides - Copernicanism regarded less as a novel
discovery than an attempted revival of an ancient theory - its metaphysical
associations and stress on the mystical dignity of the sun - Dee's critical reserve
towards Copernicanism and the Platonic tradition - his attitude reinforced by
multiplicity of apparently equally satisfactory astronomical theories - but
contrasts with the faith of Copernicus and his followers such as Digges, in the
reality and truth of this hypothesis - the formidable consequences of such a
belief in other spheres - the multiplicity of worlds - the size of the universe and
religion - biblical objections - importance therefore of Dee's willingness to
entertain and encourage the theory.

III. Other Scientific writings. The mechanical construction of curves (n.29) -

mechanics - absence from his writings of any very clear idea of the nature of the
machine and contemporary views - treatise on burning mirrors - traditional
interest in these and connection with legends of Archimedes - Dee and
Anthemius' solution (n.95) - Earlier works on the subject - Dee's knowledge of
conics - his purely mathematical approach to the problem.

IV. Treatise on perspective - Dee's interest in the Arts directed to rendering them
"intelligible" by mathematical treatment - to transform them into exact sciences
felt to dispose of Plato's attack on them as false and inaccurate imitations while
allowing retention of his view of possible inspiration of the artists - the artist for
neoplatonism and in the renaissance, and "pythagorean" analysis of the
principles of art - Dee's praise of painting based on such views - "perspective" in
its widest sense for him is the universal science - its combination of the rational
and physical, geometry and light - defence of painting as rooted in truth not
illusion - fragmentary nature of present treatise and its popular purely verbal
method of exposition.

V. Natural Magic. Dee's defence of Roger Bacon against accusations of

necromancy - rehabilitation of Roger Bacon in sixteenth century England -
influence of his thought on Dee - ambiguities in contemporary use of term magic
- used indiscriminately for diabolical practises or the simplest applied science -
defects of all attempts to find absolute usable distinction between legitimate and
forbidden (or diabolical) knowledge - by content or origin - equal impossibility of
defining the natural within exact limits in a spiritually hierarchised cosmos -
further confusion produced by widely accepted view of men as continually
inspired or directed in some measure by angels and spirits - Dee's defence of
thinkers reputed magicians, and the "magic" of Moses - ultimate distinction of
legitimate and forbidden activities made according to moral attitude and
intentions of the operator - this extended to all science - magic a general term
for application of any theoretical knowledge, its permanent core of meaning the
exercise of power over nature.

VI. Aristotelianism and conventional "magical" practises: homeotypal

explanations of change compels a resort to occult causes beyond observation but
emphasized as all important in nature - "magic" as a consequence of attempting
to use Aristotelian theories of nature for practical ends - in Porta and Pompanazzi
- the lack of any alternative to "magical" explanation in large areas of accepted
fact in nearly all contemporary sciences.

VII. The influence of magical doctrines on Dee's thought and their connection
with neoplatonism - the interconnection of the parts of the universe - action at a
distance - relations of sympathy and antipathy - the power of the rational soul
and its concepts over matter - the magical powers of the word and neo-Platonic
metaphysics - Roger Bacon's magical theories as Dee championed them -
influence of Agrippa on Dee; the Three Worlds - the symbol in magical theory
and Dee's Monas.

VIII. Dee's cosmology: Publication of the Aphorisms - emblematic title page -

Dee's prefatory letter to Mercator on his scientific work - analysis of text:
Principle of natural conservation of matter (n.195) - the mechanics of the
universe due to emission of characteristic rays by all objects in accordance with
geometrical theory - the elements - universal interconnections of sympathetic
harmony - the stars - the universe a closed mechanical system - importance of
astronomy and Dee's plea for more and increasingly exact observations -
Offusius' plagiarism of Dee's theories and his detailed working out of various
points in them - his mathematically controlled empiricism - emanation theories
and Dee's cosmology - Alkindi a principle source of Dee's theories - his
neoplatonism - his mechanical astrology - his emanation theories - his
quantitative analysis of the emanations - a geometrical optics the foundation of
his thought - this science in the sixteenth century - Roger Bacon another
important influence on Dee - the propagation of species - the influence of Urso -
Dee's denials that the Aphorisms plagiarised from Urso - Urso's Platonism - his
rational interpretation of magical efficacy - medical theories - quantitative
analysis of the four qualities - the virtues of Dee's cosmology - consonancy with
demands of contemporary scientific thought - its elements largely within field of
possible observation - stimulus it offered to further scientific investigations.

Chapter V (cont)

I. Acquitted of the charges of conjuring and treason, and cleared of suspicion of

heresy by Bonner, Dee was soon restored to the flavour of the authorities, and
the following year put forward the first of various "national schemes" he
promulgated at intervals throughout his life. Its substance was embodied in his
Supplication to Q. Mary....for the recovery and preservation of ancient writers
and monuments, followed by five articles supplementing this, with details of his
proposal for the establishment of a "Library Royall," which he exhibited to the
Queen on January 15th, 1556 (1). Dee was already laying the foundations of his
own vast, though relatively specialised collection of books and manuscripts; he
employed at least one copyist at home, and perhaps others abroad on occasion;
sometimes, works of high importance or secrecy, such as Trithemius'
Steganographia he transcribed with eager industry himself, and he seems to
have been in fairly frequent receipt of books sent from a number of foreign cities
(2). The existence of a notebook recording his borrowing of eleven books and
manuscripts, all concerned with astronomy, physics or mathematics (they include
works by Oresme, Urso, Jordanus, Bradwardine, Avicenna), from Peterhouse,
which were never returned and later reappear in the catalogue of his private
library (1582) might indicate that his methods of acquisition were not always
altogether scrupulous (3). But it is possible that the same sort of arrangement
was made as with Trinity, which presented him with an M.S. of Witelo's
perspective, in return for various printed books he had given the College (4).

The times, ever since the dissolution of the monasteries, had been propitious for
the formation of such private collections. Further opportunities were offered by
the confusion in the universities under Edward VI; in Oxford the most narrowly
prejudiced and turbulent branch of the religious reform party gaining control,
many libraries were pillaged and sold off or destroyed; illuminated MSS and
works of metaphysics proving especially unpopular, while despite the authorities'
attempted encouragement of mathematics, books on astronomy or geometry,
because of the mysterious diagrams they contained, were generally "accounted
Popish or diabolical, or both" and were rigorously purged. Whole libraries it was
said could be bought "for an inconsiderable nothing"; Duke Humphrey's
collection, some of whose contents found their way into Dee's hands, was
broken up and the whole University Library dispersed (5). John Bale in a letter of
1560 to Archbishop Parker, in which breathes the same spirit as Dee's
Supplication gives a vivid picture of the background of Dee's scheme and the
conditions which this aimed to alleviate. Bayle writes "as concernynge bokes of
antiquite not printed: when I was in Irelande I had great plenty of them, whome
I obtayned in tyme of the lamentable spyle of the lybraryes of Englande, through
myche fryndeshypp labour and expenses. Some I founde in stacyoners and boke
bynders store howses, some in grosers, sopesellers, taylers, and other occupyers
shoppes, some in shypps ready to be carryed oversea into Flaunders to be sold
for in those uncircumspect and carelesse dayes, there was no quycker
merchaundyce than lybrary bokes (i.e., for use in binding new works), and all to
the destructyon of learninge and knowledge of thynges necessary in this fall of
antichriste to be knowne - but the devyll is a knave they saye - well, only
conscience, with a fervent love to my countray moved me to save that myghte
be saved."(6) Similarly Dee, who in 1570 wrote that one of his major
preoccupations for many years had been the discovery and preservation of the
monuments of past learning and of the ancient philosophers (7), observes in this
supplication, "how that, among the exceeding many most lamentable
displeasures, that have of late happened unto this realm, through the subverting
of religious houses, and the dissolution of other assemblies of godly and learned
men, it hath been, and for ever among all learned students, shall be judged, not
for the least calamity, the spoile and destruction of so many and so notable
libraries wherein lay the treasure of all antiquity, and the everlasting seeds of
continual excellency within this your Grace's realm." The last phrase reveals how
far Dee's motives are from a disinterested antiquarianism - which indeed hardly
appears as a widespread phenomenon until a much later age; he is principally
attracted - all else being a very secondary consideration - by the thought of its
benefits that the realisation of his scheme would bring for contemporary scholars
in their search for metaphysical truths and scientific discoveries "whose travailes,
watchings, and pains" he suggests, in this way "might greatly be relieved and
eased; for that such doubts and points of learning, as much cumber and vex
their heads, are most pithyly in such old monuments debated and discussed."

Dee proposes the immediate establishment of a commission "for the seeing and
perusing of all places within this her Grace's realm, where any notable or
excellent monument may be found, or is known to be." Haste and secrecy are
essential, for many of these "do still yet (in this time of reconciliation) dayly
perish," and he fears that owners, hearing of the scheme might "hide and
convey their good and ancient writers (which nevertheless were very ungodly
done, and a certain token, that such are not sincere lovers of good learning)."
Typically he is most suspicious of the destructiveness of the ignorant, imagining
manuscripts "perchance of purpose by some envious person enclosed in walls, or
buried in the ground, to the great injurie of the famous and worthy authors and
the pitiful hindrance of the learned in this your Highnes realm." Recipients of
filched treasures of the monasteries if not made to disgorge these, were to be
compelled to make them publicly available, for the commission was to be
empowered to borrow for a certain time all manuscripts they discovered for
copying purposes. The process of transcription, which would increase their
availability and preserve for posterity what might otherwise perish "by private
men's negligence (and sometimes malice)," was to be begun at once. The results
were to form the "Library Royall," and, ambitiously, Dee suggests the scheme
that should apply far beyond England, declaring he has a "furder devyce,"
whereby "all the famous and worthy monuments, that are in the notablest
Librarys beyond the sea (as in Vaticana at Rome, St. Marci at Venice, and the
like at Bononia, Florence, Vienna, etc.) shall be procured unto the said Library of
our soveraign Lady and Queen, the charges thereof (beside the journeying) to
stand in the copying of them out, and the carryages into this realm only."

Though Dee repeats that the whole may be executed "without any one penny
charge unto your Majestie" he gives no hint as to how expenses are to be met
beyond suggesting that "My Lord Cardinal's Grace and the next Synod" be
requested to grant an order "for the allowance of all necessary charges." Perhaps
this is one of the reasons why no more is to be heard of the scheme outside
Dee's own draft of it. Mary, in this, seems to have showed herself less concerned
for the preservation of the intellectual treasures of the religious houses than her
father had been, who earmarked numbers of them for his private collection at
the successive dissolutions (as evidenced by the marks for this purpose set
against many items in surviving inventories of the books these institutions had
contained, and the catalogue of his Westminster library (1542), which contains
about three hundred MSS "at a low estimate," conveyed from them), which form
the nucleus of the Old Royal Collection in the British Museum (8). Indeed Dee's
scheme may to some extent be a reminiscence and an extension of Henry's
actions, since he had granted Leland the antiquary a commission under the Great
Seal, to make a search for such monuments in England, and to peruse the
libraries of all cathedrals, abbies, priories, colleges, and places where the
records, writings, and "secrets" of antiquity might survive (9). Dee's farsighted
proposals came to nothing; their spirit was perhaps a little, though not by much,
in advance of the time; Archbishop Parker interested Elizabeth's Privy Council in
a very similar scheme, in 1560, though it was never implemented, and "some
sixty or seventy years after the dissolution, we find that the tide has turned, our
great collections are in process of considerable magnitude."(10) Dee's own
library (11) was remarkable enough to become an object of contemporary
curiosity; Elizabeth herself for example "with her most honourable Privy Councell
and other her lordes and nobility" rode out to Mortlake to examine it (12), and
from notes of loans to various persons etc. it would appear that Dee wished its
riches to be widely and usefully employed. There are indications however that he
never abandoned his ideal of a great national collection; traces of it are to be
found perhaps in the plan put forward in 1570 under the name of Humphrey
Gilbert, then his close associate, for the founding of an academy; for the library
of this was to be entitled by statute automatically to receive a copy of every new
work printed within the Queen's Dominions (13). Now although we have noticed,
and shall have cause to later, Dee's conviction that many topics should, if written
about at all, be treated with the maximum of obscurity, and his strong
inclinations to intellectual secrecy, a habit of which grew upon him in his later
years until his open declarations as to the nature of his pursuits appear
sometimes (after the courses he entered upon with Kelly had commenced) in
flagrant contradiction with the facts, nevertheless the present plans, and many
other points in his life and works clearly declare his genuine desire for a wider
dissemination of knowledge - at least among "scholars." While it is undeniable
also that he looked to these to form a fairly exclusive aristocracy of learning
whose activities should not be attended by overmuch publicity - the unfortunate
consequence of which he was himself to have only too much reason for dreading
- or too freely communicated to the world at large, nevertheless he also seems
to have considered it as not least among the responsibilities of such men, that
they should attempt to raise the general standard of education, and to combat
the prevailing ignorance of the multitude. He himself, as in his augmentation of
Recorde and in the English Euclide, was to devote considerable energy to the
cause of popular instruction, to advocate an increase in teaching or publications
in scientific subjects in the vernacular, and to urge the growth of a much closer
cooperation between the theoretician and the artificer; this last class indicating
all members of the community who practised, uncritically following tradition, or
merely empirically, by skill and craft, anything which had reference to principles
which the learned could investigate "philosophically," with logic and devised
experiment.

II. Dee's activities in other spheres at this time provide further evidence of the
advanced position he now held in relation to contemporary thought. His
acquaintance John Feild, who had been arrested with him on the conjuring
charge, issued an ephemeris. It was a revision of the Prutenic tablets (1551) of
Rheinhold, who, combining observations of Hipparchus, Ptolemy and Copernicus,
had compiled new orbit elements from them. Thus confidently leaving out of
consideration the conclusions of Stoeffer, Pictati, Simi, Mizaldus "& reliquae illius
turbae, quae Alfonsi vititur Hypothesi," Feild declares he has followed only
Copernicus and Rheinhold "quorum scripta stabilita sunt et fundata veris, certis,
& sinceris demonstrationibus," and he clearly regards the publication of his work
as an important event in the progress of English astronomy (14). The tables of
Rheinhold and Copernicus Feild had employed at the instances of Dee, who
contributed a prefatory letter, dated July 3rd, 1556. The title of the whole is
Ephemeris anno 1557 currentis juxta Copernici et Rheinhaldi Canones fideliter
per Joannem Feild Anglum, Supputata ac examinata ad meridianum
Londiniensiem...Adiecta est etiam brevis quaedam Epistola Joannis Dee, qua
vulgares istos Ephemeridum fictores merito reprehendit. The three references to
Copernicus in Dee's page and a quarter of introduction (15) are almost the
earliest to appear in print in England; perhaps the first is the passage in
Recorde's Castle of Knowledge (1550) in which the scoffing of the ignorant is
sharply reproved (16). Dee's letter is propaganda to urge the more general use
of the works of the three giants of "modern" astronomy; Copernicus, Rheticus
and Rheinhold, "praeclaramoz horum famam, istorum hominu aures iam
cirumsohasse diutius" - the achievements of Copernicus, which have done much
to rectify past errors, being singled out for special praise - "Illius quide, ob
labores plus oz Herculeos, in coelesti disciplina restauranda, eademoz firmissimis
rationum momentis corroboranda ab eodem exantlatos" (Dee adds with reserve
in parenthesis, "Cuius de hypothesibus nunc non est differendi locus") "horum
vero, propter eam quam ostenderant strenuam in illius insistendo vestigys
diligentiam." Dee then administers a rebuke to those astronomers or critics "qui
divinas Copernici vel non noverint vel comtemperint lucubrationes." Copernicus
hypotheses which he does not discuss here, Dee was acquainted with through
the de Revolutionibus of 1543 of which his library boasted several copies and
through Rheticus' Narratio Prima (1541). He may well have known also the
Commentariolus, which was circulating in manuscript - Gemma Frisius, for
example, had spoken of it in a letter to Dantiscus in 1541. Copernicus' theories
had become fairly widely known however long before any of these works
appeared, during the thirty-six year period through which he had delayed
publication; thus in the early fifteen thirties, Luther had spoken contemptuously
of "the fool who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down," by
teaching the mobility of the earth (17); nor again was the theory, except in the
fullness and astronomical completeness with which he presented it, peculiarly
original even in the day, to Copernicus; one of Calcagnini's writings, early in the
century for example, which Dee read in the folio Opera of 1544, is entitled Quod
caelum stet terra moveatur, vel de perenni motu terrae...Commentatio. The
importance of this work of which the title is frequently quoted, in accounts of the
rise of the heliocentric system, is that it is not a scientific treatise, and is not
concerned with mathematical or physical questions directly; it is, like so much of
Calcagnini's writing, merely another piece of elegant humanistic pedantry, resting
almost entirely on quotations from the classics and erudite or ingenious
comments on them. (One of the few direct arguments he employs - that on a
ship the land seems to the passengers to be in motion, is used as an illustration
only of Plato's position in the Gorgias that we must judge with the intellect and
not with the eyes.) Thus he proves his case by attempting to show the
commonness of the opinion among the ancients; he cites Plato's teachings in the
Timaeus, deduces that Archimedes must have thought the earth mobile or he
could not have made his famous boast about moving it, and that a metaphor
employed by Hesiod ("quom nocte terra natam...nigris exornavit alis") proves
when properly examined that he was of the same opinion (18). His work thus
tends to show that the question at issue was a matter of debate among scholars
before Copernicus, on quite other grounds than its astronomical utility.

Dee's printed writings in astronomy, the present letter, the Aphorisms, and the
brief work on stellar parallax occasioned by the appearance of the new star in
1572, give in their paucity, no good index of the considerable reputation he won
in this field - which made his name so familiar to Tycho Brahe - and which seems
the result of extensive activities, personal contacts and correspondence, of which
all too little evidence now survives. Thus Richard Forster, who himself seems to
have made no radical distinction between the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems,
in a three page note appended to an Ephemeris for 1575, which acknowledged
his debts to the mystical Platonist and Copernican, Cornelius Gemma, pays Dee
high tribute for his services to English astronomy: "Languet apud now in ipso
pene exortu Mathematicum disciplina, que apud Anglos primum renasci coepit, e
tenebris in lucem enersa, per solertiss. Mathematicum nostrate Ioannes Dee,
nouarum hypothesium, & Ptolomaice doctrine acerrimum vindicam. Et nisi vir ille
ingenue Atlanti humeros supposuerit, brevi tandem fiet, vt tota cum Copernici et
Rheinholdi coelo corruat, tanta est apud nos in artem grassatic imperitorum, &
impunitas, vti hanc disciplinam Uranise sacram, temerare nihili aestimatur."(19)
Nevertheless we have no direct statement by Dee on his views in regard to the
heliocentric systems, though his pupil Digges presents it with an almost
passionate advocacy in his translation and expansion of sections of Copernicus'
treatise in 1576 (20) Dee's attitude despite his frequent laudatory references to
Copernicus as an observer and calculator, as in his treatise on the Calendar of
1582 (21) remained non-committed as regards the physical truth of the
"hypothesis." He was not restrained from accepting them, it may be noted, by
his astrological beliefs; the theory of celestial influences he propounds in the
Aphorisms, allows the effects of these to be regarded as a function solely of the
relative positions at any time of the earth and planets, and many Copernicans
were also ardent astrologers, as for example, Rhetious himself, who describes
the circle of the eccentricity of the apogee of the sun as being "in very truth the
Wheel of Fortune" and as controlling the rise and fall of the great empires of the
world (22). Even less would alchemical doctrines (Terrestrial Astronomy), and
the establishment of such large scale analogical schemes between this and
celestial astronomy, which was an important, often controlling, feature of
scientific thought in Renaissance generally, and of some importance as to Dee
himself as the Monas proves - militate against the new hypotheses"; they were if
anything in their exaltation of the innate dignity of Gold, the solar metal, more
naturally concordant with Copernicanism than the older system (23). At the same
time Dee cannot be claimed as a supporter of the Ptolemaic system, as regards
which he displays an equal reserve: that this seems presupposed in some
incidental passages of the Preface cannot be allowed much weight, since for a
variety of practical purposes, when speaking "vulgarly," as in an exposition of
astronomical aids in navigation, a Ptolemaic universe would remain the most
natural to employ the use of it not necessarily implying more than the
recognition of the greater convenience of taking the earth as the fixed point of
reference on such occasions. Further, Dee's conclusions on the new star (24)
meant the abandonment of various tenets, such as the immutability of the
heavens, long associated with orthodox Ptolemaicism though not essentially
involved in its central hypothesis (his study of methods of measuring its parallax
designedly supplements a work of Digges, professedly written from a Copernican
standpoint, and Dee carefully points out whenever for convenience his diagrams
take the earth as a fixed centre, that he is drawing them merely according to the
hypothesis of a diurnal revolution of the fixed stars). Dee's personal theory
moreover, that this star's diminishing brilliance was a result of its recession from
the earth in a straight line seems to involve a rejection of the Aristotelian solid
orbs - which even Peuerbach had accepted, and the circular motion properly
belonging to heavenly bodies (one of the chief dogmas illustrating the radical
difference between their nature and that of sublunar phenomena), while Dee's
suggestion seems also very difficult to reconcile with a mobile heaven (though
equally so with the revolution, though not the rotation of the earth), since such
rectilinear movement in relation to the earth and the maintenance of the same
relative position to the fixed stars, if the sphere of these revolved daily, would
mean the ascription of an actual spiral course to the new star, of a kind which it
is extremely doubtful whether orthodox Ptolemaicists would ever have admitted
into their system.

The apparent ambiguity in Dee's attitude towards the rival theories is not
particularly surprising when viewed in its context of sixteenth century
astronomical knowledge, though his caution here in refusing to embrace
conclusions that could be judged to be in excess of what might be warranted by
available evidence contrasts with the confident dogmatism that characterises
other aspects of his thought. As "formal" methods of saving the appearances,
considered in separation from teachings derived from any other science the two
systems were equally adequate. That of Copernicus, while it involved a
reorganisation of available data, made use of no facts or observations that could
not be held already to be fully taken into account, and explained, by the
Ptolemaic system. It brought no particular increase in accuracy or predictive
power; for the older combinations of epicycles and eccentrics could successfully
represent the positions of observed heavenly bodies to within one minute of arc.
If the Prutenic tables were more accurate than the Alphonsine - which were
found to be a whole month in error in their forecast of the conjunction of Jupiter
and Saturn in 1563 - this was a result of the much superior abilities of Rheinhold
as a calculator, as compared to his predecessors, and not at all due to his use of
the Copernican hypothesis in compiling them, for since Copernicus had continued
to follow the conventional scheme of compounding the planetary orbits from
combination of circles, and since in practice all results had to be stated in
relation to the earthly observer, his hypothesis did not represent any gain in
simplicity, or any real change in the method, of astronomical calculations (25).
Dee's praise of Copernicus' personal achievements in this respect, might also
seem to be somewhat exaggerated. Rheinhold, though claiming Copernicus to be
unsurpassed as an observer, does not rate him very high as a calculator;
observing that when utilising Copernicus results for the Pritenic tables he was
compelled to compute everything afresh for himself. But even Copernicus'
original observations are not over abundant, and indeed he "needlessly
complicates his theory in order to bring it into conformity with certain ancient
and mediaeval observations. Throughout his work he adopts an entirely uncritical
attitude to traditional data of this kind, and makes no allowance for the
possibility of serious errors of observation, fraud or textual corruption (26). The
chief intention of his letter to Werner seems to be to administer a severe reproof
to that astronomer for daring to cast doubts on the accuracy of the factual data
recorded by the Ancients, particularly Ptolemy, in the interests of a theory which
would require various modifications to be made in these, while according to
Copernicus "We must follow in their footsteps, and hold fast to their
observations, bequeathed to us like an inheritance and if anyone on the contrary
thinks that the ancients are untrustworthy in this regard, surely the gates of this
art are closed to him....I cannot be persuaded that in noting star-places they
erred by 1/4 or 1/5 degree or even 1/6 degree as our author believes."(27) Later
in life he found cause to abandon this position, and to stress the acute necessity
for entirely new observations to be made, to confirm or correct the traditional
data, but those of his own which he was able to amass and employ in De
Revolutionibus were sufficient for the description of the motions of Mars and the
earth only. Dee's enthusiasm is perhaps partly due to the importance of
Copernicus' work for the rectification of the Calendar. Copernicus had declined
the invitation of Leo X in 1514 to cooperate in a scheme to this end, and on the
grounds that the courses of the sun and moon, and hence the length of the year
and month, were still not known with sufficient exactitude to make the
undertaking practical. But thereafter he devoted many years to observations for
the better determination of the length of the tropical year, and these and the
Prutenic tables served as a basis for the later Gregorian reform, and Dee's similar
proposed alteration in the English Calendar.

No direct confirmatory evidence could be found in support of the Copernican

hypothesis, although Dee, and many others, recognised the high significance
that would have to be attached to the discovery of stellar parallax and towards
which in consequence they directed considerable efforts. None however was
detected until 1832 (by Henderson, accurately measured 1838, Bessel), after
which time, if the revolution of the earth were dispensed with, it would have
been necessary to have attributed to each star a motion round the circumference
of a small circle, completed by everyone of them in the same period of one solar
year. But in the sixteenth century inevitable consequences of the Copernican
hypothesis seemed even to be in entire conflict with observation, for it would
follow from it that the diameter of Venus at the apogee - as Osiander had
already pointed out in his notorious anonymous preface (28) - should appear as
increased four times, and that Mercury and Venus should present phases similar
in kind to those of the moon. These difficulties were only resolved by the work of
Galileo, to whom the solutions were suggested by telescopic observation.
Copernicus' claim to have reduced the number of circles needed to represent the
celestial machinery to 34 (actually 38 were still required), did not lack a certain
aesthetic appeal for mathematicians, but the chief advantage by contemporary
standards of the new hypothesis - and even so it was a somewhat abstract and
negative one to set against the weight of evidence opposing its fundamental
assumption - was that it managed to preserve the important principle of uniform
motion by dispensing with the equants, which, though necessary to the
Ptolemaic scheme, had plainly violated this principle and long been looked upon
as a troublesome imperfection in an otherwise totally acceptable system; for its
recourse to the fictional equants seemed the one point at which the Ptolemaic
representation could not be accepted as in accord with a physical reality.
Copernicus writes: "Yet the planetary theories of Ptolemy and most other
astronomers although consistent with the numerical data, seemed likewise to
present no small difficulty. For these theories were not adequate unless certain
equants were also conceived, it then appeared that a planet moved with uniform
velocity neither on its deferent nor about the centre of its epicycle. Hence a
system of this sort seemed neither sufficiently absolute nor sufficiently pleasing
to the Mind," and he set himself to seek for "a more reasonable arrangement of
circles."(29)

Despite the greater "harmoniousness" that the Copernican hypothesis, as its

supporters were fond of pointing out, displayed it did nothing directly to assist
astronomical progress, and had against it the whole weight of a generally
accepted physics; its appearance indeed could only have "pour resultat immediat
d'augmenter le desarroi de la pensee humaine."(30) So much that seemed highly
probable in other sciences had logically to be discarded, or radically altered, if
this were accepted, that even such a suspension of judgment as Dee's is
indicative of bold and independent views. For the Ptolemaic scheme was not
merely descriptive but cold bring many reasons from natural philosophy as to
why the universe had this particular arrangement, offering to a large extent
plausible causal explanation; what the Copernicans could advance by way of
explanation in this style was in the main perforcedly of a distinctly "Pythagorean"
cast. Thus Wilkins' advocacy in the seventeenth century still draws heavily on
Kepler's theories of the harmony of the solar system, to explain the reasons why
things must be as they are on the Copernican hypothesis: "Now if any ask" he
writes in illustration of the advantages of the theory, "why there are but six
Planetary orbs? Kepler answers: Quia non oportet plures quam quinque
proportiones esse, totidem nempe quot regularia sunt in Mathesi corpora. Sex
autem termini consummant hunc proportionum numerum."(31) The survival and
advance of Copernicanism is due very largely to those to whom such reasons as
this appealed, its eventual general acceptance is again less the result of any new
empirical evidence, than its integration into the new physics of Newton, the
theory of gravitation offering a dynamic interpretation to the Copernican, but to
no other, representation of the solar system (32). However, as De Morgan
observed as early as 1836 "Before the time of Galileo, in our opinion, every
Copernican was an ingenious theorizer supporting a system which though simple
and possible was met by unanswerable and crucial arguments, mixed with others
derived from pure assumptions common to both parties."(33) The situation, as
Dee seems to have felt it, is well summarised by Tycho Brahe "Nostra vero
aetate Nicolaus Copernicus quem alterum Ptolomaeum non immerito dixeris, cum
desiderari quaedam in Ptolomaeo ex observationibus a se factis deprehendisset,
et hypotheses ab ipso constitutas quiddam absoni et contra axiomata
Mathematica peccans admittere judicasset...coelestium motuum scientiam ita
restaurauit, ut nemo ante ipsum exactius de siderum cursu sit philosophatus.
Quamvis enim phisicis principiis quaedam contraria struat...tamen quo ad
Mathematica axiomata nihil absurdi admittit: quod in Ptolemaicis et usitatis
hypothesibus, si rem penitus introspiciamus, animadvertere licet. Hae enim
motus in suis Epiciolis et Excentricis, respectu eorundem circularum centri,
irregulares, quod absurdum est, constituunt, regularemque siderum motum per
irregularitatem inconvenienter saluant. Ex his duobus artificibus, Ptolemaeo et
Copernico, omnia illa, quae nostra aetate in astrorum revolutionibus perspecta et
cognita habemus, constituta ac tradita sunt."(34) Such a statement seems to
indicate that the chief difference between the opposing parties is at this period to
be looked for in the relative emphasis they each placed on the two sciences of
Physics and Mathematics, which was indeed largely true. Aristotle's statement
that those who do not place the earth in the centre of the universe - the
Pythagoreans - are men who perversely, do not seek for proof in the
appearances, the foundation of natural philosophy, but in abstract theories (35)
is echoed by Francis Bacon who concludes a list of the great inconveniences of
Copernicus' hypothesis "et quod tantum immobilis introduxit in naturam,
ponendo solem et stellas immobiles praesertim corpora maxime omnium lucida
et radianta....et alia nonnulla, quae fille sumit, ejus sunt viti, qui quid vis in
natura fingere, modo calculi bene cedent, nihili putet."(36)

Nothing could show more clearly the complete discrepancy between the
Copernican thesis and the total picture offered by Aristotelian physics than the
arguments Alexander Ross still thought fit to bring forward in the middle of the
next century. That these have an air of fatuity and irrelevance is due only tot he
fact that they are drawn from premisses which no Copernican - and Ross
pretends naively to be unaware of this - could ever admit. Thus even such
statements as that the earth can be no planet "for then forsooth we should be
living in a star" has a complete conclusiveness about it, if the older thesis of the
absolute qualitative difference between the worlds above and below the moon,
the perfection, unchangingness, and simple, non-elemental, composition of the
heavenly bodies is accepted. Or again Ross continues to presuppose the spheres
of the four elements at the centre of the universe and examines Copernicus'
displacement of the earth from the centre in the light of this: "How inconvenient
and unhealthy were man's habitation if it were nearer the heaven than it is, for
the air would be too pure and improportionable to our gross bodies. For they
that travel over high hills find their bodies much distempered. Acosto witnesseth
that they who travel over the high hills of Peru fall to vomiting and become
desperately sick, and many lose their lives by reason of the subtilty and pureness
of the air." Or again, accepting Aristotle's reification of the directions up and
down from the centre, to explain causally the architecture of the universe by
reference to degrees of heaviness and lightness, taken as degrees of tendency
towards or away from this centre, he writes "Sense tells us that the grosser
simple bodies are, the lower place they have in the Universe. The heaven being
a quintessence and of the purest matter is uppermost....And reason tells us that
God is the God of order: And what a disordered world should we have, if gross
and heavy bodies were uppermost, the light and purest bodies beneath."(37)
Copernicanism then involved a multiplication of new physical hypotheses, wholly
gratuitous if the Ptolemaic description of the heavens were retained. The
Aristotelian assumption, just employed by Ross, that bodies tended to a single
centre was simple, satisfactory, and backed by the authority of common
experience. Even the solar system lacked all but a geometrical centre on the
Copernican scheme, for the sun was displaced from this as a result of the
attempt to represent the elliptical planetary paths as combinations of circles. The
only solution to this difficulty - and Dee may have inclined to this belief also,
since he held that all material things, including the heavenly bodies, were
possessed of weight, was Digge's position in the treatise already quoted: "For
Gravity is nothinge els but a certain proclivity or naturall covetinge of partes to
be coupled with the whole, whiche by divine providence of the Creator of al is
given and impressed into the parts, yt they should restore themselves into their
unity and integritie concurringe in sphericall fourme, which kinde of propriety or
affection it is likelye also that the Moone and other glorious bodyes wante not to
knit and combine their partes together, and to mainteyne them in their round
shape, which bodies notwithstandinge are by sundrye motions, sundrye ways
conveighed."(38) Such a suggestion - containing a first approach to the theory of
universal gravitation perhaps, but at this time beset with many difficulties and
backed by no evidence, becomes invariably associated with Copernicans. Sixty
years after Digges, Wilkins in A Discovery of a New World almost echoes his
words: "if you reply that then according to this there must be more Centres of
Gravity than one; I answer, 'Tis very probable there are; nor can we well
conceive what any piece of the Moon would do, being severed from the rest in
the free and open Air, but only to return to it againe."(39) Galileo shows his
spokesman Salviatus using a similar example, and being countered by a citation
of the conventional doctrine of the impartibility of the heavenly bodies, and
hence the impossibility of the supposition of a piece temporarily separated and
therefore the total artificiality of the problem this new gravitational theory
claimed to resolve; and Salviatus later enquiring "Why may we not believe that
the Sun, Moon and other mundane Bodies, be also of a round figures, not by
other than a concordant instinct, and natural concourse of all the parts
composing them? Of which, if any, at any time, by any violence were separated
from the whole, is it not reasonable to think, that they would spontaneously and
by natural instinct return," he is rebuked by Simplicio: "if you in this manner
deny not onely the Principles of Science, but manifest Experience and the Senses
themselves, you can never be convinced or removed from any opinion which you
once conceit."(40) The charge of repudiating, neglecting or unnecessarily
reinterpreting perceptual data in the interests of a wire-drawn Pythagorean
theorising is perhaps the most frequent of all charges made against the
Copernicans. They had apparently even considerable difficulty in explaining their
application of the principle of the relativity of motion, Simplicio when it is pointed
out that a body falling apparently rectilineally down the side of a tower must, if
the earth move, follow a very different, and curved path in "absolute" space,
bursts out "But for God's sake, if it move transversely, how is it that I behold it
to move directly and perpendicularly? This is no better than the denial of
manifest sense and if we may not believe sense at what other door shall we
enter into disquisitions of Philosophy" (41): and Salviatus, after long debate,
finally exclaims that he does not wonder at the small number of "Pythagoreans"
and Copernicans in the world, but rather that any should exist at all: "I cannot
find any bounds for my admiration how that reason was able in Aristarchus and
Copernicus, to commit such a Rape upon their Sences, as in despite thereof, to
make herself mistress of their credulity."(42)

There are few early examples of verifiable evidence being urged to support the
mobility of the earth, and these frequently based on errors of observations - as
for instance Leonardo's argument (43) that a stone dropped freely from a tower
did not fall parallel to the side, but landed some distance away from the base, or
that of Copernicus' master, Maria de Novara, who, believing the structure of the
universe to be governed by simple mathematical relations, rejected the Ptolemaic
framework as too cumbrous to be true, and claimed to prove the earth had
motion not only from the decrease in the obliquity of the ecliptic, but from a
systematic increase in the latitude of places in Southern Europe that he thought
he could establish as having occurred. In general the dispute was governed by
initial axioms common to both sides, Galileo cites some of these, "That Nature
does not multiply things without necessity": "That she uses the most direct and
simple means and does nothing in vain" - axioms which militated either for or
against Copernicus, according to the temper of the spokesman (44), the
endeavours of the rival parties being directed to showing how their own system
best accorded with these. The uniformity and pattern each revealed in Nature
was the chief source of various merits claimed on either side - Galileo for
instance urges that, since the time of revolution of every planet from Saturn
downwards is admitted by all to be proportionate to the size of its respective
sphere it is illogical to disturb the order of this series by assigning to the greatest
sphere of all - the empyrean - the shortest time of revolution, i.e., twenty four
hours, while the motions that must be assigned to the earth in the heliocentric
system would fit exactly with the place it holds in the universe on such a
representation (45). Arguments based on "value" similarly played a frequent and
considerable part - that the earth was not worthy to occupy the centre of the
universe, that the earth was worthy of having a place in the heavens. Thus
Galileo: "As for the earth we strive to ennoble and perfect it, whilst we make it
like to the Caelestiall Bodies, and as it were place it in Heaven, whence your
Philosophers have exiled it" (46); and Tymme, translator of Dee's Monas, in a
summary of the theories of Copernicus and Cusanus, clearly feels their strongest
arguments to be of such a type as: "it is a condition farre more noble and divine
to be immoveable than to be moving and unstable, which quality of motion and
instability better agreeth with the Earth."(47)

An important example of the type of philosophical tenet held in common by both

Copernicans and their opponents and conditioning much of their thought, is that
of the "naturalness" and perpetuity of all circular motion. Digges declares "right
or straight motions only happens to those things that stray and wander or by any
meanes are thrust out of their natural places...The circulare motion always
contynueth unyforme and equall by reason of his cause, which is indeficient and
alway continuinge. But the other hasteneth to ende and to attayne that place
where they leave lenger to be havye or lighte, and havinge attayned that place,
theyr motion ceaseth." Thus his answer to the objection that the earth in motion
would fly apart, or at least throw off all things not attached to its surface, is
"These thinges whyche are naturally mooved have effects contrary to sutch as
are violently carried," the earth and its contents are such entities as are endowed
with "natural" movement and hence "remayne stil in their perfit estate and are
conserved and kepte in their most excellent constitution."(48) This too is
Galileo's first line of defence against the argument that bodies on land fall
perpendicularly, but do not do so in relation to a moving ship when dropped
down the mast; "It is a thing very manifest, that the motion of the Ship, as it is
not natural to it, so the motion of all those things that are in it is accidental,
whence it is no wonder that the stone which was retained at the round top being
left at liberty descendeth downwards without any obligation to follow the motion
of the ship," but the return of a cannonball shot straight in the air to the spot it
was fired from, remains compatible with the earth's motion "for the faculty of
following the motion of the earth, is the primary and perpetual motion, indelibly
and inseparably imparted to the said ball, as to all things terrestrial, and that of
its own nature doth and ever shall possess the same."(49) Galileo indeed in his
reverence for circular motion, accepting the view that rectilinear must always
represent the restoration of order after something has been forced out of its
rightful place, but denying that there can ever be such "disorder" as this would
imply in Creation, and endeavouring further to confute Aristotle's distinction
between the mundane and celestial realms based on the prevailing type of
motion in each, attempts to exclude rectilinear motion altogether from nature,
and to discover the true "circular" paths, which, for example bodies which appear
to fall perpendicularly must "in fact" follow, instancing in support of this thesis
even the movements of man's body as being compounded of circles, each single
joint permitting the bone pivotted there to turn only as the radius of a circle
(50).

In the sixteenth century the Copernican theory was not presented by its
defenders to the world as a novelty. The importance that might attach to
emphasizing its previous lengthy and respectable history in philosophical thought
is attested by the case of Dee's friend Pedro Nunez, who shows clearly "que son
excessive veneration envers les geometres d'antiquite fut la seul motif qui le
detourna d'adopter plutot l'elegant systeme de Copernic, son contemporain, au
lieu de la theorie de Ptolemee."(51) Its supporters - and this way may well have
led Dee to regard it with increased cordiality - partly because of the type of
arguments they had chiefly to rely on in its defence, partly to offset the opposing
authority of Aristotle and their rejection of a large number of dogmas of
orthodox physical science, claimed to be only reviving doctrines held by
Pythagoras or Plato. References to Philolaos, Hicetas, Aristarchus were diligently
collected. Copernicus himself pretends that the inspiration of such previous
examples was what principally encouraged him to continue to explore what
might otherwise have seemed a palpable absurdity. Digges confidently equates
the heliocentric system with the Pythagorean revolution of the earth about the
central fire, entitling his tractate a perfit description of the coelestial Orbes
according to the most ancient doctrines of the Pythagoreans of late revived by
Copernicus.... The testimony of Theophrastus, or of Plutarch in the Life of Numa
was invoked to show that Plato in old age regretted having sometimes given the
earth the central position in the universe, which position belonged by right to
some nobler body, and frequently cited also was a passage in the Timaeus,
which could be interpreted as implying his belief in the rotation, or even
revolution of the earth (52). It was even possible to read "Copernicanism" into
Cabalistic writings (53). Its association with Renaissance neo-Platonic thought
perhaps stems from Cusa, who, although his precise views on the earth's motion
are somewhat obscure (they seem closer to the doctrine of the Timaeus than of
Copernicus), is often referred to - as by Calcagnini, Tymme, Wilkins, Leybourn
(54) - as the reintroducer of the theory in the modern age. A further link with
neo-Platonism is forged by the almost religious reverence sometimes manifested
by Renaissance thinkers towards the Sun, and which must be later noticed in
Dee. Copernicus himself had spoken of it as "the soul, the light of the world -
placed on a royal throne in the centre of the Universe, where it guides the family
of the Stars circling around it."(55) The comparison of the One to the Sun, and
of its emanating rays of light to intellectual illumination, is a recurrent metaphor
in the Enneads and although there it may be no more than an analogy, the same
image was thoroughly materialised, by Posidonius and the later stoics, for whom
genuinely physical effluxions from the sun, which is endowed with a power of
"undiminished giving," play an important part in maintaining the ordered
processes of the Universe. Many similar theories, combining these two points of
view, portions of Dee's Aphorisms and his Monas taken in conjunction would
make one illustration, are to be found in scientific writings of the Renaissance;
and the Copernicanism of Cornelius Gemma for example is closely connected
with them. Though Gemma claims after discussing the Ptolemaic system "Sed
observatis multo conformior est illa divini Copernici ration..." he is chiefly
concerned in his mentions of it in the De Arte Cyclognomica to elaborate the
metaphysical significance of the theory. His work establishes long lists of
parallels between the various sciences, the material, intellectual and spiritual
worlds; image and referential statement mingle inextricably - for the discovery of
the scheme of universal analogies facilitates the type of transition by which an
argument drawn from one phenomenon can be immediately extended to almost
any other; and that the universe is the outward revelation of an independently
existing intelligible pattern which can either be discovered in it, or, which itself
known in part initially, can provide an a priori basis for the general interpretation
of the world - he takes as proved by biblical references to the book of God:
"Quemnan hic, queso, librum intelligat quisquam, nisi forte munda intelligibilem
sive Archetypum atque intellectum comunem?" From such a standpoint he finds
the sun to be the image of God in the World, it is the source of intelligibles,
intellect being an orb illumined by its rays, it is "princeps aut anima mundi," and
he discusses Copernicus' theories under such headings as "Sol mediu mundi
aliorum syderum dux. Planetae omnes ad solis arbitria moventur. Solis vis
actuali. Syderum vires a sole in actu provocantur." etc.(56)

But the attitude of critical reserve towards the various rival hypotheses which
Dee showed also claimed to have its roots in the old Platonic approach, which
Aristotle had vulgarised in thinking it necessary that hypotheses should be
mechanically realisable, and who had hence, absurdly, postulated solid spheres.
As for Plato, Simplicius' commentary on the De Caelo, had recorded that he used
to set the problem to his pupils in the Academy of finding the simplest possible
mathematical formula for the motions of the heavens consistent with
observations. This was apparently to be done without any reference to physical
assumptions, militating for or against the probability or even possibility of the
result. Such independent mathematicism, the Renaissance astronomers could
point out, was in fact professed by Ptolemy himself as the proper approach for
the theoretical astronomer (57). Again, Proclus, in the commentaries on the
Timaeus and Republic, praising the value of the Chaldean and Egyptian
observations, had stressed that as true conclusions could be reached from false
assumptions the consonance of an hypothesis with observation must remain an
insufficient test of its truth. Epicycles and eccentrics he attacks as obviously
artificial, however necessary as aids to calculation, and while astronomers might
find it convenient to analyse complex planetary motions into simple ones, no
mechanism should be supposed as existing in nature reflecting such a scheme.
(He suggests that the intermediate cosmological status of the planets causes
them actually to follow types of motion intermediate between the circular and
rectilinear. (58)) The foremost example of such views in the Renaissance is of
course Osiander's anonymous preface to the De Revolutionibus: all that
astronomy can do is to observe the motions of the stars, he points out, and
"Deinde causis earumdem, seu hypotheses cum veras assequi nulla ratione
possit." Of astronomical theories he declares flatly "Neque anim necesse est, cas
hypotheses esse veras, imo ne verisimiles quidem, sed sufficit hoc unum, si
calculum observationibus congruemtem exhibeant." For this reason in de
Revolutionibus those are followed that are "mathematically most easily
understood." The philosopher, he observes, may perhaps demand greater
probability, but neither he nor the astronomer will be able to discover anything
certain or to teach it on this topic unless it has been made known to him by
divine revelation, while "he who takes everything that is worked out for other
purposes as true, would leave this science probably more ignorant than when he
came to it."(59) Similarly Ramus, while praising Copernicus highly, repeatedly
pleads for an astronomy to be devised and taught based solely upon "logic and
mathematics," and completely removed from the influence of any preconceived
physical notions (60). This attitude of critical reserve and suspended judgment,
which Dee would seem to have shared, was further assisted in the sixteenth
century by the variety of equally plausible kinematic descriptions of the heavens
available, the possibility of which Osiander had also mentioned. Not only were
"new astronomies" produced by Tycho Brahe, Raymarus, Ursus, Maginus and
others, but that the earth might not be the centre of all the planetary orbits was
a time honoured view that had long received a certain amount of favour. It had
for instance been known to the middle ages through Martianus Capella, who
following Heraclides of Ponticus (who taught the doctrine combining it with that
of the rotation of the earth about 350 B.C.) allowed Venus and Mercury to
revolve about the sun, thus simplifying to some degree the otherwise puzzling
irregularity of their courses and distances from the earth (61). Vitruvius had also
reproduced this theory (62), Scotus Erigena added Mars and Jupiter to the
number of planets that revolved about the sun - thus adumbrating, except in so
far as Saturn was concerned, the Tychonic system - his source being apparently
Chaldicius' commentary on the Timaeus, though he himself ascribes the doctrine
to Plato (63). Jean de Pene, an acquaintance of Dee and of similar views,
discussing applications of optics to astronomy in 1555 (64) declares it certain
that Venus and Mercury revolve about the sun, while the weight of the authority
of the Pythagoreans, Plato, Philolaus, Ecphantus, Seleucis, Aristarchus,
Archimedes and Copernicus, leads him to admit the possibility - he does not go
further - that the earth may be only a star traversing the Zodiac in the space of
one year, around the Sun.

The preface of Osiander though it has been generally and sharply censured,
since Kepler first detected and denounced its author, and however inexcusable
any element of deception that may have been designed to have been suggested
by its careful anonymity, seems today to have a very temperate and distinctly
modern flavour. But its sophistication is indicative rather of a critical state of
mind, contemplating what has already been achieved, than of one that may be
prompted to make original discoveries, or produce novel formulations, by the
zeal that accompanies a somewhat narrower, more intense view, that provides
incentive to such efforts by encouraging a necessary overestimate of the
probable value or certainty of the achievement. Copernicus had not, any more
than had Kepler and other innovating pioneers of the day embarked upon his
self-appointed laborious task with no end beyond the construction of fictional
devices, whose chief merit was to be more aesthetically pleasing to
mathematicians. Though Osiander's view seems to be in accord with that of
numbers of contemporary astronomers, such as Dee, and however impregnable
their position was on the available evidence, it was not that of Copernicus who in
his letter to Paul III (65), speaks of his works "composed in proof of this motion"
of the earth, though he says he long hesitated whether the better way were not
to follow the example of the Pythagoreans, who, as the epistle of Lysis to
Hipparchus proves, were wont to pass on the mysteries of philosophy not in
books and writings but from mouth to mouth in personal communication with
their friends and disciples. There were many others who also could not remain
content in what seemed a negative state of indecision. Digges declares
confidently (66) "If Copernicus (a man never sufficiently to be praised) had been
now alive, as indeed he might have been, since he would now have been not
more than 100 years old, we might have hoped that, so far as mortal weakness
would permit, men would have had absolute knowledge of the celestial system,"
while the erroneousness of the Ptolemaic system he observed was sufficiently
evident from its monstrous disaccordance with itself, for it fitted together as
badly as heads, hands and feet taken from obviously different individuals; Kepler
was equally convinced that it was "a most absurd fiction" to hold "that
phenomena of nature can be demonstrated by false causes."(67) Such thinkers
had to be prepared to accept very grave philosophical and theological
consequences that seemed to follow. Some have been referred to already. One
of the most controversial, if the earth be considered as being of a similar nature
to other heavenly bodies - and Digges refers to it always in some such fashion as
"this little dark starre wherein we live" and Cusa had called it "stella quaedam
nobilis, quae lumen et calorem et influentiam habet aliam et diversam ab
omnibus aliis Stellas," (68) - was the possibility of a multiplicity of worlds. That
there might be "a particular World in every Star," Wilkins finds a probable
speculation, which he says was held by Cusa and Nicholas Hill as well as Bruno
(69). Kepler's suggestion that the moon and planets might be inhabited had
previously been put forward by Benedetti (whose theories of falling bodies Dee
explicitly adopted (70)), who had argued that the centre of the lunar epicycle
could hardly be taken as the chief or single object of creation (71). To admit
such a possibility involved refighting the battle which supporters of the existence
of the Antipodes in an earlier age - such as Bishop Vergil of Salzburg - had found
themselves drawn into, for it appeared to reflect on the justice of God thus to
suppose that there might be a race of beings, dwelling, as seemed to follow,
beyond reach of all salvation (72). Another related difficulty was the acceptance
of the vast "enlargement" of the cosmos, which inevitably accompanied the
heliocentric assumption, and the huge "gap" that was created by the theory
between Saturn and the fixed stars. Aristarchus had for this very reason been led
to produce the greatest of such estimates of the total extent of the universe,
made in antiquity, declaring that the sphere of the orbit of the earth to the
outermost one of the stars bore the same proportion as the earth's size to that of
the entire universe on the older system (73). Whether the Universe possessed
bounds at all was a question Copernicus had declared "best left to the
Philosophers," but Digges is emphatic that the only ground for judging it finite
had been the mistaken belief that the outer sphere must revolve (74). The
consequence was not only to emphasize the comparative smallness of the earth
and solar system, but also the probably very restricted part of the universe that
could be seen at all from them, which again raised problems as to man's status
in relation to the intention and purpose of God's creation. (Raleigh, for instance,
takes as the criterion for investigating the nature of the stars the probable
functions they are designed to serve for man's benefits, and restricting what may
be assumed about them to this sphere (75).) Thus Digges calls the "Orbe of
Stars," "The Palace of foelicitye garnished with perpetualle shining and glorious
lightes innumerable, far excellinge our sonne both in quantitye and qualytye,"
describing it later, as "reachinge up in Sphoericall altitude without ende. Of
which lightes it is to bee thoughte that we onely behoulde sutch as are in the
inferioure parte of the same Orbe."(76) But though the new system might at no
point directly conflict with religious dogma, it aroused hostility by the negative or
destructive effects that followed from its denial of a representation of the
Universe that had been thoroughly comfortable and accommodating in this
respect, and had proved a fertile source of arguments, illustrations and analogies
in support of orthodox belief. Copernicanism, however much it might better
accord with a later Deism, offered to any more precise dogmatism than this, as
against the older scheme, only a comparatively barren and unhelpful picture
(77). As to the controversy over the implications of various biblical texts, there is
much in Galileo's Letter to the Archduchess Christina concerning the rash citation
of the testimony of Sacred Scripture in Conclusions meerely Natural.... - to take
an example of a typical Copernican view - that might have been written, though
on the whole it suggests more immediately kinship with the scientific Platonism
of the day, by a member of any school: as for example, his insistence on the
parallelism and conformity, owing to their common source, of revelation and the
physical universe: "For, from the Divine Word, the Sacred Scriptures, and Nature
did both alike proceed, the first as the Holy Ghost's inspiration, the second, as
the most observant Executrix of Gods commandments." The dangers of this
position arose not from Galileo's insistence on the universally admitted thesis
that many texts needed considerable interpretation, or even that they sometimes
were to be taken as meaning exactly the opposite of their literal sense, but lay in
his setting up as an infallible authority to guide such understanding, beyond both
the Church and individual conscience, an autonomous science. All discussions in
Natural Philosophy he claimed, should begin "at Sensible Experiments and
Necessary Demonstrations....in regard that every expression of Scripture is not
tied to so strict conditions as every Effect of Nature: Nor doth God less admirably
discover himself unto us in Natures actions, than in the Scriptures Sacred
Doctrines," and proceeds to limit the sphere of revelation and the teachings of
the Church to such knowledge only as could not be otherwise attained; their
purpose is only "to persuade man to the belief of those articles and Propositions,
which by reason they surpass all humane discourse, could not by any other
science, or by any other means be made credible, then by the Mouth of the Holy
Spirit itself."(78) This extreme view was perhaps not shared by all early
Copernicans, but towards it they were frequently propelled by the biblical
objections of their critics. It is of some significance then that, while he was well
aware of the various dangers and difficulties that beset the "new hypotheses,"
Dee, though he never openly embraced them, never ceased throughout his life
to lend them friendly encouragement and speak enthusiastically of their
immediate originator.

III. Dee's other works of this period - on astronomical instruments, mechanics,

perspective and optics, bear witness to the expanding range of his scientific
interests. Most of them we now know only from their titles: De Annuli
Astronomici multiplici usu lib 2 (1557); Inventum Mechanicum, Paradoxum, De
nova ratione delineandi Circumferentiam Circularem: unde, valde rare alia
excogitari perficique poterunt problemata (1556) (79); Trochilici inventa mea
(1558). This last, which was probably some combination of pulleys or
interlocking cogged wheels, recalls his Aristophanes' "scarab" Galileo at the end
of the century, in his Mechanics, discusses at some length a machine called by
the Greeks consisting of an upper and lower pulley; the upper attached to the
roof or supporting frame, Galileo feels called upon to emphasize, does not
diminish the force required to raise an object, but only removes the
inconvenience, otherwise arising, of drawing the rope upwards; the lower one,
attached to the upper and to the object, he proves, implying the relative novelty
of the observation, ideally halves the force required to support the weight (86).
The name Dee gives his invention however only reflects the predominant view in
the sixteenth century of the functions by which the machine in general might be
essentially defined; i.e., it was considered as something for moving weights;
Vitruvius - who with Pappus and Hero, represents a main source of the
mechanical knowledge of Dee and his contemporaries - defined the machine as
"a continuous material system (or, a combination of timbers fastened together)
having special fitness for moving great weights."(81) (He somewhat obscurely
distinguishes it from an "engine," by the criterion of the number of men, or
amount of power required to operate each; an engine could be started by a
single hand). But though the pulley, screw, lever, wheel and capstan were widely
employed in the sixteenth century, they figure chiefly, and this seems true of all
Dee's mechanical thought, in single almost random inventions, or in large scale
theoretical designs, such as Besson's, of a hopelessly fantastic and impractical
character (82). Their principles remained largely a mystery; Aristotle's unhelpful
discussions in the Mechanical Problems (83) formed the basis of many reverent
studies. It is perhaps not until Galileo (if we leave out of account the unknown or
neglected manuscripts of da Vinci) that there appears, in the Dialogues
conserning Two New Sciences clear notions, and methodical and mathematical
treatment of such matters as turning moments about a point, the principle of
virtual velocities, and it is in the Mechanics in which he has to start by rebutting
the common superstition of artificers that machines represent "a cozening of
Nature," since they were thought to produce a real multiplication of "force," and
insisting that only a redistribution is involved, that Galileo is one of the earliest of
modern attempts to do this clearly investigates the nature of the Machine - each
device he declares is to be considered under the four heads of "Force" applied,
Weight moved, Distances moved by Weight and "Force," and Time, and its
"efficiency" is gauged against the best theoretical combination of these factors
relative to some proposed end (84). Dee's more primitive view of general
principles is set out in the Preface, when he discusses "Menadrie," which, he
says, is "an Arte Mathematicall, which demonstrateth, how, above Natures virtue
and power simple: Vertue and force may be multiplied: and so, to direct, to lift,
to pull to, and to put or cast fro, any multiplied or simple, determined Vertue,
Weight or Force: naturally not, so, directible or moveable." Menadrie is very
much furthered by other arts (one of which is "Trochilike") and by it"all Cranes,
Gybbettes, and Ingines to lift up, or to force anything, any maner way, are
ordred: and the certaine cause of their force is knowne." Earlier in the Preface he
describes the Art on which his present, lost, "invention" is based; it
"demonstrateth the properties of all circular motions, Simple and Compounde.
And by cause the frute hereof, vulgarly received, is in Wheeles, it hath the name
of Trochilike: as a man would say, Whele Art: by this art, a whele may be given,
which shall move ones about, in any tyme assigned. Two Wheeles may be given,
whose turnynges about in one and the same tyme (or equall tymes), shall have,
one to the other any proportion appointed. By Wheeles may a straight line be
described: Likewise a Spirall line in plaine. Conicall Section lines and other
Irregular lines, at pleasure may be drawen." Corngrinding, coining, and Saw-mills
re its products "and all maner of Milles and Whele works: By Winde, Smoke,
Water, Waight, Spring, Man or Beast moved." Later, treating of "Archemaistrie"
he sets down Regiomontanus' feats as examples of the applications to this art:
"Mervaylous was the workmanshyp of late dayes, performed by good skill of
Trochilike, etc. For in Noremberge, a flye of Iern, bayng let out of the Artificers
hand, did (as it were) fly about by the gestes, at the table, and at length as
though it were weary, retourne to his masters hand agayne."(85)

A work on burning mirrors of 1557 is partially extant (86); Dee's optical

knowledge and activities, as Bourne's letter to Burleigh on lenses testifies, were
highly thought of at the time, and though any extensive account more properly
belongs to a subsequent study accompanying an examination of Dee's own
discussion of Optical Science in the Preface it may here be noted that he and
both the Digges, all refer to Roger Bacon as the source and inspiration of their
researches in this science (87). Dee's present tract was prompted perhaps by a
manuscript he had acquired in 1555, "De speculo Comburenti concavitatis
parabolae" (88) (the last sheets of this MS are occupied significantly by early
sections - mainly the definitions - from Appollonius' Conics). Burning Mirrors and
the military wonders they will affect are repeatedly mentioned by Bacon (89):
Antichrist he claims will appear armed with these engines, consuming with them
camps, armies and whole cities, and Christendom is warned to construct similar
instruments to oppose him. The popularity of his Miracles of Art and Nature in
the second half of the sixteenth century, rendered the idea generally familiar.
Thus, in 1578, "Burning Glasses" figure as one of Bourne's Devises: but he does
not enter into detail, confining himself to pointing out that their construction and
use requires great expertness in geometry (90), or again among Napier's "Secret
Inventions" (1596) "proffitabile and necessary in theis dayes for the defence of
the Iland and withstanding of strangere enemies of Gods truth and relegion," it is
suggested that a mirror be prepared capable of burning the enemy's ships at at a
distance (91). Of interest in connection with the extent of Dee's personal
knowledge is the fact that in the Preface he gives as his authority of Archimedes'
use of such mirrors not Tzetzes, as might be expected, but Anthemius (92).
Though the scientific exploits of the architect of St. Sophia had been made
famous by a number of reports (93), yet if Dee's reference be taken at its face
value, it implies that he was acquainted with a work of Anthemius, long believed
lost or non-existent, rediscovered only at the end of the eighteenth-century (94),
and containing the true formula for the construction of such an engine (which
Buffon had independently arrived at in 1747)(95). It solves the problem of
construction by an arrangement of plane hexagonal mirrors Dee's treatise which
is incomplete does not proceed so far as to deal with this practical aspect; and,
though Anthemius' treatise deals with various problems of parabolic mirrors
which Dee here treats of, a definite relation between them is perhaps impossible
to establish, and taking into account the reference in the Preface Dee may have
only known the Paradoxes, later in life, if at all.

Dee entitles his treatise De Speculis Comburentibus. Inventio Joannis Dee

Londiniensis circa illa coni recti atque rectanguli sectione quae ab antiquis
Mathematicis Paraboli appellabatur. A revival in interest in conic sections took
place gradually in the sixteenth century, their history in the West being otherwise
a blank since the days of Pappus (96), though significant progress perhaps did
not recommence until the work of Kepler and later Desargues (97). Dee's
sources perhaps were - for there does not seem to have been any others he
might have used - the Latin Apollonius of 1537, Maurolyeo's analysis of the
earlier books and attempted reconstruction of books IV and V of 1547 and
Joannes Werner's work published at Nuremburg in 1522 which incidentally
contained a new method of plotting parabolas: Libellus...super vigintuobus
Elementis Conicis. Dee's application of the subject to burning mirrors came
probably from various hints in Vitellio, who, it has been thought, may himself
have read Anthemius, and who in the thirteenth century had set out to reduce
the whole science of optics to geometry and whose Perspectiva remained a
standard, advanced textbook, up to the seventeenth century. John Peckham's
Perspectiva Communis, for instance, another thirteenth century work still
recognised as standard and authoritative at this time, typically confines itself to a
treatment of spherical mirrors, and, though near its end it claims to discuss how
"Ex concursu radiorum fractoru, possibile est ignem generari," it merely suggests
the well known device of using spherical glass bowls filled with water (99).
Vitellio however offers the clue to the starting point of Dee's treatise (at the end
of which occur among some rough notes some diagrams exactly copied from the
appropriate section of the Perspectiva (100)) he rejects as impossible a solution
employing any "usual" plane or spherical mirror, though suggesting a
combination of these might achieve one, and then after a reference to the work
of Apollonius he arrives at the important principle: "Sepculo concauo cocavitatis
sectionis parabolae soli opposito, ita ut axis ipsius sit in directo corporis solaris,
omnes radij incidentes speculo sequedistanter axi reflectuntur ad punctum unum
axis distantem a superficie speculi secundum quartum lateris recti ipsius sectionis
parabolae speculi superficiem causantis, ex quo pater quod a superficie talium
speculorum igne est possibile accendi," and proceeds to brief directions for the
possible manufacture of such a mirror (101). Dee's treatise is unfortunately far
from complete: the pagination is disordered; and of what survives only a part is
written out in a fair hand, the rest being notes, tentative observations, or partly
corrected draft. In contrast with Roger Bacon however, who usually after stating
as his principle that a convergence of rays is the true cause of heat, and
classifying different types of mirror, then merely confines himself to verbal
description or philosophical speculation on the subject, Dee's treatment is
severely mathematical, and though he does not reach a stage of elaborating
many formal proofs, relying often on what appears obvious from his diagrams,
he promises at the beginning that all that his book contains shall be "by numbers
apodictally demonstrated." The surviving fragment consists only of a long series
of "definitions," drawn from Apollonius, describing the nature and properties of
conic sections, particularly the parabola, and of a reflecting surface modelled on
this curve (from which only, he stresses, all rays normal to the axis will come to
a common focus) followed by a series of some sixty-seven problems, arising out
of these, as for example, "Data combustionis distantia, latus e rectonii elicere,
quod eidem parabolae quadrat," (102) some of which give evidence of his
considerable geometrical skill and ingenuity. The manufacture for "practical"
purposes of such mirrors he does not reach the point of dealing with, perhaps
the difficulties (arising from the large size and the standard of accuracy required)
that would have to be overcome, which must have become increasingly obvious
as he proceeded, was a contributory cause for his apparent abandonment of this
work at an early stage.

IV. A section of another work of 1557, upon a subject also more properly
discussed in its relations to Dee's thought in a full treatment of the Preface
similarly survives in a partially burned condition (103). It has been written out in
a fair hand by Dee, and was perhaps designed for publication, for marginal notes
give instructions for the placing of the figures in the text. It is headed Elegans et
Utilis libellus de ar (te...) cum circino et regula: in usum omniu (.......) tis
stuiosorum, imprimis vero pictorum, sculptorum, aurifabrorum, phrygionu,
lapicidarum, arculariorum, et aliorum omnium, qui arte mensurandi (Perspectiva
vulgo dicta) delectantur. In quo hanc artem facilius, ex quibusdam iam ante
divulgatis libris compraehendere ac discere licet, cum multis elegantibus figuris.
Dee here used the term perspective for what he calls "Zographie" in the Preface
which he there defines as teaching "how, the Intersection of all visuall
Pyramides, made by any playne assigned, (The Centre distance and lightes,
beyng determined) may be, by lynes and due propre colours, represented."
Zographie is the child of the more general science of Perspective (which deals
with all types of radiation, and "concerneth all Creatures, all Actions, and
passions, by Emanations of beames perfourmed"), and is also in its turn "the
Scholemaster of Picture, and chief governor," (104) Dee's interest in the fine arts
in the Preface and elsewhere is confined to the extent to which they can be
rendered "intelligible" by mathematical interpretations. He regards the arts in
general in the manner attributed to the ancient Pythagoreans: "and assuredly
there is no art or craft that has been built up without proportion and proportion
is based on number, so that every art is built up by means of number...and to
speak generally every art is a system composed of apprehensions and system in
number."(105) He and similar thinkers found perhaps in such a theory the
reconciliation between Plato's acceptance of the divine inspiration of the artist -
as in the Phaedrus - emphasized by the early neo-Platonists' claim that works of
art reflected a higher reality, and had reference to the Idea rather than the
sensible things, and Plato's condemnation in the Republic of "imitation" of
particulars, a process involving, and in painting especially, illusion and deceit;
Arts such as music, painting, architecture, sculpture, which Dee discusses in the
Preface - and this endeavour permeates many Renaissance treatments of these,
could be vindicated by showing them as subject to laws existing independently of
sense, and hence their practise as not founded upon random empirical
experimentation; for thus their representation of their objects involved no
distortion or deception, but deriving from analysable mathematical relations,
could be properly described as being "philosophically true."

It had been one of Plato's most reiterated dicta, and one that loomed large in
the philosophical tradition stemming from his thought, that the philosopher must
"refuse to give the name of art to anything that is irrational."(106) The theme of
the Ion is directed to showing that all arts, if they are to be considered of value,
must be based upon - or at least finally brought into relation with - some
systematic knowledge, and hence though Ion's "rhapsodising" may be the result
of divine possession it may still be a danger to truth; for since while composing
he is partially out of his senses, and in other respects is without critical insight
into his own works, their origin in him is divorced from reason, and he has no
means of judging their accuracy. It is made the reproach of the arts - music and
painting particularly - in the Statesman (107), that they are - or are treated as -
mere "playthings," not practised for any serious purpose. The clue to their
rehabilitation however is there said to lie in the extension of the Pythagorean
analysis of the musical scale. Thus the "science of measuring" is made to include
not only those "arts which measure number length, depth and breadth and
thickness in relation to their opposites," but also "those which measure these in
relation to the moderate, the fitting, the opportune, the needful and all other
standards that are situated in the means between the extremes"; which criteria
should receive as far as possible mathematical determination (as the analysis of
the Just via "analogies" based on proportions in the Laws); thus "in a certain way
all things which are in the province of art do partake of measurement."(108)
Painters and sculptors had been censured in the Sophist not for being mere
imitators, but for endowing their figures, not with the most "beautiful"
proportions but only with such as their individual models appeared to have in
life, and those pictures are attacked which, far from representing things as they
are, gain their effect only by a view from some one angle or position. These two
reproaches the Renaissance set out to remove by means of Perspective, which
related the view point to the actuality, and the conjunct subsidiary science of
what Dee called "Anthropographie," citing Meletius Durer and others as
practitioners of it (109), which found in the varying individual proportions or
composition of feature, fixed and determinable indices of "truths" of
temperament, constitution and passions.

The high praise Plotinus gave to the "artifacts" of the mind, accorded closely with
the Artist's growing theoretical prestige among the neo-Platonists of the
Renaissance (for whom even the "craftsman" and "artisan" - their practise based
on the one hand on a rational account, and impelled by divine inspiration or
insight on the other - could come to be regarded almost as Creators in their own
right, worthy imitators of God, and partakers in some measure of his power in
this respect). Thus Plotinus: "For what musician is there, who on perceiving the
harmony in the intelligible world, is not moved when he hears the harmony
arising from sensible sounds? Or who that is skilled in geometry and numbers,
when he beholds through his eyes that which is commensurate, analogous and
orderly is not delighted with its view?...The geometrician and arithmetician
knowing in the sensible object the imitation of that which subsists in the
intellection, they are as it were agitated, and brought to the recollection of
reality." Again discussing the status of the arts and sciences in relation to the
eternal, their subsistence in "heaven," he decides that insofar as they aim at
intelligible symmetry and harmony they are rooted in a spiritual reality and can
never perish (110). Such sentiments are reflected exactly in Alberti, whom Dee
cites at length in the Preface (111) (Dee concludes, after quoting from the
Architecture "we thank you Master Baptist, that you have so aptly brought your
Arte, and phrase thereof, to have some Mathematicall perfection: by certaine
order, number, forme, figure, and Symmetrie mentall: all naturall & sensible
stuffe set apart") and who is partly the source for his present work: "But the
judgment that you make that a thing is beautiful, does not proceed from mere
opinion, but from a secret Argument and Discourse implanted in the mind
itself,....For without Question there is a certain Excellence and Natural Beauty in
the Figures and Forms of Buildings which immediately strike the Mind with
Pleasure and Admiration." The secret of this is to be found in their Proportion:
but "I am every Day more and more convinced of the Truth of Pythagoras saying
that Nature is sure to act consistently, and with a constant Analogy in all her
Operations: From whence I conclude that the same Numbers, by means of which
the Agreement of Sounds affects our Ears, with Delight, are the very same which
please our Eyes and our Mind," and therefore proceeds to borrow his rules of
general Proportion from "the Musicians, who are the greatest Masters of this Sort
of Numbers."(112)

Dee exhibits a similar rationising tendency. Painting is treated in the Preface with
a lyrical enthusiasm: the Painter "is mervailous in his skill: and seemeth to have
a certaine divine power....What a thing is this? thinges not yet being, he can
represent so, as, at their being, the Picture shall seame (in maner) to have
Created them." Nevertheless, Dee insists, he is only "but the propre Mechanicien,
and Imitator sensible, of the Zographer," who in turn derives his knowledge from
the higher principles of "Perspective" (in the wide sense that Dee there ascribes
to it), which he claims might almost be called the first and most general and
fundamental of all sciences "bycause of the prerogative of Light beyng the first
of God's Creatures: and the eye, the light of our body, and his Sense most
might, and his organ most Artificiall and Geometricall," a science by which
"perfect knowledge can be atteyned," and through which alone can the senses
be employed properly and interpreted safely with "perfecter judgement," for we
ought to be "ashamed to be ignorant of the cause, why so sundry wayes our eye
is deceived, and abused."(113) Unfortunately the surviving fragment of the
present treatise has little positive content worthy of comment, though it is
interesting insofar as it is indicative of the early fixation of the attitude of mind in
Dee. After an opening tribute to Durer, whose work he intends to follow (114),
he goes on to insist on the erroneousness of regarding this science as originating
merely from acute observation; rather it is the product of investigations arising
from speculative ingenuity and exact thought. The assertion he offers by way of
proof reveals an important example of a prevailing polarity in Dee's thought,
typical perhaps also of the age, for along with his exceeding reverence for the
extent of the knowledge of classical and oriental philosophers of antiquity and his
laments over the loss of "ancient wisdom," and efforts towards its "rediscovery,"
yet he also is inclined to stress proudly the progress that is or may be made by,
and is available to, the moderns in the fields quite unknown or largely neglected
by the ancients. Thus "Perspective," he claims, is a wholly modern discovery, of
which the ancients, for all that they were no whit inferior in mere natural acuity
of vision, remained in ignorance (115). Dee's statement is a fairly usual one;
Vasari, whom Dee had read, attributes the invention of a correct theory of
"perspective" to Brunelleschi, and Alberti claimed to be the first ever to write on
the topic for painters (116). Dee stresses the intellectual foundation of this
science, since he takes the problem of painting to be that of effecting "projective
transformations," which is one susceptible of purely mathematical solution.
Painting, it could be claimed on such a view, is thus rooted in truth and not
illusion, since the geometrical structure of the scene it depicts is still traceable in
it; the recognition of "objects" implies that they possess geometrical properties
invariant under projection which have been preserved, and, though the value of
lengths and angles may be apparently greatly altered, the change or rather
translation, is made according to a constant and uniform numerical formula. Dee,
however, in this work follows Alberti's method of exposition, who had begun his
treatise On Painting by declaring that difficulty and obscurity would follow from
an attempt to handle everything in a mathematical way, and that he will
therefore "pursue his discourse according to the custom of painters."(117) Dee
similarly seems to set out not to demonstrate rigorously but illustrate. The
figures, however, which should accompany the text, which at almost every point
is intended as direct comment upon them, have not survived. The text itself is
discontinued in mid sentence, when Dee has covered less than a third of the
sections of the science he promises initially to discuss. What remains is very
elementary; beginning with definitions of the various geometrical entitles -
"points," "lines," etc.; it proceeds hardly further than giving the construction of
the well-known chequer board pavement (at which point Alberti's exposition had
also stopped), and breaks off after some discussion of the usefulness and various
applications of this design, just as Dee is about to broach the more difficult
question of the representation of points lying above the ground plane.

V. Another work of Dee's of 1557 was upon a somewhat different subject, but
one which was of major theoretical and also personal importance for him. This
was the Speculum unitatis: sive Apologia pro Fratre Rogerio Bachone Anglo: in
qua docetur nihil illim per Daemoniorum fecisse auxilia, sed philosophum fuisse
maximum; naturaliterque et modis homini Christiano licitus maximas fecisse res,
quas indoctum solet vulgus in Damoniorum referre facinora. Though Dee
announced its title in 1558, in the prefatory letter to Mercator attached to his
Aphorisms along with those of some others of his works, he never published it,
perhaps from caution, perhaps, as some of the surviving MSS of Dee suggest, it
might have been the case that he never finished it, or brought it into a state
satisfactory to himself, and it is now lost. It gained some fame by repute,
however, and its appearance was long looked for expectantly by many (118). A
revival of interest in Bacon in England, his sudden rise to popular fame, and the
vindication of his character and activities, are a traceable and striking
phenomenon of the latter half of the sixteenth century. Significant, since they
mark almost the beginning of this rehabilitation, are the changes Bale makes in
this respect in the second edition of his work on British writers. In 1548 he had
inserted a violent polemic against Bacon as a "prestigiator ac Magus
necromaticis, non in virtute Dei, sed operatione malorum spirituum." He had
recounted the legends of Bacon's magical feats at Oxford, telling how "Cu malis
demonibus consuetudinem habens," exactly as the magicians under Pharoah, he
practised incantations and exorcisms and compelled the spirits to perform
whatever he wished; Bale added "His artibus in secretis suis negotiis utebatur
tunc plurimu prelati, ut patet de Clemente quarto Romano potifice, ad quem
accersitus suarum incantantionu leges prescripsit." The list of works here
attributed to Bacon includes many such titles as "De necromanticis imaginibus,"
"Practicas Magiae," "De excantationibus."(119) It may be that protests followed
from those who shared Dee's opinions, for the reissue in 1557 omits all such
titles as have any implications of sorcery from the list of works, and gives a
laudatory account of Bacon's life, the only mention of magic now being "Accessit
ei in Mathesi peritia incredibilis, sed absque Necromantia: quamvis ea a multis
infametur."(120) The numerous persons set down in Bale's notebooks (121) as
the sources of his information on Bacon and his works testify to an already
considerable contemporary interest. Some, mainly of a Puritan cast, continued to
malign Bacon: Francis Coxe about 1560 retails stories of his performance of
blood sacrifice, diabolical compact and miserable end, mixed up with similar
legends concerning Cornelius Agrippa (122); but increasingly, scientific writers,
perhaps seeing in Bacon a convenient proxy for themselves, and thus by
implication defending their own activities, attempted to rebut the defamatory
charge of conjuring raised against him by popular imagination or theological
prejudice. One of the earliest examples of such an apology in English is offered
by Dee's associate Recorde in 1551: reproving the superstition of the multitude
which sees in mathematics a branch of the Black Art, he continues "and hereof
same it that fryer Bakon was accompted so great a negromancer whiche never
used that arte (by any conjecture that I can fynde) but was in geometrie and
other mathematicall sciences so experte, that he coulde dooe by them suche
thynges as were wonderfull in syght of most people.

"Great talke there is of a glasse that he made in Oxforde, in whiche men myght
see thynges that were doon in other places, and that was judged to be done by
power of evyll spirites. But I knowe the reason of it to bee good and naturall and
to be wrought by geometrie (sythe perspective is a parte of it) and to stand as
well with reason as to see your face in common glasse."(123) Towards the end
of the century, even in popular writings, Bacon appears as something of a
national hero. Even his "necromancy" is amiably, almost approvingly represented
in Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, produced in 1592, and a naive and
delighted pride emerges from the series of contests that are exhibited in the
play, between him and the foreign Sorcerer (the German Vandermast), in which
Bacon always outdoes his rival by the superiority of his magical spells. (A similar
treatment in England of this theme is Rowes' Birth of Merlin in which the
eponymous hero, although born of a devil, works always by command not
compact and employs his magic arts consistently in support of the Christian
British King and is celebrated with a patriotic fervour throughout the play.) That
marvels might be done by legitimate means is an idea that now gradually
acclimatised itself - thus the prose Historie, tells of Bacon's capture of a
seemingly impregnable beseiged town for the King of France, who initially makes
it clear he will accept no aid from sorcery, whereupon Bacon reassures him "I
will speake onely of thinges perfourmed by art and nature wherein shall be
nothing magical."(124) His name appears in contemporary lists of the great
Englishmen of the past (125), and the redemption of his character was formally
ensured by transforming him into a "Protestant martyr."(126)

Dee frequently recurs to the greatness of Bacon, assiduously collected what

manuscripts of his works he could lay hands on, and there are few aspects of his
thought where Bacon's influence is not obviously present. This is particularly so
in his views on the methods, purposes and elation to Divinity, of "Archemaistrie,"
or experimental science, which he exalts as necessary to the completion and
perfection of all types of knowledge, in the Preface. It is perhaps also largely a
result of Bacon's teachings, (and many of his pronouncements on this subject
are strikingly similar to those of his later namesake: "Quanto juniores tanto
perspicaciones" declared Roger, "Antiquitas seculi, juvents mundi" echoes Francis
(127)) that Dee adds to his reverence for the achievements and supposed
marvellous knowledge of antiquity his confident assurance of the powers of the
moderns to make original discoveries, and progressively change the face of the
world by penetrating, and applying to their own purposes, all the secrets of
nature. Again Bacon's Augustinianism is in close accord with Dee's philosophy;
his direct knowledge of Plato was not perhaps extensive (he certainly used the
twelfth century translations of the Meno and Phaedo (128)), but, though he
states that there is universal agreement of competent judges that Aristotle was a
far superior philosopher to Plato (129), it is significant that a very high
proportion of all his quotations from Aristotle are made from the Secreta
Secretorum (130) on which he composed a commentary - which document,
revealing an Aristotle turned neo-Platonist and embracing astrology and alchemy,
Bacon hails as the most valuable of his works, accepting it as the fruit of
Aristotle's old age, his final testament of mature wisdom. However, it is to the
type of "magic" that Bacon taught and Dee in the Speculum Unitatis presumably
justified, and on other occasions practised and defended in his own person, that
some attention must here be given. The term itself as applied in Dee's time
might cover any part, or all, of an extensive scale of meanings, ranging from the
simplest direct experiment or observation upon the properties of chemicals,
herbs or animals (131) to those feats effected by diabolical agencies, either
controlled by the magician's power or whose services were loaned as a condition
of some compact with hell; while, according to the temper and predisposition of
particular writers, a greater or less proportion of this scale was then annexed, as
implicitly related, to one or other of these terminal poles (132). To hold that a
large part of profane studies was dangerous, at best indifferent, to the soul's
welfare - a not infrequent defensive religious attitude, illustrated already in
connection with astrology meant that "magic" in its purely pejorative, and most
sinister sense, could be given a wide and indiscriminate sphere of application.
The learned, authors taking up such a position warned, were particularly
susceptible of being led by pride, and an excessive desire for increase of
knowledge, into forbidden realms of magical speculation and ultimately to
witchcraft; such men fall an easy prey to Satan, he "Puffing them up with conceit
of extraordinary skill in Nature's secrets, and so with a vain imagination to be as
gods, through such rare knowledge and great power."(133) On the other hand
the term magic is frequently used in an equally broad and undefined, but totally
innocent sense, and Gabriel Harvey can write, in similar tones to those Dee is
accustomed to adopt: "How cometh it to passe that much more is professed but
much lesse perfourmed than in former ages? especially in the Mathematickes
and in Naturall Magic, which being cunningly and extensively imployed....might
wonderfully bestead the commonwealth: with many puissant engines, and other
commodious devices for warre and peace...."(134) The root of the genuine, and
inevitable, ambiguity of the term, and confusion of mind it covered, can be
illustrated from Thomas Browne's attempt to clarify the issue by distinguishing
between the origin and contents of knowledge, limiting forbidden magic to such
as necessarily included supernatural elements in itself, and removing the
opprobrium of the epithet from such as had merely accidental supernatural
associations, as for instance in the manner of its discovery. "I conceive there is a
traditional Magick, not learned immediately from the Devil, but at second hand
from his Scholars, who having once the secret betrayed, are able, and do
emperically practise without his advice, they proceeding upon the principles of
Nature; where actives aptly conjoyned to disposed passives, will under any
Master produce their effects. Thus I think at first a great part of Philosophy was
Witchcraft, which being afterwards derived to one another, proved byt
Philosophy, and was indeed no more but the honest effects of Nature: What
invented by us is Philosophy, learned from him is Magick."(135)

The attractive simplicity of the distinction is deceptive. Browne's analysis - which

is not original to himself but can be traced, in almost identical terms, in earlier
writers on the subject (136) - does not contradict the usual belief that varieties
of spirits might serve as the proximate source of knowledge in any field, that
they might be the most simple and direct if not the only way of acquiring certain
information, thus, whatever might be judged subsequently to be mere
philosophy, suspicion could still attach itself to the original investigators.
Particularly was this so in the preceding century, in Dee's day, when the question
of how far angelic or diabolical assistance entered into scientific pursuits, was
further complicated by the widespread admission of the intermediate race of
daimons, who filled a stage in the great chain of being and entered readily into
communication with men or exercised somewhat indefinite influence over them
(137). The concept of Natural Philosophy was very flexible, capacious and
undetermined in its limits, and in course of fairly rapid evolution. Fuller
apologises for Dee's "magic" saying "He was a most excellent Mathematitian and
Astrologer, well skilled in Magick, as the Antients did, the Lord Bacon doth, and
all may accept the sense thereof, viz. in the lawfull knowledge of Naturall
Philosophy."(138) But though the words of such a defence by Fuller and Browne
are the same as those used in preceding centuries by such as Dee who found
themselves innocently impelled into studies branded by many as falling within
the province of necromancy, the idea of nature and what could be known and
achieved legitimately by its study had by the mid-seventeenth century
undergone considerable changes consequent on the absorption into it of the
associations of many years of enthusiastic scientific practice, experiment and
success. Natural magic as Dee defends it does not differ greatly in its substance
from the activities many critics then and later considered damnable, or at least
forbidden; he pleads only for an alteration in evaluation and judgment. The
question of the legitimate limits of "philosophical" investigation was not
susceptible of simple, clear cut decision, when no well-defined boundaries were
generally admitted between the natural and spiritual worlds (attempts to make
distinctions along these lines invariably fail to establish any criterion that could
have been usefully applied (139)) and the cosmos was viewed rather as a
continuum of existences, every level possessed of its peculiar powers,
operations, and properties, stretching down from God to the bare potentiality of
abstract matter.

A clear illustration of the hierarchical picture of the universe, which might

effectively prevent any precise delimitation of the concept "natural" in the
sixteenth century, the difficulties of attributing to it much more than emotional or
evaluative connotation in its frequent refixing by Dee and others to branches of
study, whose harmlessness and legitimacy is thereby intended to be asserted, is
provided by Cardan's classification of the types of "divination," a discussion of
which occupies a considerable section of the De Rerum Varietate (140). While
the word was generally accepted as covering any inference as to future
happenings drawn from the observation of any antecedent occurrence, without
reference to the manner of making such deductions, it was also regarded as an
activity which in all its varieties could be classed as "magical." The unity which
Cardan establishes here is thus as important as the distinctions which he erects
for the sake of order, between the separate types. Thus his first category is
"mathematical divination" - such as the prediction of the eclipses, conjunctions,
etc., of heavenly bodies; then comes "artificial divination," which is that which is
learned by experience from the uniform succession of phenomena, sailors and
farmers acquire considerable skill in it, medical and astrological prognostications
are examples of it; another class of divination is "prodigious," which uses as data
exceptional occurrences such as earthquakes, comets, meteors, extraordinary
behaviours of birds and animals; lastly he treats of a large group which includes
more conventionally "occult" practises, in which the spiritual state of the human
operator is of prime importance, since they involve the informing of his
understanding in various manners by divine agency, ranging from immediate
prophetical inspiration, through the interpretation of dreams, as Synesius
expounded it, to the use of crystals, mirrors, and other artificial, usually semi-
hypnotic devices. In all types of divination Carden warns - and the same
assertion is made by even the most experimental of contemporary alchemists
also - "natural reason" and "carefulness" are in themselves insufficient
foundations; a "pure heart" and a "pure mind" are indispensable concomitants to
the discovery and perception of truth. Dee (141) similarly stresses the spiritual
significance of even the most physical or mechanical, divinations or experiments.
His thought cannot admit the possibility of any "closed" mechanical system, or
process, existing independently of and without intelligible relevance to the
spiritual framework and intentions according to which God created the world,
and this because his won search for law and mechanism in nature and insistence
on the application of quantitative method itself springs from the view that these
possess intelligibility only because they derive from, and therefore in turn
illustrate, the creative mind and purpose of God. This is even to be detected in
his discussion of experimental science - in which he once more acknowledged his
debt to Roger Bacon "the floure of whose worthy fame, can never dye nor
wither" - in the Preface, it contributes to his setting so high a value on it, and
accounts for his citation or Artefius Ars Scintrilla as a prime example of this
"Archemaistrie" and perhaps explains the cryptic reference to an "(as it were)
OPTICAL science," and "the chief Science of the Archemaster," if by this is meant
the use of the crystal for "skrying," by which Dee attempted to establish
communication with the Angels of God (142).

A classification of types of knowledge, sharing the generic name of magic, in

close accord with Dee's apparent views, is made by Naudaeus (143). Man he
describes as "a perfect and accomplished creature....ordering and regulating his
extraordinary actions either by the particular grace of almighty God, or by the
assistance of an Angel, or by that of a Daemon, or lastly by his own industry and
ability. From these four different wayes, we infer four kinds of Magic: Divine,
relating to the first, Theurgick to the second; Geotick to the third, and Naturall to
the last." Though he carefully illustrates the first only with characters of secure
status in biblical or ecclesiastical history, Moses, Joshua, the Apostles, Simeon
Stylites, his second class embraces such a various collection as Faustus, Merlin,
Nostradamus, Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Iamblichus, and Porphyry. Thus Dee,
passionately rebutting charges of conjuring, which had been raised against him,
cites as parallel cases to his own, Socrates, Pico, Trithemius and Apuleius, calling
on their respective apologies, made in the face of similar slanders, for his own
justification, and he ends his defence significantly, with the example of Moses,
who "was instructed in all maner of wisedome of the Aegyptians: and he was of
power both in his wordes, and workes," whose "Philosophicall Power and
Wisedome" was "nothing misliked of the Holy Ghost," whose miracles were
performed at the instigation of God himself. Pliny had nevertheless mistakenly
attributed to Moses the practise "of vayne fraudulent Magike" and Dee thereupon
warns his own detractors "Let all such, therefore, who, in Judgment and Skill of
Philosophie, are farre Inferior to Plinie, take good heede, least they overshoote
themselves rashly, in Judging of Philosophers straunge Actes: and the Meanes,
how they are done."(144) The part attributed in Magic to angelic intervention or
to daimons who might, with no criminal intention or flagitious acts be controlled
and commanded by amulets, spells or other means not judged as morally or
even casually very different from methods employed to produce any other
effects in "practical philosophy" (145) - a view developed theoretically even by
Plotinus (146) and which explains for instance the appearance of necromancy in
some Arab lists of the branches of the "natural sciences" (147) will be more fitly
dealt with when Dee's activities with Kelly are discussed. Here it is only
necessary to observe, in regard to such practices, that the distinction between
legitimate and forbidden "magic" was not so much made by setting these apart
from other modes of investigation, or even by a discriminatory attention to the
type of knowledge or effect sought, or manners of operation in themselves, as
made in accordance with the supposed moral attitude and intention of the
operator (148), which would indicate the good or evil character of the spiritual
assistance - which might be held to enter necessarily into all man's speculations,
and acts, in some measure - that he was receiving. The implications of the term
"nature" as prefixed on justificatory qualification to "Magic," or as used in
discussions on the extent of legitimate science, seem to be merely synonymous
with what could be known as "good," and the "natural" therefore comes to be
considered, in its most fundamental sense, as that which was most intimately
connected with and which led most surely to a knowledge of "De Magia naturali,
sive licita, et praeternaturali sive illicita," says of the first "ad quam Physicorum
et Medicorum Prognostios, ab ipso naturae ordine et signis divinitus in natura
conditis sumpta, item Astronomicae praedictiones Ecclypsium, magnarumez
coniunctionem, imo etiam Politicae divinationes, iniustis et scoleratis, poenas
certo secuturas, denunciantes (quae omnes divinitus approbatae et coccessae
sunt....) referri queunt. Et sic Magorum professio olim fuit laude dignissima, quia
cognitio illa Dux est ad cognitionem Dei talem quale mons humane post lapsum,
extra verbum Dei revelatum ex natura contemplatione concipere potest. Tales
Magi ex Theologorum sententia fuerunt, Moises, Josephus, Solomon, et tres Magi
Orientales...." The same dichotomy under the headings good and evil "Magic"
can be made in every sphere of human science; thus he warns that "Diabolus
Medicus est peritissimus" and treats Paracelsus' theories and practices with
cautious suspicion, since "Paracelsus non referre dicit, utrum a Deo vel Diaboli
petatur auxilium."(150) This same general division is made by Pico, whom Dee
cites in his own self justification who writes, referring to the "magical
propositions" among his theses "in quibus duplicem esse magiam significavimus,
quarum altera daemonum tota opere et auctoritate constat rea, medius fidius,
execranda et portentosa. Alter nihil est aliud, cum bene exploratur, quam
naturalis philosophiae absoluta consummatio. Hanc omnes sapientes, omnes
coelestium et divinarum rerum studiosae nationes, approbant et
amplectuntur...ex hac summa litterarum claritas gloriaque antiquitus et poene
semper petita...ad hanc Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato discendam
navigavere, hanc proedicarunt reversi, et in arcanis praecipuam habuerunt....Illa
denique nec artis nec scientiae sibi potest nomen vindicare; haec altissimis plena
mysteriis, profundissimam verum secretissimarum contemplationem, et demum
totius naturae cognitionem complectitur."(151)

Such high assessments of the value of magic in the Renaissance (which almost
inevitably cite the example of Roger Bacon at some point) are not infrequent and
are of importance, since magic had never been considered so much as an
independent art or science having its peculiar principles and discipline, but was
rather taken as the application to the external world, in order to produce effects,
useful or wonderful, of principles gathered from any branch of knowledge
whatever; it signified generally, the reduction of theoretical conclusions to
practical demonstration; "Magia" defines Pico "est pars practica scientiae
naturalis."(152) The single inseparable hallmark of "magic" in all its forms was
that it implied the exercise or possession of power to control and alter
phenomena, for its end was not a contemplative understanding but an activity.
Such had always been its most constant and immediate meaning, and it had as
such been always denigrated by such creeds as inculcated a wise passivity as
man's best road to realising the perfection of his nature (153). The rapid growth
of a multitude of occult "pseudosciences" in the early centuries of the Christian
era had been dominated by the impulse to exercise direct control over nature,
the environment man found himself in, and, in religion, to achieve internal
spiritual "experiences" rather than abstract knowledge, a desire which classical
philosophy or natural science offered small assistance in satisfying, and had
hardly shown itself aware of (154) (according to Aristotle it was probable "that at
first the inventor of any part which went further than the ordinary sensations
was admired by his fellow men, not merely because some of his inventions were
useful, but as being a wise and superior person. And as more and more arts
were discovered, some relating to the necessities and some to the pastimes of
life, the inventors of the latter were always considered wiser than those of the
former because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility." (155)) But a
similar movement is widely evident in the Renaissance (156), and man's capacity
for imitating God as an active creator is increasingly stressed; it results for a
considerable period in similar manifestations since it also is denied any obvious
guidance by a well-established and fully developed natural philosophy of the day.

VI. Magic might mean no more than applied science; but the Aristotelian picture,
while presenting, considered only in itself, an admirably comprehensive and
coherent scheme, was possessed only of descriptive virtues, and was almost
totally lacking in predictive power or in any hint in its account of "change," of
how such processes could be artificially controlled or produced. It offered a full
and adequate account of nature as qualitatively experienced, insofar as it might
be already known, but as a theory pointed out no avenues for the discovery of
further utilisable knowledge. While it could explain all experimental results, its
theories did not assist to the obtaining of these, and practice which attempted to
draw upon them became soon involved in obscurantism, having recourse to
"occult causes" at every stage of procedure; and, as is very clear in the cause of
medicine - which was almost overburdened on the one side with elaborate and
quite intelligible theory - the attainment of concrete positive results, although the
subsequent interpretation of these seldom presented difficulties, was achieved
most frequently by chance observations, by random undirected empiricism. In
developing an explanatory analysis of the world which conformed as closely as
possible to the elements and categories of normal experience, the Aristotelian
natural philosophy evaded that "bifurcation of nature" which has been found
essential to later science, but only with the consequence that, relations,
correspondences, connections, and transmutations, between the "forms" into
which nature was thus resolved remained largely inexplicable, these basic
elements were too often highly individualised multifarious complexes. Thus if
change were conceived, as in the stages of alchemical transmutation, as the
successive supervention of new forms, there was little in the character of these
forms themselves which suggested means for their direct control, or which
allowed clear determination of the condition of their appearance. The obscurity
which thus might infect the concept of causation is apparent in Avicenna's
account of the activity of the doctor; he aims to provoke the emergence of the
"form" of health in the patient, but the limit of his powers is to assist the body
into a supposedly appropriate state for the reception of this "form." Very largely,
the attempt to construct practical sciences within the Aristotelian framework
illustrates what has been aptly called "the non-fertility of hometypal
explanation," which less immediately credible "heterotypal" accounts successfully
avoid; e.g., despite the patent falsity of declaring that heat is motion, at least a
pregnant correspondence is thus established, while nothing is gained by merely
though more plausibly, referring it to a calorific principle (157). Yet this type of
"explanation" was the inevitable result of the common dogma that all effects are
the results of causes whose natures are qualitatively similar to what is manifest
in the effect, and which, since not directly perceptible are adjudged "occult" or
hidden, and known only by inference from this. Thus medicaments were
classified according to the degree of heat, cold, moistness or dryness they
possessed (Dee discusses the mathematical question of their compounding in the
Preface (158)) - but their natures could not be determined by any general
method of examination of the medicines themselves; their qualities were only
apparent when they produced heat or cold, etc. in the body of the patient. Later
science has perhaps never been able totally to dispense with terms which are
necessary for a full account to be given of phenomena, and which nevertheless
are little more than covers for ignorance, but these have been usually recognised
for what they are - purely descriptive, not susceptible of further analysis into
fruitful relations, unabsorbed intractable points in an otherwise coherent closely
woven pattern of correspondences; "chemical affinity" (until the recent
interpretation of valency by reference to electron groupings) long remained a
concept of this order after it had lost - with the abandonment of theories relying
on sympathy and antipathy (159) such as most magical doctrines employed - all
significance as regards any accepted principles of explanation, but remained
indispensable as a description of observed facts, but the Aristotelian terminology
in general was of this type and any deductive system based on descriptive labels
and abstractions, such as these, established only a vicious circle in which there
was no profitable way of return from theory to the actual world which would
result in any enlargement in the domain of knowledge, as defined by the
particular range of observed facts which had originally gone into the forging of
the theory. Since then, at every stage of operations or change, recourse had to
be made to essentially unobservable and occult properties in the agent, and
there was no demonstrable a priori method of determining whether any
phenomenon might not be taken as cause for any effect whatsoever, it is
perhaps true that, while "magical" practices have been largely historically
associated with neo-Platonic or hermetic thought, their growth was assisted, and
many of the arbitrary superstitions or ritualistic forms which one conventionally
thinks of them as assuming, were reinforced by the defects exhibited by a
current Aristotelian philosophy when called upon to provide a discipline and
guidance to meet the new demands for applied sciences.

The confused mingling of extensive credulity, sceptical empiricism, and random

experimentation that resulted is evidenced by Torta's Natural Magicke with all its
isolated mirabilia, and tentative, naive attempts to establish criteria of sympathy
and antipathy between entities which will allow the prediction of effects, or by
Pompanazzi's de Incantationibus, which sets out firmly to give a purely "natural"
explanation (that is by rigourously excluding the agency of angels, daimons, or
disembodied intelligences in the world) - of religious miracles, the effects of ritual
magic, and prodigious and wonderful occurrences, none of which Pompanazzi
finds any reason to question in themselves. Overall intelligible system he
achieves by ascribing all events to the causal agency of the heavens, and their
changing conformation. But this attractive "mechanism," which attributing even
the rise and fall of religions to the material, determined, cosmos, allows the
temporally limited potency of forms of prayers, charms, symbols connected with
the dominant religion of an epoch in the production of miraculous effects - by its
very capacity to explain anything at all whether in fact it was real or imaginary,
possible or impossible - in "natural" terms is sadly deficient as a guide to the
practising magician, who might wish to unite understanding with power. Though
Dee's mathematical platonism might hold the key to successful later
developments of this kind, and though he might profess as an article of faith,
that ultimately all things would be found to be explicable in terms only of
number, measure and weight, yet the range of phenomena which he was able to
subject to such an exact analysis was extremely limited. A vast domain
remained, which if a general picture of nature was to be attained, and one in
which comprehension would be supplemented by the possibilities of application,
seemingly could be satisfactorily covered only by conventional magical theories
(160). Its extent was bounded on the one hand by what a simple analysis could
reveal as purely "mechanical," on the other by the volitional acts of the soul, that
did not require "explanations." Between these, nature appeared essentially
magical, with God functioning as the supreme magician - in the sense that
"animistic" explanations were sought, in so far as the characteristic of such a
view is to regard things as merely "signs" or "powers" of secret internal virtues.
The danger lay in the possible exaggeration of this element in thought (161) as
in naturalist empiricist philosophers such as Pompanazzi or Porta, since this,
presenting nature as wholly miraculous, destroyed its rationality and ultimately
the idea of intelligible order prevailing there, instead of reducing the area over
which recourse had to be made to such theories, as the type of neo-Platonic
science Dee advocated in general tended to do. Dee was later to inform a
disappointed Kelly that he possessed little skill in "vulgar magic" - that is,
probably, in illusions, in the production of effects intended only to amaze or
astonish, in the miscellaneous hotch potch of charms, philtres, amulets for
occasional purposes - the popular idea of the contents of magical lore; by
trafficking in which all too many won easy reputation and profit.

VII. The general theories which accounted for the possibility and justified the
practice of "magical" operations were features of some importance in his
thought, and especially in two aspects of these, one relating to the constitution
of the universe that seemed necessarily involved in "explanations" of the success
of magical operations, the other regarding the status and powers of the rational
soul within it. The first, which posited a generally maintaining intimate
interconnection of all entities in the world (Dee's Aphorisms illustrate one
working out of a universal scheme on this basis), stems ultimately in large
measure from the Stoic cosmology, by which this school assisted more than any
other ancient philosophy in establishing the theory of divination, according to
which anything rightly regarded, since the cosmos is an organic unity, can be
taken as symptomatically indicative of anything else. The view was absorbed into
neo-Platonism (162), and is the dominating theme of Synesius' de Insomnis,
popular in the middle ages and throughout the Renaissance, which declares
divination to be the most divine of the sciences, necessary to the perfection of all
the others, possession of which distinguishes man from the brutes, that birds
with human intelligence would be able to use man's notions for divinational data,
as men make use of birds for this purpose, and that the true philosopher is only
he who has knowledge of the secret bonds which underly all apparent diversities
and reveal the universe as a complex unity governed by "harmony." As the
theory had to explain action occurring at a distance - which magic invariably
claimed to produce - it was usually illustrated by reference to sympathetic
harmonic vibration - the "lyre image" was frequently used in this connection
(163). Prayers, rites, spells it was asserted act by means of "a certain sympathy
and similitude of natures to each other; just as in an extended chord, where
when the lowest part is moved, the highest presently after gives a responsive
motion, or as in the strings of a musical instrument attempered to the same
harmony one chord trembling from the pulsation of another, as if it were endued
with sensation from sympathy. So in the Universe there is one harmony, though
composed from contraries, since they are at the same time similar and allied to
each other. For from the soul of the World, like an immortal self motive lyre, life
everywhere resounds, but in some things more inferior and remote than in
others."(164) The object of the magician was therefore, by utilising his
knowledge of these hidden relationships, to bring to actuality what exists
potentially already in nature. He operated, Plotinus had declared, by means of
this universal law of "sympathy"; his gestures and incantations control things at
a distance, since he himself is an intrinsic part of the universe, and "the true
magic is this friendship and strife which exists in the great All."(165) Or as Pico
described it, "Magicam operari non est aliud quam maritare mundum." "MIrabilia
artis magicae no fiunt nisi per unionem et actuationem eorum, quae seminaliter
et separatae sunt in nature." "Nulla est virtus in caelo aut in terra seminaliter et
separata quam et actuare et unire magus non possit."(166)

The magical teachings as to the power of the soul had also received
encouragement from Stoic doctrines, since their general materialism, which
attributed the soul's qualities to fire, represented it as an extended and truly
physical force, which was therefore to act directly upon matter. They were
however more closely related to the neo-Platonic identification of the hierarchies
of existence and value, in which the soul standing closer to God, who controls all
things, then objects in the elemental world, should therefore logically be
possessed of innate mastery and government overall that is lower in the scale of
creation. This as a magical theory ("cum namque hominis animae voluntas est
maxime imaginative, fuerint vehementes, elementa, venti, et relique materialia
sunt nata obdedire eis") Pompanazzi attempts to contravert, attributing it to
Avicenna (167) in whose theories it held a necessary place. It was, however,
developed at length by Alkindi, from whom Roger Bacon and Dee borrow
important principles in their cosmologies. All things, Alkindi had argued, emit
species, all magical figures rays of power, all words transmit efficacious
likenesses of the concepts of the soul, in accordance with which they were
framed and "frequent experiments," he declares, "have proven clearly the
potency of words when uttered in exact accordance with imagination and
intention, and when accompanied by due solemnity, firm faith and strong
desire"; their power is heightened by choosing correct astrological conditions,
and concentrating the mind on the name of God or an Angel (168). such views
have already been touched upon in relation to the Cabalah, which Pico declares
in the 900 Theses, is a higher, more extensive science than practical magic, but
is in some measure inseparably involved in all magical operations, for it studies
the character of words, and these, the concepts they represent, and the voice
which utters them, are the chief instrument of magic, as it was by their means
that God originally created all things in their own natures. The view is almost an
immediate consequence of Renaissance neo-Platonist epistemology "Die
Moglichkeit der Magie flgt nach Campanella aus demselben Prinzip wie die
Moglichkeit der Erkenntnis. Denn auch erkennen konnten wir nicht, wenn nicht
Subjekt und Objekt, Mensch und Natur ursprunglich und wesentlich eins waren.
Wir erkennen einen Gegenstand nur dort wahrhaft, wo wir mit ihm
verschmelzen, wo wir geradezu ihm werden. Cognoscere est fieri rem cognitam -
so definiert Companella, cognoscere est coire cum suo cognobili - so definiert
Patrizzi den Akt der Erkenntnis. Die Magie druckt diesen Sachverhalt, der sich in
Wissen theoretisch darstellt, nur nach der praktischen Seite aus; sie zeigt wie auf
Grund der Identitat von Subjekt und Objekt das Subjekt das Objekt nicht nur be
reifen sondern auch beherrschen kann, wie es die Natur nicht nur seinem
Verstande, sondern auch seinem Willen unterwirft. Demit ist die Magie als
`naturliche' nicht als `damonische' gedacht - sum edelsten Teil der
Naturerkenntnis und sur Vollendung der Philosophie geworden."(169) To almost
any intellectual analysis or description magical powers might be thus ascribed, a
belief even more general and unquestioned if these took mathematical forms
employing numerical expressions or geometrical diagrams (170).

The theories and practices we have illustrated here as typically magical would
have been closely similar to those which Dee must have undertaken to propound
and defend in his effort to purge Bacon's reputation of the stain of Necromancy.
Thus in his little work on The discovery of the Miracles of Art and Nature and the
Nullity of magic; popular in the sixteenth century and after, Bacon reprobates:
"The unnecessary aspiring to magick, since both Nature and Art afford such
sufficiencies," (171) but he conceives as "natural" any activity whatsoever which
does not involve intercourse with wicked spirits, remarking approvingly "without
all question the way is incomparably more easie to obtain anything, that is truly
good for men, of God, or good Angels, then of Wicked Spirits" (172) - a
reference perhaps to the belief previously noted that devils were only
empowered to produce illusions. His initial declaration that, as regards charms
and talismans, "there is nothing in these days of this kind but what is either
deceitful, dubious or irrational," is qualified by the admiration that prayers to God
and Good angels have a necessary virtue, and figures are potent if drawn with
regard to the ruling, and otherwise appropriate constellations (173); and an
analysis of action at a distance concludes "It is clear then that the bare
generation and prolation of words joyned with desire and intention" are of
considerable effect "in natural operations."(174) This last is a frequent theme in
his writings, for "the word is the principle product of the rational soul and its
greatest delight," and he summarises magical efficacy as depending entirely "on
four influences: the voice formulating the air, the good or evil condition of the
ration soul, the body, and the stars."(175) The rational soul, he argues, controls
all creatures below the angels "just as we see that heavenly bodies because they
are nobler have power over what is inferior," and since it "is without comparison
more worthy than the whole animal soul there is no doubt that it has great
power in its works when it is free from spot of sin or when commanded by the
Grace of God it acts with strong desire and firm intention. But its especial action
is the word," by which the saints have always performed their miracles (176),
and since it "has especial need of words framed efficaceously and by design, the
astronomer is able to form words for chosen times which will have inexpressible
power. For when the purpose, desire, and force of the rational soul which is
nobler than the stars, are in harmony with the force of the heavens, of necessity
either a word or something else is produced of wonderful force in altering the
things of this world, so that not only the things of nature but human minds are
drawn towards those things which the skilful adept wills, the freedom of the will
remaining unimpaired."(177)

The contemporary danger of professing and openly admitting to the study of

"magic" even of this type is apparent from the evil notoriety that gathered round
Trithemius, or even more acutely round Agrippa, whose writings loomed large in
practical importance in a latter period of Dee's life. Agrippa in accounts of the
various arts and operations he describes, made free use of the term "natural" as
a defensive adjective, with conscious hypocrisy according to his indignant
detractors (178). Even the English translator of De Vanitate, in 1569, which was
regarded then as his formal recantation, declares while praising this work that its
author was "without doubt, a Divel of Hell," who "gave his minde to unleeful
artes, contrarie to the Lawes of God and man...he exercised the Arte Magicke,
and therein farre excelled all other of his time, but in the ende his wicked
knowledge was the cause of his miserable deathe."(179) He has suffered equally
harshly at the hands of posterity who have in general accorded him rather
contemptuous treatment as a writer (180), though many facts indicative of far
different estimates by his contemporaries, perhaps not the least of which is the
long continued friendship and discipleship of the enlightened Wierus, warm
against the too ready acceptance of either of these types of judgment. His
historical importance as an illuminating representative figure indeed directly
arises from the fact that his work is almost entirely a compilation, unoriginal in
content, based upon respectable authority at every step, and attempts to weld
into a synthesis the whole corpus of works bearing on the theory of magic, as
well as fragmentary incidental declarations on the subject by previous thinkers,
mainly within or with close affinities to a neo-Platonic philosophical tradition.
From this point of view his work provides perhaps a more useful typical insight
into the learned world of the day than, for instance, the idiosyncratic writings of
his contemporary Paracelsus, and other more original system builders of this
time. Thus in defence of this work (which he significantly published in 1531, the
year after he had given the world his supposed recantation) - he claimed that it
contained nothing at all that he had not drawn from printed works, generally
known and approved by orthodox Philosophers, Theologians and Cabalists, such
as Plato, Porphyry, Proclus, Calchidius, Sunesius, Ammonius, Psellus, Albertus
Magnus, Roger Bacon, William of Paris, Pico, Reuchlin, Riccius "and others like
these," so that his work could only be considered one of innocent natural
philosophy and true religion, and should give offence to none except those who
become alarmed at anything not wholly familiar to them, or who are incapable of
understanding anything but obvious puerilities (181). Its three books correspond
to the familiar division of reality into three worlds or orders, each lower one
being considered an emergence by privation from the adjacent superior, which
since more extensive still implicitly includes each separated lower world - the
elemental, intellectual and spiritual, the schema Dee adopts in the Preface, and
Agrippa attempts to give an "intelligible" account of magical causation as regards
each; the instruments appropriate to the respective levels being language,
mathematics, and ritual. His general theories are very much of the type already
discussed. All things have "occult virtues," connected with their "species" and
form, imprinted upon them by Ideas of the World Soul, acting through the
medium of the stars; they emit forces which bind them in relations of sympathy
and antipathy to everything else in the universe. The natural virtues given off by
things travel through the senses and the imagination into the thought where, as
a concept, they become the fertile seed which eventually bears fruit, in the
shape of work or symbol which the Rational Soul employs for its own purposes,
since these contain the essence and emit the forces and virtues, of their original
sources; that this is so Agrippa demonstrates by the fact, only explicable by the
admission of such a mechanical scheme as the assumption of "rays" given off by
"proper names" provides - of the psychological recognition of the object in the
word, the production of a correct and vivid image in the mind as a consequence
of the hearing of the name (182). It is further of interest that in his piously
satirical indictment of profane studies (whose seriousness has been perhaps
sometimes over-emphasized by not recognising in it an example of a type of
composition which in form and contents existed well within an established
"literary" convention, examples of which might be little more than formal and
rhetorical exercises) he still, almost alone among human sciences, speaks
approvingly of three types of magic: natural magic - "the force above human
reason which is the active principle in nature," which is the art of controlling the
powers of nature, and actualises artificially her potentialities as by developing a
mature plant from a seed in a few days (183); mathematical magic, which by
means of numbers and astrology constructs machines (he instances Boethius'
feats, in a passage quoted without acknowledgement by Dee in the Preface
(184)) - which contrivances, he observes, partake neither of natural nor divine
reality, but are intellectual artifacts, which attempt to imitate both these; and
Theurgy or divine magic, which is the search for communion with good angels by
purifying the soul - though this he warns may become a pernicious superstition
in the hands of the foolish (185).

Now Dee in the Prefatory letter to Maximilian in his Monas of 1564 declares that
the art he is there dealing with he has previously defended in Speculum Unitatis
and while other aspects of the Monas are dealt with fully in the subsequent
chapter a few words should perhaps be said of the magical theories on which it
rests. In his prefatory letter Dee speaks of the fashion in which all arts and
sciences can be learned from a study of his hieroglyphic, in much the same style
as the Ars Notoria proclaims the benefits its readers may obtain (186) - a work
that consists largely of unintelligible words and sentences, in a similar jargon to
that in which Kelly's angels often delivered themselves, supposedly possessed of
mystic powers if committed properly to the mind. Dee's Monas, however, shows
an attitude that is not content merely to accept unquestioningly magical words or
diagrams, as many works of magic were (187) but one which wishes to subject
them to a rigorous explanatory analysis, and render as far as possible their
nature and power intelligible. Its basis however is the same as that on which
words or talismans were usually attributed efficacious virtues (188). Dee's figure
combined the characters of the planets and the chief of the Zodiacal signs; now
it was through the celestial bodies that the supernatural world controlled and
directed the elementary world, but they were considered the chief instruments of
creation and government in virtue of their specific configurations in the case of
the asterisms, and the possession of natures that could also be diagrammatically
or sigillistically reproduced in the case of the planets. Hence by duplicating these
signs men might, thus aided by geometry, in some fashion reproduce their
effects. As concerns the knowledge they would bring the claim that symbols, or
meaningless words earnestly contemplated and impressed upon the mind, would
awaken new knowledge there, and this is an intrinsic claim of many of the
"mnemonic" systems of the time, seems perhaps less surprising when the
conventional doctrine that the impressions entering through the senses brought
with them information or produced effects on the mind (189) for which strictly
no correlative could be traced in the mere sensible form of the object is
remembered - a usual school instance was the sheep's perception in the form of
the wolf not merely of shape, colour, magnitude, etc., but also irrespective of
whether it had ever seen such an animal before, of hostility and danger. Similarly
therefore, to establish a symmetry in the cognitional situation, it seemed
probable that the intellect orientated towards different objects, in perceiving
these - intelligible geometric patterns, abstract words - came into possession
through them, whether it had been acquainted with them before or no, of a
similar surplus of meaning, to what seemed proportioned to their mere forms, on
a corresponding higher level (i.e., insights of direct spiritual truths).

VIII. Some of the general theories of this learned magic, treated from a
specialized astronomical standpoint, also make their appearance in Dee's
Propaideumata Aphoristica, his first major printed work, which was published in
1558, in the same volume as Leowitz' Brevis et Perspicua Ratio Judicandi
Genituras ex Physicis Causis et vera Experientia extructa...(190) and Wolf's
defence of astrology, cited previously; where it is described on the general title
page as "libellus de Praestantioribus quibusdam Naturae virtutibus." It was also
reprinted separately with a special title page the same year and reprinted in
1568 with a few verbal changes, which are noted below. Dee in 1570, in the
Preface was still prepared to refer his readers to it as the best work of
fundamental astrological theory with which he was acquainted (191), but before
treating of its sources and implications, a brief resume of its contents is
necessary to indicate the scope and objects of the work.

The title page - and Dee would seem to have placed some importance on these
visual illustrations to his books, and to have carefully designed some of them
himself - is almost identical, except in the poorness of its execution with that of
the Monas, and thus underlines its connections with that work from which it
might otherwise be thought very different in form and subject matter (192). It
represents through the symbol of an ornamental portico interconnections
prevailing in the cosmos. The arch is studded with the fixed stars, the base
stones of the supporting columns are "terra" and "aqua," the upper corner
stones are "Calidum" and "Humidum," (cold and dry are perhaps omitted as
mere contrasts, by pravation, of these) midway the pillars show respectively
figures of Sun and Moon. From all these points proceed rays to the centre where
upon a plaque, in the form of the alchemical egg is drawn Dee's Monas - a
compound of the Planetary signs, with the devices "Est in hac monade quicquad
quaerunt Sapientes" and " acumine praeditus est instor omnium Planterum"; just
below appears the triangle Dee adopted as his personal monogram with the
motto "Quaternarius in ternario conquiescens" (i.e., the four elements of the
natural world which emerge from the triune deity - the triangle represents a
quaternion as well as a trinity according to Dee in the Monas, because God has
revealed it as the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet). The whole is surmounted
by the same self confident injunction as the title page of the Monas: "Qui non
intelligit aut taceat aut discat."

The work opens with a prefatory letter (193) addressed to Mercator, who, Dee
remarks, had long besought him to complete and publish "magnum illud opus
meum Apodicticum, de Arte nova (ut tu vocas)." This he had hitherto been
prevented from doing by a year of illness, "viresque etiam meas, nondum possee
tantu sustinere studii laborisqz, onus quantum illud, Herculeum pene (ut
perficiatur) requiret opus," and now in anticipation that his labours may bring
about his early decease, he appoints Pedro Nunez - with whom, and despite his
feud with Finaeus, and the disparaging manner Nunez had spoken of astrology in
de Crepusculis, Dee appears to have remained on terms of close friendship - to
be his literary executor. As evidence of his industry he gives the titles of eleven
works he has composed, "aliorum adhuc tacebo nomina." Two of these, De Nova
Navigationum Ratione lib 2 and De Religione Christano lib. 6, do not figure in
lists of his writings elsewhere (194). He offers the present work, in order that
"Tu ergo qui Naturae observantissimus esse Cultor soles: Naturae in istis
Aphorismis, scrutare virtutes verus, virtutes magnas, virtutes paucis vix credibiles
Sapientibus, at paucissimus notas." There follows the main body of the text,
consisting of 120 "aphorisms," aimed at explaining the basic principles of the
operations manifest in the workings of the physical universe.

Dee commences with the affirmation that the initial creation of all things from
nothing necessarily occurred in a manner contrary to Reason and Natural Law
(I), under whose dominion such creation, or its converse, destruction, of things
is not possible (195). But although this is beyond man's power, his science is yet
capable of performing great effects: "Mirabiles ergo rerum naturalium
Metamorphoses fieri a nobis in rei veritate possent si artificiose naturam
urgeremus" (II) (196). In Nature (III) there exists another aspect of its "Esse"
besides that which is "conspicua, notaque" which is "quasi seminaliter in naturae
latebris, extare Sapientes docere possunt." The manifestations of this, by which
it is effective are the rays that are emitted by every entity whatsoever, and fill
the universe with their influence "unde omnis locus mundi, radica continet
omnium reru in co actu existentium (IV). Both substance and accident give off
species, but the former of a more effective kind than the latter "et substantiaru
quidem illa quae incorporea & spiritalis est, in hoc munere longe superat illam
quae est corporea, ac est fluxis coagmentata elementis," for the more noble an
entity the more complete and perfect will be its species (V). Emitted rays differ
from one another as the things from which they emanate (VI) but similar rays
will produce a diversity of effects according to what it is they are acting upon
(VII). Their influence varies with context, their nature, known only through such
effects, is not in this sense i.e., regarded as described by the manifest qualities
they produce in other entities, absolute in itself but relational. To act upon
something else (VIII) a thing must have some resemblance to it, but also differ
from it "aut nulla est actio." Everything therefore in relation to other entities of
the universe "ordinem habet & convenientium" (IX) (197). A consideration of this
universal interaction which ensures the unity of things separated and permits
action at a distance (X) leads to the conclusion that (XI) Mundus iste est quasi
lyra, ab excellentissimo quodam artifice concinnata: cuius chordae, sunt huius
universitatis res singule, quas qui dextre tangere pulsareque noverit, mirabiles
ille eliciet harmonias."(198) It is the general structure of this universal life that
conditions the harmonies and the dissonances of the individual strings (XII). The
impressions of the senses are not the final cause of even sensible emissions of
species, their purpose is more fundamental, the senses are no more than
witnesses of these (XIII). Man's mind and spirit are not isolated entities but form
an organic part of this total system, they are directly influenced by this immanent
radiation, which affects all the senses "& praecipae in spiritu nostro imaginali...&
in nos mirabilia agunt" (XIV).

Since the circle (XV) is the patter of perfect eternal motion, and since there is
nothing nobler nor earlier created in the natural world than light, "Corporum
igitur praestantissimorum et perfectissimorum haec duo maxime propria erunt."
Moreover since the mark of existence (XVI) in the universe, a thing's primary and
inseparable property, is to be in motion - "quicquid in mundo est, continue
movetur aliqua motus specie," and since all motions are interdependent, the
controlling and superior source of activity is that of the heavenly bodies (XVII);
all other natural motions "et excitantur et ordinatur" by them.

The four elements (199) form the basic constituents of the inferior world. Their
effects are said, cryptically, to be principal, secondary and tertiary, and by
proceeding by artifice from one to the other men can produce diverse, even
contrary results (XVIII) (200). The combinations of the four qualities hot, cold,
moist and dry form the true natures by Temperaments or Complexions of all
things, which may be discovered by the art of graduation (XIX) (201). "Ex qua
elementorum proportione singulie humani Corporis partes, humores, et spiritus
constent (qua prope fieri potest) Astrologo est pervidendum." Their potentialities
lie in the seed, but their development is prompted and conditioned by the
heavenly influences (XXI) "Semen in se potentia nabet generationis cuiusq
integru et constantem ordinem: eo quide modo explicandum quo et concipientis
loci natura et Circumfusi nobis coeli superuenientes vires cooperando
conspirant." All motions in the universe are ultimately awakened by the Primum
Mobile as light awakens all the faculties in the mind (XXII).

While preserving a distinction between soul and body, Dee implies that they exist
in a symbiotic relation, and even the soul is not exempt from a general system in
which the operations of an intelligible causation may be traced; for hence (XXIII)
"Medicus per corpus sanat animam atque temperat, Musicus autem per animam
corpori medetur et imperat."(202) The powers he attributes to Nature he vividly
parallels with the extraordinary properties of lodestone (203) which God has
given to man as visible image of the general mechanism in the universe
otherwise too subtle to be perceived, which attracts or repels at a distance,
projects its "beams" through solid bodies, seeks always a fixed point in the
heavens (204) "alias alia euisdem Philosophici lapidis quasi miracula (divino
favente Numine) explicaturus." (XXIV)

The stars are like seals imprinting form on primitive matter (but differences in
the ease or difficulty of the impressing the relative elegance or lastingness of the
result are produced by variations in the matter (XXVI)), by means of rays "alii
sensibiles sive luminosi, alii, Secretiores sut Influentiae" which are all penetrating
(205) (XXV). Sensible rays can be reflected and refracted, without losing their
virtues (XXIX), and the whole system is conceived as finite for the Primum
Mobile (XXVIII) Dee compares to a huge concave mirror, reflecting inwards the
stellar effluences which are unable to pierce it anywhere - selecting as a proof an
argument from a final cause, for although there are other reasons, he writes, the
rays do not pierce this since they would be of no use beyond it.

The following sections (XXV-L) consist of an appeal for more and increasingly
accurate astronomical observations to be made, in the interests of the
philosopher and astrologer to whom it is of the utmost importance to know the
true sizes of the stars and planets and their correct distance from the earth at all
times; the information it is imperative to secure about the heavenly bodies if
their natures and influences are to be properly determined is discussed and Dee
touches briefly on the methods for calculating the distances and diameters of the
heavenly bodies. One suggestion here foreshadows the tragically futile
investigation he later embarked on with Kelly for he asserts "Stella quelibet
proprium habet nomen ex ipsius Dei impositione. Sic et naturam in se habet
propriam, qualis in nulla alias, eadem omnino invenire potest."(L)(206)

Returning to his general theme Dee asserts (LI) that at any point of space at any
instant of time, the total confluence of rays, which travel in straight lines, is such
that it can never be duplicated elsewhere (an absolute individuality is thus
attributable to all entities but one nevertheless made up of common factors,
mathematically assessable, insofar as the character of a thing results from the
affecting rays of which it forms the focal nexus). Natural Magic (LII) can perform
more than Nature does unaided, by mechanically disturbing these radiations, for
instance Catoptrics (LIII) teaches how to increase, diminish or otherwise modify
artificially the stellar effluences (207). Then after discussing the effect of
variations in angle on stellar influences and in asserting that "Periodus quascuoz
videmus naturae praepotentis inviolabili loge" (LXI) as diligent observers will
testify, Dee proceeds to set out a number of definitions of astronomical terms,
and to tabulate various factual data (length of the Natural day, the Solar year,
etc.) according to the latest values available. (Thus after giving Thebit ben
Currat's figures for the length of the year - 365 d. 6h. 9. 20s. - he adds
"Copernicus aute aliquanto maioram hoc nostro seculo esse, demonstrauit: per,
20 circiter secunda, scilicet." (203)) His exposition appears to assume the
Ptolemaic system since he affirms that the swiftest celestial motion is that which
goes round the celestial horizon every 24 hours (LVIII) - Aristotle's cosmic
"mechanics," his scheme of the interdependence of all motions in the universe
has clear affinities with Dee's general picture in this work - except that the text
does not allow one to conclude that Dee regarded the fixed stars as all at a
uniform distance from the earth, the reverse is almost hinted at, and hence set
in a single sphere - a belief he must anyway have abandoned when he formed
his theories of the new star in Cassiopeia in 1572, which theories indeed seem
hardly compatible either with the daily revolution of the fixed stars. Dee then
warns that what may be directly observable of the stars (LXXIII) are only signs
of their true potencies, which are not restricted to their "Motions, Forms and
Figures," which we may measure, but other properties and qualities are to be
sought out in them of which these are indicative as the invariable
accompaniments. In illustration he lists (209) various triadic correspondencies
such as Heaven, Earth and the Microcosm (Man); Sun, Gold, and the Heart,
which he claims reflect the true structural principles of the universe - a celestial
object in each case providing a pattern for the other two.

There follow sections on the various heavenly bodies. The mutual intervals of the
fixed stars remain eternally unchanged (LXXV) for on these the stability and
perseverance of the whole world depends and Dee argues (LXXCIII) "ab
omnibus ergo omnium ordinum fixis, divinissima per coelum distributis harmonia,
quantum quasi divinitate simul in terras derivari censendam?" He is very
concerned by the question of the retrogressions which seemingly destroy the
regularity of the planetary motions by an abrupt change in direction (LXXXVII).
He seeks to reconcile this with the universal harmony by a variety of reasonings,
to represent it as a merit not a blemish in the celestial economy, and to defend
the courses of the planets from the charge of being defective. He does not
however invoke Copernicanism to resolve the difficulty, this would not in any
case affect the relative positions they assume in regard to the earth in which Dee
is from an astrological standpoint perhaps mainly interested here (he concludes
that during such periods the tendency of their "influences" must be considered
as reversed (210)). The sun is accorded a position of especial dignity "Ut Sol
singula coelestia corpora, sua superat magnitudine, sic coelestis luminis quasi
fons perennis ac immensus est: calorisqz nobis sensibilis, ac vitalis, praecipuas
effector," and since heat and light and motion are the signs of the powers of
heavenly bodies, and the sun, exceeds all others by his light (a very different
conclusion from Digges's conjectures on the possible magnitude of the stars, but
Dee's interests are here "astrologically" orientated) "et Luna proprii motus
pernicitate reliquos omnes vincit" (CII), these two are therefore the dominant
heavenly influences; "Solem et Lunam omnium in elementali mundo nascentium
& vivantium, tum procreationis tum conservationis, praecipuas (post Deum) &
vere physicas esse causas...ex his fit, manifestissimum."(CVI)(211)

In conclusion Dee is at pains to point out, in defence of the goodness of creation

- and showing the philosophical considerations guiding his physics - that the
inaccurately termed "maleficent stars" only draw out, or throw into relief evils
(deficiencies) which may be already present in the constitution of what they act
upon, "ipsa enim Sidera, perse, nihil operantur mali" (CXII) (212). The central
position of the book is reaffirmed "Omnis res quantimoz exiguq in mundo
elementorum existens, totius coelestis Harmonie est Effectus; sive exemplu,
quodda et imago," (CXIV) directly echoing Alkindi's "Omnis vero res quamvis
modice in mundo elementorium agens totius coelestis harmoniae est effectus"
(213) - and various calculations are given to exhibit the vast number of the
significantly differing planetary conjunction and other aspects, possible, and the
whole work is rounded off with two Greek aphorisms, which may be rendered
"Did these elemental sympathies not exist, no knowledge would be possible to
men: "ut nos Mercurius ille Termaximus docuit" and "It is in these aspects of the
Deity, and the emanations from them that uphold the orderly continuity in
naturally occurring things throughout the universe."

Additional light on the theories Dee advocates in this work is provided by one of
Jofrancus Offusius', which Dee declares in the Preface to his General and Rare
Memorials of 1577 was a direct plagiarism of his position employing without
acknowledgement data he had supplied to substantiate this. Dee there prints
three letters from Offusius containing requests for information, adding "he being
moreover here conversant with, and depending upon this our Bryton
Mathematician [i.e., himself] above a whole year." Offusius like Dee was an
original and independent practical astronomer and mathematician, like him he
had issued his own Ephemeris (in 1557), in which, abandoning the Alphonsine
reckoning he had relied largely upon his own system and new observations
(214). The de Divina Astrorum facultate, in laruatam Astrologiam of which Dee
complains was not published until 1570, at Paris, but its dedication (like that of
Dee's Monas it is addressed to the Emperor Maximilian) is dated 1556. Beginning
"Pendere haec inferiora e superioribus, illa vero a causa causarum nemine recte
Philosophantium dubium esse reor (invictissime rex)," he declares that astrology
should have nothing in common with superstitions, blind and occult divinations:
"Nostra ars aliud non est, quam ab inspectione operis divini, longa experientia
collecta norma et regula, nos incitans ad Opificem ipsum, nu uam satis
magnificandum. In qua partim Physice, partum Mathematice procedemus, in
dubijs verisimilia amplexantes, speramusque ut etiam scientiae nomine digna in
posterum fiat, olim non immerito contempta: nam ante, et si male inspecta,
tamen convenians, firma et a ratione non declinans notitia est."(215) He rejects
Ptolemaic astrology calling for a new system admitting only "reason" and
experience as its foundations - and which would be, in fact, equally compatible
with new astronomical theories. He has no faith in predictions made at present,
the immediate task as he sees it is the accumulation over a lengthy period of a
mass of highly accurate observations of celestial movements and terrestrial
changes, which only could serve as a firm basis for the genuine science he hopes
astrology may become. Nature he regards as fundamentally geometrical through
all its structure and operations, and he devotes his work largely to suggesting
methods for the quantitative assessment of the powers exercised by celestial
bodies, which he assumes emit the four qualities - themselves, essentially inter-
related on the pattern of the regular solids - but in amounts which may be
calculated from mathematical consideration of their aspects, elevation, and
direction, at any time. The book is full of tabulated, astronomical and physical
analyses and data, bearing on this hypothesis direct measurement in the main
pre-ponderating over Pythagorean speculation - offering what from this point of
view, might well be taken as a supplement, containing the exact scientific and
mathematical knowledge underlying Dee's general statement in his Aphorisms.

Dee's work is founded on a doctrine of emanations; a concept frequently given a

position of high importance both in metaphysics (as in most "neo-Platonic"
systems - as popularised for instance, by "Denys the Areopagite," all creatures
achieved their "being" and "nature" from their reception, to varying extent, of
God's "super-essential" emanations) and physics and physiology. From a very
early period it had proved useful in "explaining" numerous common, but
otherwise mysterious phenomena. Empedocles had sought in the action of rays,
and the mechanical causation they seemed to allow, an interpretation of
sensation. Traces of the theory could be found in the Platonic dialogues - as
when "the effluences of existent things" are spoken of, and colour defined as "an
affluence of figures commensurate with sight and sensible."(216) It was a
necessary assumption if astrology were to be admitted to the ranks of the
natural sciences; thus Ptolemy declares, as his starting point that "a certain
power emanating from the eternal ethereal substance is dispersed through and
permeates the whole region about the earth" (217) (Dee however does not seem
ever dogmatically to have accepted the "fifth element" to which Ptolemy refers
here as a source of such power, or regarded the celestial emanations as being
utterly distinct from those which any other entities of a sub-lunar kind might
emit. A recurrent theme for instance of the works of his friend Mizaldus the
physician who, quite conventionally regards animal spirits as "ethereal" i.e., of a
refined material substance, and similarly it would seem the radiated forces acting
upon the world, is that of the harmony, and likeness, between the heavens and
the human body, and the measures to be taken for "conciliating" the spirits of
the stars and the vital spirits ruling the individual's constitution). It was also
common dogma of the alchemists - employed to account for the generation of
different metals in the earth (218). The qualities of the magnet which fascinated
the attention of Dee - and many others - seemed a confirmatory example of the
presence of such unseen radiations for which Light was taken as the visible
pattern. In the seventeenth century Thomas Browne still finds it indispensable to
complete the theories of natural philosophy but has regretful doubts as to the
possibilities of experimental investigation in this sphere: "And truly the doctrine
of effluxions, their penetrating natures, their invisible paths and unsuspected
effects are very considerable, for besides this magnetical one of the earth,
several effusions there may be from divers other bodies, which invisibly act these
parts at any time, and, perhaps through any medium; a part of philosophy but
yet in discovery, and will I fear, prove the last leaf to be turned over in the book
of nature."(219)

At almost every point parallels and similarities with early or late neo-Platonic
writings can be found in Dee's work - in his emphasis on light as the pattern of
the radiations that form and maintain the world (220), his exaltation of the sun
as the principle single agent, in this half spiritual, half physical scheme (221), his
continuous references to "Magic" as an analogy of the world's coherence (222)
and so on. The primary source, however, for the world scheme Dee develops in
the Aphorisms as also for other aspects of his thought would seem to have been
the writings of the 9th century Arab Alkindi (particularly that On Stellar Rays), an
important figure in the history of development of neo-Platonic "philosophical
science."(223) Alkindi's name was of course frequently conjured with by ignorant
astrologers (224) who could have had but little knowledge of his works which
remained with a few exceptions unprinted. Many of them had been translated by
Gerardus of Cremona, and thereafter circulated fairly widely, the errors of Alkindi
on the magic art had been successively condemned at Paris and Oxford in 1348,
1363 and 1376. Pico had cited approvingly the de radiis stellicis and Ramus drew
upon the de Aspectibus for his own Optics, while Dee possessed - and had
access to others - a number of treatises of Alkindi in MS (225).

Alkindi, beyond all others of his time, would seem to have possessed a profound
knowledge of Greek science and philosophy (though it is possible he was only
able to read the texts in Syriac versions), he was associated with an important
school of translators and was responsible for many Arabic versions,
commentaries on, and studies of Hippocrates, Euclid, Ptolemy and a large
number of Aristotle's works, including the spurious Theology which introduced
the thought of Plotinus in Aristotelian dress, to the Arab world. In his writings he
sought, in familiar neo-Platonic fashion to effect an amalgamation of Aristotle's
thought with that of Plato; thus in the treatise on the Intelligence and
Intelligibles, translated by Gerardus of Cremona, he writes as though they held a
single common doctrine on this matter (226) - though the scale of four degrees
of knowledge he distinguishes there seems orientated towards a thoroughly
Platonic-realist ontology (227). Astrology occupied a large place in his system,
for he viewed it as an intrinsic part of philosophy, having intimate relations with
physics, mathematics, and metaphysics, all of which contributed to its
foundations, and by his treatment, in his day, it has been justly observed, he "fu
forse il solo che carcasse di riduire a forma completamente razionale e
sistematica i principi e i metodi dell astrologia," (228) Flugel thus summarises his
view on predictions "allein wir durfen annehmen dass jene Weissagungen auf
wissenschaftlichem Grunde ruhten, in dem aus naturlichen Ursachen naturliche
Wirkungen abgeleitat wurden."(229) Or as Naudaeus wrote long before Alkindi
though not a Christian was not a "magician" "on the contrary he seems to have
no other design in his Books than to referre to Nature whatever was attributed to
Angels and Devils."(230)

His primary assumption was that all things in heaven and earth, and this was an
inseparable and essential effect of their existence, emitted "forces," susceptible
of quantitative analysis but in their effects similar or qualitatively related to their
originals - fire, colour, sound were examples of such visible radiation, the action
of the magnet (which Dee cites), and the appearance of images in a mirror
(which Roger Bacon uses in a similar argument), were examples of the operation
of emanations unobservable directly. He adopts as does Bacon and perhaps Dee,
the Platonic account of vision (an instance of what seems simply a physiological
theory but may almost invariably be taken as symptomatic of more general
metaphysical and epistemological views), defending the thesis of the visual ray
issuing from the eye, as a necessary factor in "seeing" for the reason that like
only responds to like, that the eye is created in imitation of the sun etc. and on
the psychological grounds that men need not "notice" things, and never "notice"
all of those things, which are materially present in the "possible" visual field, and
outer light from which enters the eye (231). These theories of course, as has
been noticed, played an important part in magical teachings and indeed the
treatise On Stellar Rays in which he most fully developed them and which was
widely popular among Renaissance neo-Platonists (232), sometimes passed
under the title of The Theory of the Magic Art.

Of these "forces" and of physics generally, he attempted mathematical analysis -

a science, which he insisted was necessary to be mastered before any approach
was made to logic or philosophy. Nature he held was susceptible of such a
treatment for he saw in Euclidean geometry the pattern of physical rationality
and simplicity, and "deus...omnia condidit, quae facta sunt, secundum quod
perfectius et convenientius fuit."(233) Thus he sets his face against ascribing
hypothetical "qualities" to the various celestial bodies, and building speculations
on this basis, for these are only secondary effects apparent in earthly things
produced by the position, motion and figures of the asterisms, which are the
truly constitutive factors in their nature as agents and can be exactly and
mathematically described: so opening a work on meteorological effects
consequent upon heavenly change, he lays it down, that it is not proper, as
genuine philosophers recognise, ever to say "talis planets in suc ease calidus, aut
frigidus, aut humidus, aut sicous, nec talis pars signorum in substantia sua est
calida aut frigida, aut humide aut sicca, hec subiecte, generationi vel corruptioni,
nec divisioni, nec secudum se faciunt generationem nec corruptionem sed motu
suo super epicyclum: directione, et retrogradatione, statione vel elevatione, vel
depressione vel elongatione a climatibus quolibet tempore: ot ita viderunt sua
corpora fieri maiora et minora causa appropinquationis et elongationis suae a
nobis."(234) In his treatise on optics, though experiment and observation play
their part he presents the science as one that can be developed and
geometrically and deductively. He rejects the Aristotelian position that light is a
mere affection of a medium, arguing that since things seem dimmer at a
distance and any source of light will illuminate more intensely a smaller space
than a large, light must be a "limited substance" (235) and declares that the
degree of illumination obtained from any source and the size of the body or
space lighted is subject to a fixed law of simple mathematical proportion (236).
But he also rejects the pseudo-Euclid's view that the rays are like mathematical
lines, and that in consequence small objects might fall between them and remain
uneven, he adopts instead the double view that light can at once be treated
strictly geometrically as though this were the case, while in fact being a physical
and not merely intelligible entity its single rays possess a certain breadth, and
thus merge into each other to form a continuum. The form of demonstration to
which light could be shown experimentally to be subject, he extended, taking
light as a universal pattern of these processes, to cover all varieties of supposed
emanations, in a system very close to that reproduced in Dee's aphorisms. It is
worth noting that the inspiration of geometry as applied to optics, produced
many similar theories among Platonists in the Renaissance, as in the case of
Jean de Pene who treats it as a universal protoscience. The view of light as the
type of all various emanations which controlled the cosmic processes also had
important metaphysical aspects to which Dee was fully attentive, as for example
appears in Patrizzi's system with its four elements - "spatium," "lumen," "color"
and "fluor" - in which space and light - incorporeal essences - maintain the
cohesion and unity of the universe, light being the primal object of knowledge,
and which penetrates all things uniting them with God, its original source (Nova
de Universis Philosophia in qua Aristotelica Methodo non per motum sed per
Lucem et Lumina ad primam causam acenditur). Both Patrizzi's and Dee's
thought, have in this respect of course also clear affinities with the cosmology of
the cabalists - which represented all things as emanating from Ensoph (the first
light) in a descending hierarchy of ten sephiroths, or luminous circles, and four
worlds, and in which matter itself is regarded as a crystallisation or condensation
of the rays of light and all things in consequence as being essentially spiritual
and divine.

The other important single source for the Aphorisms as Burton noticed (237) is
Roger Bacon's doctrine of the multiplication of species, which had been taken in
part from Alkindi, whom Bacon often praises (though differing from him upon
some few points, thus he prefers to follow Alhazen in ascribing to light a finite
speed and more immediately perhaps from the teachings of his master
Grosseteste who had summed up his whole natural philosophy in his theory of
light, which Bacon would seem to have adopted as providing a pattern for the
mathematical workings of nature. Grosseteste had exercised considerable
influence on the Franciscans in Oxford, where he lectured from 1229-35, and
where his doctrine of light as the form of corporeity had become current. Light,
which extended to the firmament and expanded owing to its powers of self
multiplication he had taken as the active principle in the universe, which
endowed passive matter with form, and dimensions, as a consequence all
entities whatsoever, he declared in de lineis, anguleis et figuris, threw out
particular virtues which acted upon sense or other material objects along
geometric lines (238). According to Bacon "Every efficient cause acts by its own
forces which it produces in the matter subject to it, as the light of the sun
produces its own force in the air....This force is called likeness, image, species,
and by many other names....Substance is more productive of it than accident,
and spiritual substance than corporeal. This species causes every action in the
world, for it acts on sense, on intellect and all the matter in the world for the
production of things, because one and the same thing is done by a natural agent
in whatsoever it acts because it has no freedom of choice....In those beings that
have reason and intellect although they do many things with deliberation and
freedom of will yet this action, namely a production of species is natural in them,
just as it is in other things. Hence the substance of the soul multiplies its own
force in the body and outside the body and any body outside of itself produces
its own force, and the angels move the world by means of forces of this kind...."
He records that he "saw a physician made blind while he was endeavouring to
cure a patient with disease of the eyes because of the multiplication of the
species coming from the eyes of the patient," and instances images in a mirror,
as an example of how a species is rendered visible which must nevertheless be
presumed to have filled space unobserved between the source and the mirror
and the mirror and the eye.

The propagation of species is subject to geometrical treatment it occurs along

straight lines (except in animate bodies where "the force of the vital principle
regulating the path of the species" compels it to follow the tortuous tracks of the
nerves), with an intensity varying according to the angle; it is greatest when
arriving perpendicularly "because the perpendicular is shorter and stronger and
therefore nature works in a better way in it"; that force is more concentrated
along such a path he holds is clear from the observation that a man will die from
a perpendicular fall while he can escape all injury if during the fall he can only be
diverted from this straight path however near the ground. Some invisible species
may penetrate all things as the vision of the lynx, Aristotle and Boethius testify,
passes through walls, but they are nonetheless refracted according to the density
of the medium, and some may be reflected. This is the opportunity for human
science to bend them to its own purposes, as Dee also points out, for "by means
of art aiding nature things can be done which the world cannot receive as I shall
explain in perspective science," "so Alexander instructed by Aristotle, as the
histories state, by means of large polished bodies bent back upon a city the
poisonous species of a basilisk placed on the wall to slay the army"; burning
mirrors are a further example of such devices.

As extended to astrology the theory has very close affinities with Dee's
aphorisms. Every point, Bacon shows in a diagram, can be represented as the
apex of a series of pyramids of forces having as their bases the extent of the
agents from which these emanate. Bacon affirms that from a general analysis of
natural causes into "reciprocal influences of forces, as of light and other
agents....it can be shown that nothing within the range of things can be known
without the power of geometry," and lays it down that "a mathematical quantity
and a physical one are the same as regards being and regards reality but they
differ only in the point of view"; and, summarising his whole theory, "By these
principles and the like given by means of geometry a man can verify every action
of nature because every truth in regard to the action of an agent in a medium or
in matter in general, or on celestial bodies and on the whole machine of the
world is derived mediately or immediately from the principles just stated."(239)

One further influence should perhaps be mentioned here, though it is perhaps of

less importance as regards the Aphorisms, than as providing another element in
the background of Dee's thought contributed by the writings of those of his
forerunners he chiefly studied. This is the writings of Urso which besides their
importance for Dee, are in themselves striking illustration of how attempts could
be made by platonists to impose their particular rational scheme even on such
apparently unpromising fields as medical science. Dee in the preface to General
and Rare Memorials speaking of the Aphorisms - the "Chief Crop and Roote, of
Ten yeres his first Outlandish and Homish Studies and exercises Philosophicall,"
lists a number of persons, Mercator, Alkabitius, Urso from whom "more envious
and spitefull false devisers" have since then accused him of having stolen them.
Later he addressed a long Latin letter to Camden again chiefly to rebut the
charge which he seems to have felt acutely, raised by Robert Turner of Oxford
that his work was a plagiarism of the de Elementarum ca mixtionibus and the
Aphorisms of Urso (240). The accusation as regards Dee's present work is rather
insubstantial, but Dee was nevertheless well acquainted with, and not unaffected
by the treatises of Urso generally (241).

Urso (242) who flourished at Salerno - which had perhaps enjoyed an

uninterrupted tradition of Greek medicine from classic times, and had from the
ninth century been a centre for medical science and the dissemination of
translations of Arabic and Greek texts, has been described as "the most
important contributor of twelfth century Salerno, and perhaps of the Salerno
school in general to philosophical literature."(243) Though his writings evidence
knowledge of various works of Aristotle it is Plato who is his professed master
and whom he describes as "summus philosophorum" (244). He propounds
theories of the possibility of the mind's ascent to God, of an intellectual realm
paralleling the natural world in which spiritual faculties act, though these also
can produce direct effect upon bodily things, stresses in his physiology and
theory of knowledge the active part played by the soul (245) and develops a
"rational" theory of magical incantations, which he believes to be of great utility
in medicine, from theories, of a type previously discussed, of the necessary link
between the word and the thing, in connection with which he treats of the
relations between different languages, and argues from the example of the
effects produced by rhetoric, that words act directly on the soul which in turn will
produce changes in the bodily condition (246). His well developed natural
philosophy was designed principally to be of service to medical theory and
practise where his specialist interest lay. He stresses the necessary connection
between theory and experience, these being but different aspects of a single
reality, and at frequent points draws upon observation and experiment to
support his deductions. His writings, particularly his Aphorisms, offer a
thoroughgoing attempt to give in some respects exact meanings based on
operations or verifiable observation to many commonly loosely employed
concepts in the sciences.

Of his book of 169 Aphorisms, with extensive glossulae he writes "weil ich von
gewissen verborgenen Dingen nur sehr wenig in lateinischen Schriften fand,
sodass man sich daven keine ausreichande Erklarung beschaffen kann, schreibe,
ich weiter das Buchlein von den "Aphorismen" womit fur geheime and
verborgene Dinge ein neuer Ratgeber (conciliator) erscheinen soll."(247) All
things, he holds, are at once active and passive, "aktiv wie die Natur passiv wie
die Substanz," the degree possessed by anything, its energy, by which it controls
the relatively more inert, is a result of the degree of "motion" it has in itself or is
capable of attaining, of which he distinguishes six types (248). Rejecting the
Aristotelian position that the four elements cannot be analysed into anything
further different in kind (249) he resolves these into combinations of the four
qualities (from an examination of which he hopes to come to an understanding
of all diseases and their therapies), resolving all these in turn into different
varieties of motions, in a primary undifferentiated matter, with regard to some
centre, on which depend, and from the knowledge of which motions he thinks
may be deduced, all the observable qualitative effects of heat, cold, moisture
and dryness (250). As all things are built up from these he offers a general
picture of the world in which "alles ist Bewegung" and this "in mechanistische
Sinn."(251) He applies his views to astrology, though not in great detail, deriving
the effects of the stars from the motions they communicate by radiating forces,
to the sublunar world, but his treatment though not in opposition or radically
different to Dee's can hardly in itself have served the latter as a text to build his
work upon (252), though in many other respects his importance for such a neo-
Platonic philosophy of nature as Dee attempted to evolve is obvious.
Unfortunately however practically nothing, beyond the fact of his deep interest in
it, that he occasionally practised it, and seems to have been preoccupied
specially with Paracelsus' theories, is known of Dee's views on medicine, where
the direct influence of Urso might be expected to be most clearly apparent.

In conclusion then, Dee's little work is of a kind that might be held to say a great
deal or practically nothing at all according to the area of significant connotation
and reference allowed to the concepts out of which he chose to build his
cosmology. In its day it was fairly widely known - an indication of this is the
many charges of plagiarism Dee mentions as brought against it - though it was
overshadowed, publicly and perhaps in Dee's own estimation by his later Monas
Hieroglyphicas - (253) a work at once more needlessly obscure and less useful in
its possible applications. The work is perhaps best regarded as an honest
attempt by a practising scientist, who was also something of a philosopher, to
give an ordered account of the total operations of the universe, as known by or
deducible from accepted observations, in terms of the most general, simple and
uniform concepts available. Similar essays, offering contemporarily satisfactory
syntheses have appeared in all ages and it does not compare unfavourably with
many of these; its terminology and assumptions have little enough meaning
today for the philosophy from which they derive and which in their day lent them
validity as "explanation," is extinct, but it is no more a work of pure imagination
than are perhaps even its modern equivalents. The structure of the cosmos as
Dee revealed it is of an admirably severe, and stark, simplicity, in the general
outlines, and one which in many of its details he believed was susceptible of
verification by rationally directed quantitative experiment, his claim that all
things, particularly the "emanations," are to some extent "spiritual," does not
lead him to regard their manner of acting as any the less describable on purely
"mechanical" principles (rather he sees in the "mechanism" a manifestation of
the "order" that derives from God), while it allows him to posit a closer two-way
interaction between body and soul, than a more rigid dualism could tolerate. A
guiding principle of his work (and significantly it is one that pervasively informs
the Platonic dialectic) is that the essences of things are not primary elements but
have structures that can be explicated. He sets out to seek for more uniform
more intelligible factors in nature than could be obtained by accepting the world
as it presents itself, as a farrago of coexisting, conflicting, sense-experienced
qualities, or by merely examining these same elements as they were rearranged
but not fundamentally altered nor their confusing diversity much diminished in a
conventional Aristotelian picture. Dee might well feel that the handful of ultimate
unanalysed "essences" and "virtues" he was left with at the end - as emitted by
the various planets - still represented a gain in simplicity, for they were limited in
number, propagated in identical manner, and their combinations and varying
intensities, producing all diverse phenomenal effects, could, he seems to have
believed, be mathematically represented. (He seems aware that only loosely
could qualities be directly ascribed to the planets - that Saturn might be said to
be cold, dry, and melancholy only because the incursion of its species might be
observed as usually associated with an increase of frigidity and siccity in natural
objects and of black bile in men, but that these were only the secondary
apparent effects of a more fundamental interaction between the planetary
species and the recipient, and all that could be certainly predicated of the planets
and their emanations were those factors which could be directly measured -
aspects, distance, direction - which would vary exactly as their effects, and could
be taken as indications of the type and degree of their more occult virtues and
the apparent results of these). For its time, certainly for Dee and others of a
similar bent of mind, the scheme exposed in the Aphorisms could claim to
function as a satisfactory mental framework for the consideration of nature,
theologically and scientifically unobjectionable, offering encouragement and no
obstruction to experimental investigations, features which might justly render
any work worthy of considerable praise.

Chapter VI.

NUMBERS - LOGISTICAL, FORMAL AND APPLIED.

(THE GROUND OF ARTES - THE MONAS - ALCHEMY; 1558-1564)

I. Accession of Elizabeth - Dee taken into favour - commences period of fame

and success.

II. Work on binomials and other lost mathematical writings - the revision of the
Ground of Artes - Recorde and Dee - their similar views and interests - the
popularity of this work - a text book for self instruction from the first elements
onwards - its defence of mathematics and plea for wider instruction in it - this
knowledge the distinguishing criterion between men and animals (n.21) - its
utility - Dee's additions to the G.A.

III. Dee journeys to Continent to print his books - letter to Cecil - copies out the
Steganographia - Trithemius' mysticism and magic and their influence on Dee
(n.35).

IV. Publication of the Monas - Dee's perpetual high regard for this work - its
contemporary and subsequent fame (n.39) - contrasted with Aphorisms - its
intentional obscurity - the tradition of unfolding secret wisdom as obscurely as
possible - the prefatory letter to Maximilian - geometrical figures the key to
natural and spiritual truth - the signs of the planets - the forms of letters of the
alphabet - the striking results Dee anticipates from this study.

V. Its theme and underlying assumptions - the "Monad" as God - connections

with neo-Platonic doctrines - reasons for choice of this particular hieroglyph -
Mercury - Aries - relations of Monas to cabalistic theory - and the later search for
a real character.

VI. Analysis of the text - the point and the circle - generation of planetary signs
and astronomy - the cross - the semi-circle - numerology of the figure and
alchemical sections - Dee's work well within an accepted tradition.

VII. The Monas interpreted as an alchemical treatise - Dee's alchemical writings

and manuscripts (n.136) - Alchemy as a spiritual science - consequent
repercussions on its physical investigation - Dee and practical alchemy - official
Elizabethan attempts at transmutation - encouragement given by reported
successes (n.156).

VIII. No accepted theories of matter excluded possibility of transmutation - Dee's

view of generation of substances - experiment also holds out hopes of success -
no practical basis for distinguishing the elementary from the composite.

IX. Two currents in alchemical theory - the qualitative: all substances tend to
their perfection - its plausibility and superficial utility for laboratory investigation -
its fundamental barrenness - the quantitative - numerology and geometrical
atomism - Platonism - Al Jabir - Newton and Boyle's corpuscular theories - these
though of apparent "modernity" belong organically to this tradition - Dee also
within this current of speculation - his novel insistence on the importance of
exact measures of weight in all chemical investigation - his annotations to
Pantheus' work - his interpretation of change of qualitative form through number
and motion and group patterns of particles - Alchemy for Dee a valid though
inferior, field of applied mathematics since mathematics should be studied as
pure reason and employed to assist the mind's ascent to God.

Chapter VI (cont)

I. On the accession of Elizabeth, Dee rose into secure official favour (1). He was
under the immediate patronage of Leicester of presented him to the Queen, and
who, on her behalf, invited him to employ his skill in astrology in advising upon
an auspicious day for the Coronation (2). He was also, according to his own
account written for Elizabeth's Commissioners, to whom it seems unlikely he
would overstep the truth, offered the choice of any ecclesiastical dignity he cared
to accept; there were a number of bishoprics and deaneries then vacant. But his
usual disinclination for taking up any position which limited his freedom of
movement and tied him to a routine of specific activities - which was only
overcome when, in his last years, extreme poverty compelled him to accept the
Wardenship of Manchester College - led him to refuse this advancement. "My
most humble and thankfull answer to her Majesty by the same messenger was
that cura animorum annexa did terrifie me to deale with them."(3)

The next twenty-five years, during which, apart from brief visits abroad he was
throughout resident in or near London (4), represent perhaps the most fruitful
period of Dee's life, both as regards mathematical productivity and his other
multifarious practical activities as a semi-public figure. His writings, printed or
manuscript, however, hardly reflect the true measure of his occupation at this
time. His position remained rather that of a private tutor or consultant in which
capacities he is to be found associated with a wide range of personalities and
contemporary endeavour. His services were frequently engaged for individual
voyages of discovery and by the Muscovy Company, by aristocratic amateurs of
chemistry as well as uninstructed instrument makers and empirically minded
experimenters of an emerging technical class; and by the Queen, who sought his
advice on legal questions, such as the extent of the royal titles, or on general
measures affecting the whole Commonwealth - as the suggested Calendar
reform and also on more personal matters, as when she wished for expert
reassurance after the appearance of the new star in Cassiopeia, or after the
finding of a wax likeness of herself stuck with pins. In addition his general
antiquarian interests led him into correspondence with Camden and Stowe; and
Hackluyt reproduced his opinions on certain geographical and historical matters.

II. In 1559 Dee composed a work of which our sole knowledge is his mention of
it in a note to the 1570 Euclid (5), for he does not include its title in the general
lists of his writings that he drew up, or elsewhere refer to it, and the manuscript
is now lost. His account is worth reproducing both as an indication of the
mathematical problems that were engaging his attention at this time, and also
since it provides a typical example of her delay in publishing his writings, either
because of material difficulties or personal diffidence and secretiveness, resulted
in Dee's researches being forestalled and rendered unnecessary by others,
whose investigations were proceeding along lines similar to his own. He, or
perhaps Billingsley, to whom he has supplied the information - though Dee on
other occasions adopts a disingenuous third person in speaking of himself -
records "Although I here note unto you this Corollary out of Lussas, yet, in very
conscience and of grateful minde, I am enforced to certifie you, that, many
yeares before the travailes of Flussas (upo Euclides Geometricall Elementes)
were published, the order how to devide, not onely the 6 Binomiale lines into
their names, but also to aide to the 6 residuals their due partes; and farthermore
to devide all the other irrational lines (of this tenth booke) into the partes
distinct, of which they are composed: with many other strange conclusions
mathematicall to the better understanding of this tenth booke and other
mathematicall bookes, most necessary were by M. John Dee invented and
demonstrated: as in his booke, whose title is Tyrocinium Mathematicum
(dedicated Petrus Nonnus An. 1559) may at large appeare. Where also is one
new arte, with sundry particular pointes, whereby the Mathematicall Sciences,
greatly may be enriched. Which his booke, I hope, God will one day allowe him
opportunitie to publishe: with divers other his Mathematicall and Metaphysicall
labours and inventions." The following year Dee produced another geometrical
treatise also dedicated to Pedro Nunez: de triangulorum areis libri demonstrati 3;
and a work on a subject which he later dignified with the name of Hypogoiodie -
de Itinere subterraneo lib 2. This art he defines in his tabulation of the branches
of mathematics appended to the Preface as one "which demonstrateth, how,
under the Sphericall superficies of the Earth, at any depth, to any perpendicular
line assigned (whose distance from the perpendicular of the entrance: and the
Azimuth, likewise in respect of the sayd entrance, is knowen) certaine waye, may
be prescribed and gone." The Preface states further that it was a particular
personal problem on which his advice was sought, that prompted him to the
invention of this art - an incident that reveals what might perhaps be described
as a characteristic feature of all his thought - his attempt to lend significance and
intelligibility to the isolated particular by reducing it to a form in which it could be
viewed merely as one of a series of cases arising from a mathematical
formularisation of the widest possible generality. He took up this subject he
records in order to satisfy "the request of two Gentlemen who had a certaine
worke (of gaine) underground: and their groundes did ioyne over the worke: and
by reason of the crookedness, divers depthes, and heithes of the way
underground, they were in doubt, and at controversie under whose ground, as
then, the work was." Dee at this time must also have been engaged on
preparing his augmentation of Recorde's Grounde of Artes which appeared in
1561 (6).

Robert Recorde (7) had died in 1558, in the King's Bench Prison, one year before
that other acquaintance of Dee's Cuthbert Tonstall, whose arithmetic, de Artis
Supputanli of 1522 had been the first work to be published in Britain devoted
solely to mathematics of the purely algoristic kind, to which school it had
provided a model (8). Recorde's outlook, with the exception of his "Plotinian"
astrological views, and interests, were largely similar to those of Dee (many
passages in his writings can be found that have bery close parallels in Dee's
comprehensive preface to Euclid); he was a classical scholar of repute; a
physician, an astronomer, a student of British antiquities (of the semi-mythical
variety) and of Anglo Saxon; his technical knowledge he wished to be usefully
directed to the public service (he was himself surveyor of Mines and Moneys
under Edward VI and Mary). His writings exhibit the same spirit as that which
informed the work of Leonard Digges (and, later on, of Leonard's son Thomas)
who complained that because the little known art of numbering was so essential
for practical craftsmen "yea chiefly those Rules hid, and as it were looked up in
strange Tongues, they doo profite (or have furthered), very little the most part:
Certes nothing at all the handmeater, Carpenter, Mason, wanting the aforesayd,"
and therefore was himself resolved to "publish in this our tongue very shortly (if
God give life) a volume contayning the flowers of the Sciences Mathematicall,
largely applied to our outward practise, profitably pleasaunt to all maner men of
this Realme."(9) Recorde's writings were devoted to meeting this very need, and
his vernacular textbooks of popular instruction and exposition of scientific
learning were among the most widely read, and are probably intrinsically the
best of the age. He had a deep faith in the potentialities of mathematics, not
only for the solution of fundamental questions of natural philosophy, but also in
the most diverse and perhaps surprising practical fields - such as civil law and
administration ("wherefore I may truly say that if any imperfection bee in
number, it is because that number, can scarcely number, the commodities of
itself" (10)). Like Dee also, he is inclined to speak of the assistance it offers in
metaphysical and theological speculations (11), a recurrent theme, however
utilitarian his immediate object, being

If Reason's reache transcende the skye,

Why should it then to earthe be bounde?

The witte is wronged and leadde awrye

If mynde be married to the grounde. (12)

He entertained tolerantly, at least, the hypothesis of Copernicus (13) and the

contents of his library show that like those of Dee his interests extended to semi-
magical sciences, to prophecy, and to alchemy (14).

The Grounde of Arts was first published about 1540 and appeared in over thirty
editions before the final publication in 1699 (15). In sharply characterised,
beguilingly dramatic dialogue between Master and Pupil it led the reader from
the very first elements of number to a competent knowledge of a wide variety of
forms of operation that he would find useful in commerce, technical crafts and
other practical affairs - a considerable achievement as no knowledge at all was
initially assumed, and as even the multiplication of two single figure numbers
greater than five was worked out by a painfully cumbrous process (16). Besides
assisting the general adoption of Hindu numerals, it played an important part in
regularising English mathematical symbolism of the day - it brought the + and -
signs into general use and in it the = sign makes its first appearance. As a
standard work of popular instruction it is frequently spoken of by contemporaries
with high praise - sometimes being coupled in this respect, significantly, with
Dee's Preface (17). John Mellis, a schoolmaster in Southwark who made
additions to it in 1582, writes in this preface that he himself "In this art....having
great delight, I had no other instructions at my first beginnings but onely this
Good Author's Booke," and that he undertook its revision "knowing that this
Author was the onely light and chiefest lodestone unto the vulgar sort of English
men in this worthy science that ever writ in our naturall tong."(18)

This work which Dee now chose to enlarge did not offer itself merely as a
textbook of mechanically performable numerical operations, delivered, as it were,
in vacuo, but also contained a general plea for the dignity and importance of
mathematics and the recognition of its rightful fundamental position in general
education. It laments the lack of respect, which it claims, is accorded learning in
England, but suggests that a revival of virtue and wisdom would follow upon an
increase of popular knowledge - from a comparison with the results that a similar
movement achieved in the reign of Sarron ("which was the first lawmaker of all
the West part of Europe" - in 2000 B.C. (19)) and his son Druys. The new
education it seems to envisage would utilise the works of the ancients while
remaining essentially independent of them as regards its foundations;
"Mayster...whe men will receave thinges from elder writers, and wyll not
examine the thynge, they seme rather willing to erre with theyr auncientes for
company, then to be bolde to examine their workes or wrytinges, which
scrupulositie hath ingedred infinite errours in all kyndes of knowledge, and in all
civile administration, and in every kynde of arte."(20) The highest place in the
new curriculum would belong to mathematics and its directly allied sciences
(others being derivative from these): "For whoso setteth small price by the witty
device and knowledge of numbering he little considereth it to be the chief pointe
(in manner) whereby men differ from all bruit beasts: for as in all other things
(almost) Beasts are partakers with us, so in numbring we differ clear from
them....he therefore that shall contemne number, he declareth himself as
bruitish as a beast, and unworthy to be counted in the fellowship of men" God
himself being "that true fountaine of perfect number which wrought the whole
world by number and measure."(21)

Recorde is at pains to point out, as Dee was also, what an infinite number of
benefits would follow from the attempt to reduce as many political, social and
economic questions to clear and undisputable mathematical forms. For it was
Arithmetic "by which not onely just partition of lands was made, but also
touching buying and selling, all assises, weights and measures were devised; and
all reckonings and accounts drawen, yea by proportion of it were the orders of
Justice limited, as Aristotle in his Ethicks doth declare, and the degrees of
Estates in the commonwealth established (22)....wherefore I may wel say that
seeing Arithmeticke is so many waies needful unto the first planting of a
Commonwealth, it must needs be as much required to the preservation of it also,
for by the same meanes is any Commonwealth continued by which it was
erected and established"; "Good sciences," he holds are "the keyes of the
lawes." He points to certain corrupted or neglected statutes that cause much
distress - such as that for measuring of land, the assize for bread and drink
(whose obsolescence has resulted in much cruel oppression of the commons)
and the assise of fire wood and coals ("and now how avarice and ignorance doth
canvase that Statute, it is too pitifull to talke of and more miserable to feele");
but there is a means to their restoration, for "these Statutes by wisdome and
good knowledge of Arithmetick were made, and by the same must they be
continued," (23) adding that he reserves a multitude of useful detailed
suggestions of this kind for the ear of the king.

Dee's revisions are not only diffused throughout the text, improving and
correcting it in detail, he also enlarged the scheme of Recorde's book to cover
operations with fractions, some more advanced computational rules and a
further variety of practical applications of arithmetic (24). He continued the
dialogue form (which later augmentors did not attempt to do, confining
themselves to tacking on various appendices), showing himself as expert in this
form of conversational exposition as Recorde had been (25), and works out in
detail some examples of the latter's generalisations about the application of
arithmetic to statutes (26). Part 2, in which Dee's hand is apparent though it may
be in substance Regarde's, breathes throughout the same spirit of earnestness to
promote general education and serve the commonwealth - it opens for instance
iwth the pupil's apologetic request for further instruction though he knows the
master is hard pressed with more important affairs. He receives the answer "If
my leyser were as greate as my wyll is good, you should not neede to use any
importunate crauing, for the attaynynge of that thinge, whereby I may be
perswaded that I shall anywaies profite the Commonwealthe, or healpe the
honest studyes of any good membres in the same."(27) Dee's contribution to
this practical vernacular handbook are a token example and indeed he regarded
the two productions as related (28) to what nine years later in the Preface to
Euclid he was to proclaim, on a far wider scale, were the virtues and utility of
mathematics.

III. About a year after his revision of the Grounde of Artes (during which period
our only item of information concerning him is that he compiled a series of
"tables" on the Hebrew Cabala) Dee journeyed again to the Continent, in order,
he wrote to Cecil (29), to seek the acquaintance of more advanced and skillful
mathematicians than he was able to meet with in England. His travels were
mainly in the Low Countries, and possibly Germany (though it appears that he
also visited Italy at this time (30)). Smith (31) declares that in September 1563
Dee was in the capital of Maximilian, which does not seem improbable in the
light of a letter written to him in 1564 by Bartholomoeus de Rekingen dicti
Caricter, Medici Caesarei, as to a personal friend (32), and the dedication of the
Monas to Maximilian (33). Another purpose of his visit was the purchase of books
and manuscripts unobtainable at home. These, he wrote, "have cost me all that I
could here with honesty borrow," in addition to the twenty pounds he had
brought out with him originally, for "God knoweth my zeale to honest and true
knowledg: for which my flesh, blud, and bones should make the marchandize if
the case so required." He asks Cecil for a further leave of absence from England;
he has been negotiating with Dutch printers "but lo, so falleth it now cute that I
cannot cumpas this my Entent on this wise, but am driven to deale with Printers
of high germany, whereby a longer tyme will run." He trusts that Cecil will not
"have me forthwith to reterne, My bokes unprinted and out of my hands." He
hopes Cecil will procure him "dulcia illa cosa" he requires for his studies "the
frute whereof my Cuntry et tota Resp. Literaria iustly shall ascribe to your
wisdome and honourable zeale, towards the avauncement of good letters, and
wonderful divine and secret sciences." That his visit had official approval is
indicated by the certificate he later received from Cecil stating that his time had
been well spent while he was beyond seas (34).

One work which Dee acquired on the Continent deserves special mention for the
considerable influence it later had upon him and the high importance he declared
it to possess, for he wrote in this letter to Cecil that he had found a book "for
which many a learned man hath long sought and dayley yet doth seeke," "the
most precious juell that I have yet of other mens travailes recovered." This was
Trithemius' Steganographia. He was lent a manuscript of it, of which he copied
the half in ten days continual labour, a Hungarian nobleman offering to complete
the rest, if Dee could remain in Antwerp and take charge of his studies for a
time. He carries his copy with him on his later journeyings in the Empire and the
great similarity between its cabalistic angelical doctrines, and the "Revelations"
he later received through Kelly, and between the incomprehensible language of
its conjurations and the celestial speech in which many of Kelly's communications
were delivered, indicates it as one of the chief "source books" for the occult
investigations into which Dee was led (35).

IV. In 1564 Dee published at Antwerp his Monas Hieroglyphica; he had been
mentally preparing it, he states in the preface, for seven years, and finally wrote
it completely in twelve days (Jan. 13-25th 1564). To the end of his life he set
great store by this work, presenting it to numbers of his acquaintances, and
apparently as did others later, constantly finding more in it than he had originally
consciously intended. He expounded it to Elizabeth (and seems to have wished
to do the same with Rudolph II), after which she "in most heroicall and princely
wise did comfort and encourage me in my studies philosophicall and
mathematicall," and declared herself ready to defend the book's reputation
"against such Universitie Graduates of high degree, and other gentlemen, who
therefore dispraised it, because they understood it not."(36) The cryptic nature
of its style and contents led to a cry of "magic" being raised against it (37), the
Queen herself being, said Dee in the Preface to General and Rare Memorials, "a
sacred witness...of the strange and undue speeches devysed of that
Hieroglyphicall writing." But it gained some fame in its day and subsequently a
translation was projected but apparently not completed by Thomas Tymme (circa
1600); Bongus drew upon it for his Numerorum Mysteriae of 1585 (38), it was
reprinted at Frankfurt in 1591 - the same year Bruno's de Triplici Minimi
appeared there, to which in some points it is not dissimilar - and in Zetzner's
Theatrum Chemicum of 1613 (reprinted 1659) and the symbol Dee had devised
in it was adopted and put to a variety of uses by later writers (39).

It is interesting to find Dee composing such a work as the Monas in this the most
actively practical, period of his life. Its title page indicates that it is intended to
be in conformity with and complementary to the doctrines set forth in the
Aphorisms, for though made from a different block, and much less crude in its
execution it is almost identical (the arch supporting the stars, its cornerstones
the four elements, the heavenly bodies shedding effluences, the central
hieroglyphic) with the title page of one edition of that work (40) and indeed Dee
specifically refers back to it at the end of his prefatory letter, citing Aphorism 52
as evidence that the present work is the product of no sudden fantasy, but has
been, in essence, occupying his thought for seven years. Nevertheless this work
is remarkably different in tone from his previous production, for here Dee is
dealing with signs and numbers in their purely "formal" aspect (in the sense in
which he employs that term in the Preface)(41).

But all the injunctions to exact observation of nature and to experimentation that
marked the Aphorisms are now abandoned, they are indeed almost belittled, and
held up as unnecessary; all attempt to describe some physically verifiable overall
scheme to explain the mechanism of the universe is likewise cast aside, or
emerges only secondarily; the few remarks in the Aphorisms in which the names
of the celestial bodies seem confused with their natures, have here grown into
the central theme, the cosmic riddle is solved by figures, numbers, and proper
names alone - the form of the letter, of the sign, is regarded not only as holding
the explanation of all heavenly mysteries and physical phenomena but also as
possessing efficient power over them. The work is in many ways a prelude to
Dee's speculations with Kelly, but though there are in this period indications of
the close attention he was giving to these subjects - in 1562 he had written
Cabalae Hebraicae Compendiosa Tabella - and his preoccupation with Trithemius
has already been noted - it was an interest that was not materially to affect his
life for some twenty years yet.

Throughout, Dee employs the most enigmatical and elusive form of exposition he
can commend. But in doing this he is working within a convention, and one
already noted in connection with the Cabalah. It grew up as a consequence of
the belief that there was a type of wisdom that was the prerogative of an elite
alone, to be communicated by personal intercourse, or, if in writing, only through
the medium of obscure riddles undecipherable to the uninitiated. The foreword
to the Steganographia explained how this tradition of secret knowledge conveyed
by hints, or parable, symbol and code, had been a recognized feature of ancient
thought, among the Greeks, and among the Jews. This position could call into
evidence the seventh epistle of Plato, where, referring to the Good it is said "any
man who ventures to write upon such subjects can know nothing about them in
my opinion," and where a theory of learning such matters is developed which
perhaps reflected Dee's willingness to expound in private from the text of the
Monas what he felt he could not state plainly there, "for this knowledge is not a
matter that can be transmitted in writing like other sciences. It requires long-
continued intercourse between pupil and teacher in joint pursuit of the object
they are seeking to apprehend; and then suddenly just as light flashes forth
when a fire is kindled, this knowledge is born in the soul and henceforth
nourishes itself."(42) Moreover, Diogenes Laertius had declared "Plato has
employed a variety of terms in order to make his system less intelligible tothe
ignorant," (43) a statement with a distant echo in Dee's conclusionof his
prefatory letter to Maximilian here, when he declares that it is usual, treating of
such subjects to intermingle false or meaningless figures and phrases among the
true to mislead the uninstructed (though how far this is the case with his own
Monas it is now probably beyond the power of human understanding ever to
determine). A host of examples might be gathered with a similar burden
reflecting this tradition in the main perhaps of a somewhat "Platonic" cast. Thus
Synesius develops the theme that to expose philosophy to the multitude is
wantonly to provoke men to despise divine matters (44). Says Clement "All those
in a word who have spoken of divine things, both Barbarians and Greeks have
veiled the first principle of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and
symbols, and allegories and metaphors and such like tropes," and goes on in his
next chapter to interpret the Pythagorean symbols as expressing the Mosaic Law
(45). Obscurity is a strongly recommended by Boethius when treating of "secret
doctrines" - he opens a philosophical "letter" on a theological matter with the
advice "prohinc tu ne sis obscuritatibus breuitatis aduersus, que cum sint arcani
fida custodia tum id habent commodi, quod cum his solis qui digni sunt
conloquuntur."(46) Roger Bacon quotes Cicero with approval that philosophy is
always "an object of suspicion and hatred" to the generality of men, and "I think
all things are more praiseworthy if they occur without the knowledge of the
public," adding himself "The wise have always been divided fromthe multitude
and they have veiled the secrets of wisdom not only from the world at large, but
also from the rank and file of those devoting themselves to philosophy."(47) His
nephew explains the banning of Pico's theses as the consequence of his
disregard in publishing them of such wholesome precepts for though they had
Alexander VI's approval in themselves, they "were more mete for secrete
communycacyon of lerned men than for open herynge of commune people,
which for lacke of connynge myghte take hurte thereby."(48) Ficino for similar
reasons held back the publication of his early translation of the Orphic Hymns,
though he sung them in private - they contained mysteries and power not fitted
to be generally divulged; and Thomas Tymme, in the "Epistle Dedicatory" to
Francis Baker he prapared for his projected translation of the Monas itself,
comments "He then shall be greatly overseene, that publisheth secret mysteries
to the multitude. Yea he shall breake the Celestiall Seale who shall make the
secrets of nature and art common...Secrets are no longer to be reputed secrets
when the multitude is acquainted with them."(49) In the following century Butler
commented satirically on the Hermetic Philosophy who writes works such as
Dee's Monas in which secret wisdom is quite shrouded in obscurity "He comes
forth in public with his concealed Truths as he calls them, like one that hath
stolen something under his cloak...But though he bury his Talent, he never fails
to write an Epitaph upon it that shall improve it more among the credulous than
if he had put it forth."(50)

The twenty-four theorems of the Monas are preceded by a dedicatory letter to

the Emperor Maximilian, which explains some of the objects of the book. Dee
states here that he rejects in his investigation all human authorities, relying
solely on God and Reason, though he claims, his work may well be used to
illuminate the writings of the ancient philosophers, and Hermes, Pythagorus,
Democritus and Anazagoras he will adduce as witnesses to his words (51). The
monad which lies in the centre of the centre has a certain terrestrial body, which
is instructed by divine power, wordlessly, and in which are joined the generating
influences of sun and moon. But the monad is more accurately represented by a
geometrical conception than by matter. Hence geometrical figures will partake
more of its true nature. The monad and its operations are to be understood by a
study of the form and construction of the planetary signs and the letters of the
alphabet; these themselves are primary to the material objects they serve to
designate and a knowledge of their generation from the monad is the key to all
the secrets of nature. This is so since its hieroglyph is the pattern of God's act of
creation, a comprehension of which - he cites St. Paul in evidence (52) - leads to
the vision of God's truth by natural observations, even in the absence of
scriptural revelation.

The signs of the planets Dee argues in the prefatory letter, are a clear example
of his thesis. They must be a divine creation themselves for they are eternal,
since different languages of men, or the passing of ages, affords no barrier to
the ready and universal understanding of them. "An non hoc Rarum, quaeso,
Astronomicos Vulgares Planetarum Characteres, (ex Mortuis, aut Mutis aut
saltem quasi Barbaris ad hanc hora Notis) Iam Vita imbui Immortali: & in omni
Lingua & Natione, proprias suas Eloquentissime explicare posse vires?" The
motions and positions of the planets, their astrological qualities, the secrets
hidden in the myths of the ancient Gods whose names the planets bear, are all
for Dee apparently embraced by, and implicit in, these signs; it is notable, Dee
remarks, that all mysteries are summed up in the single figure of Mercury, plus a
slight addition, which converts it into his hieroglyph. "Vere ergo, Ille, nobis totius
Astronomiae Restitutor & Instaurator nominari potest: et nostri Ieovae in hoc
genere Nuncius, vt Sacram hanc Scriptionis Artem vel Novam Conderemus Primi,
vel extinctam prorsus, & ex omni hominum Memoria deletam, eius Revocarimus
Monitis."(53)

That letters have similar properties he maintains with like arguments;

grammarians have taught that the position of the various letters in the alphabet
is related to their shapes, which indicates clearly the importance of these. The
shapes of the letters in turn are made up of combinations of a few geometrical
figures, his purpose, therefore, Dee declares, is to show "primas Mysticasque
Hebraeoru, Graecorum, & Latinorum literas: a Deo solo profectas, & mortalibus
Traditas (Quicquid humana jactare solet Arrogantia) Earumque omnium Figuras,
ex Punctis Rectis Lineis & Circulorum peripherijs (mirabili, Sapientis simoque
dispositis Artificio) prodijsse."(54) Every word and letter in the Mosaic law is
formed from the 100 (monad) and the "Chureck" (line) (55), an invention he
claims impossible for men to have made if they had not been guided by divine
inspiration. The fact of this construction and its deeper natural establishement he
holds to be proved by a text from Matthew (56). "Neq; mireris," Dee exclaims
rhetorically, "O Romanorum Rex Inelyte; Me, Alphabetariam Literaturam, magna
cotinere Mysteria, nunc obiter referre: Cum Ipse, qui omnium Mysteriorium
Author est, Solvs ad Primam & Vitiman, Seipsum Comparauit Literam....O,
Quanta, tum debeant esse, Intermediarum Mysteria?" (57) (However, Dee goes
on to point out, and it casts a sidelight on his theory of knowledge - that there
are two forms of Kabbala - the higher is innate in all men, uniformand divine, the
more vulgar makes use of Letters in its procedure, but is to be detected in
different forms in all letters and languages.)

The results of this study are as striking in their breadth and scope as the method
seems in its limitations. All geometrical difficulties, and all the problems which
puzzled Archimedes will be immediately solved by its application. "Musicus," he
demands "quo stupore Ille possit jure affici meritissimo; cum sine Motu Sono
Inexplicabiles Caelestesque hic Intelliget Harmonias?" Will not the astronomer
regret his experimentation, his endurance of cold and night, when by means of
this procedure within closed doors, at every, or any moment he can observe the
exact motions of the heavenly bodies without the aid of any machines or
instruments? The manual labours of the optician, by this science, are entirely
obviated "et Perspectivvs sui Ingenij Stupiditatem condemnabit, Qui, Vt juxta
Parabolicae Coni Sectionis Leneam (apte in gyrum circumactam) speculum
efficeret modis laborarit omnibus: quo propositam quamcunque (igni obnoxiam)
Materiam incredibili ex Radiis Solaribus vexare Calore; cum hic ex Tetrahedi
Sectione Trigonica, linea exhibeatur, ex cuius Forma Circulata, fieri potest
Speculum; quod (vel Nubibus Soli subductis) quosqunque Lapidis, vel Metallu
quodcuque in Impalpibiles quasi, vi Caloris (verissime maxima) vedigere potest
Pulveres." All medical lore too is to be found in the concise formulae of the
planetary signs (58). Dee ends this account of the marvels which may be
wrought by the science he here reveals, by expressing a fear lest he should have
spoken overplainly and allowed the vulgar to understand too much (59).

V. The text however affords no warrant for such alarm. It is more than
sufficiently obscure and cryptic, certainly so as concerns the notable practical
consequences to be extracted from its teachings. But before proceeding to a
brief resume, with some detailed comments, it will be of more value to examine
some of the underlying assumptions, principles and general mental attitude
which inform the work. First, as to Dee's concept of the "Monad" itself. For him it
represents God considered as the primal unity, the original concentrated
potentiality, to be represented intuitively by the point, from which all other
figures flow in orderly fashion. The complex symbol Dee arrives at from this
starting point is the Hieroglyph of the structure of creation, which is also
monadic, as it presents a simple coherent patter, and is a logical unfolding of its
source, so far as it represents the universe regarded as a hypostasis of God. His
view of God as the force standing over and above the point, or in the number
series above the One (and in arithmetical textbooks until the late eighteenth
century One is conventionally defined as not a number at all but as the principle
of number in general), and his partial equating of God with these entities from
which all other geometrical and arithmetical objects, which last are summed up
in the decad, emerge might be compared with the concept of God, as cause,
attributed to Pythagoras which Speusippus had formally imported into the
tradition of the academy (viewing the First Cause as a self-developing germ,
whose unfolding is expressed in numbers) who, it is said, like the Ionian school,
"fait tout sortir d'un germe primordial; seulement au lieu de prendre pour germe
un element materiel, il prend une chose intelligible, l'unite."(60) Dee's original
monad as Godhead, of which the simplicity rebuts all conceivable ascriptions,
beyond the statement of its Unity, is again similar to the One of the Parmenides
(a work which Proclus declared taught not merely an Ontology, but a Theology,
a declaration that served as a text, laying down a line for its interpretation for
many neo-Platonists of the Renaissance (61)) - a monad, Plotinus taught, that
stands beyond all existence, for it is the Essence and not Being (62). This
doctrine as Dee echoes it in its direct relation to number theory makes explicit
appearance in the writings of ancient mathematicians, such as Theon (63) and
Nicomachus (64) and is echoed in many passages, redolent with metaphysical
suggestion, in praise of One, or Unity, in Arithmetical textbooks, by Recorde and
others, in the sixteenth century (64). Macrobius traces the successive
emanations of Mind and Soul and lower entities proceeding fromit declaring
"unum autem, quod movis id est, unitas dicitur, et mas idom et foemina est; par
idem atque impar; ipse non numerus, sed fons et origo numerorum. Haec monas
initium finisque omnium, neque ipsa principii aut finis sciens, ad suorium refertur
Deum, ejusque intellectum a sequentium numero rerum, et potestatum,
sequestrat: nec in inferiore post Deum gradu eam frustra desideraveris Haec illa
est Mons ex summo erata Dee" (66) etc. The general term "monad" in the sense
Dee uses it, developed from this view, indicates not at all the atomic individual of
a Leibnizian variety, but the unity of a gropu; a concept that is the basis for the
description of God solely as the "Monas Monadum," which, says Proclus, is set
above even intelligence for this latter cannot be granted, the title of bare
unrestricted "Unity" which is here implied, since in knowing itself, the intelligence
is also the object of its own activity. This presentation of the "monad" which
emphasises it as being that of which any members of a group may be displayed
as particular functions rather than its character as a separately subsisting entity,
is quite explicit in Proclus, in whose writings Dee was profoundly and very
evidently versed: "Every order has its beginning in a monad and proceeds to a
manifold coordinate therewith and the manifold in any order must have such a
monad as its originative principle, for though the terms are mutually causative,
internally, the monad is that which is the cause of the series as a unity, and
hence must be prior to the individual terms, which appear as particular series
also then appear - as a plurality of natures dependent upon the universal nature
(67). The concept with its geometrical associations used analogically, early
makes its appearance in certain Christian writers as a manner of representing
God and thereafter was to hold a central position in the tradition of the Negative
Theology. Thus Synesius calls the Father "The first Monad of monads," who
becomes a glorious Trinity and generates all essences from himself and "La
source supreme se couronne de la beaute des enfants qui echappes au centre
retournent vers le centre" (68) (an image implicit in Dee's work). Thus Clement
writes "Stripping from concrete existence all physical attributes taking away from
it in the next place the three dimensions of space, we arrive at the conception of
a point having position," when, to attain perfect simplicity we must reject the
idea of position and the Monad that remains is God (69). In the sixteenth century
Reuchlin describing the generation of numbers expresses a similar view, citing
the Pseudo-Dionysius (70). Cornelius Gemma under the heading "Vunitatis diuina
potestas" writes "Nam & Pythagorae nihil est aliud numerus, nisi actus
seminalium rationem in unitate regnantium; Vnitas vero idipsum per quod
Entium quodlibet Vnum denominatur; quoque, velut seminario, & radice
sempiterna, rationes proportionisque in vtramque partem procedunt infinitae; hic
quidem multiplicando, illic vero dividedo Vel, Vnitas est specierum species,
exemplar idearum omnium numeros reliquos & particulares rerum rationes in se
complexa."(71) And in certain aspects the Minimum of Bruno presents the same
idea (72). The monad thus conceived approximates, as has been noted, also to
the cabalistic treatment of the yod (Dee's "Iota" - for his attitude to which he
could also derive some collateral support from the Cratylus (73)) - for which "Le
iod figure par une virgule, au bien par un point, represente le principe des
choses," for since the universe, in which the word is primary, is the manifestation
of a single law "aussi le iod formant a lui seul toutes les lettres, et par suite tous
les mots et toutes les phrases, de l'alphabet, etait il justement l'image et la
representation de cette Unite Principe dont la connaissance etait voilee aux
profanes" (74); similarly according with Dee's presentation, as the point
symbolises the Monad in its character of the single originative potency, so the
Monad is symbolised in its aspect of Unity as End, by the circle drawn about a
central point, which is the completion of its development, its unity here being the
coherence embracing all created beings which singly form constituent parts of
the whole.

Throughout Dee's work the magical and metaphysical implications are only
hinted at, what he is discussing openly is the generation from the point of the
particular figure he has devised, accompanied by an analysis of the properties of
its various parts. But his manner of synthesizing it in the work itself, is clearly
artificial, and does not represent the original reasons for his invention or choice
of this figure, whose prime virtue for his purposes here is that from it can be
extracted - since it is in effect a combination of them all - the various planetary
signs. It is actually composed merely of the sign of Mercury set upon a rather
formalised version of that of Aries, and it must have appeared to Dee a
fortunate, if not inspired discovery that such an apt and simple combination
would lend itself so fittingly to his purposes, and show itself as containing under
analysis the entire celestial system. Apart from the fact that being the most
complex of the signs it would be the obvious starting point for the building up of
such an emblem, Dee's choice as a basis for his present endeavour of that of
Mercury, on which he had already written a treatise (75) seems for reasons
already noted in that connection, almost inevitable; it represented Dianoia, which
produced, in God, and comprehended, in men, natural law, conceived as the
intellectual schematisation of the Universe Paracelsus took "Mercury" as the
name of the force through and by which all things existed, approximating it to
the Joannine word (76); similarly Tymme writes on Dee's Monas "Pythagoras
saies, that there is one Essence in everything which God hath created wch
Essence dyeth not, untill the day of Judgment. This is that Essence wch is in
anything and in any Place which the Philosophers call " (77) (i.e., Mercury; in
alchemy the sign of "male secret Mercury" as opposed to that of common
quicksilver; the chief necessary in manufacturing the Stone). Again the selection
of the Ram, though obvious reasons for it are not given in the text which scorns
to take note of anything unmysterious or lacking in difficulty, needed to
supplement Mercury in completing the compound planetary figure Dee was
designing, could be argued as inevitable with equal justification. It was the
leader of the zodiacal constellations, thus in a manner representing all, summing
up the power of the fixed stars in itself, which of course had to be introduced but
are not otherwise presentin Dee's Hieroglyph, and was not unassociated with
Mercury for it governed man's lead, having, says Manilius who declares it the
chief zodiacal sign, Pallas for its guardian (78). It was also the sign in which the
Sun - guardian and controller of the system - received its greatest exaltation.
Just as Mercury according to Roger Bacon, and Dee from his prefatory letter,
governed the true Christian religion, so was the Ram, in all works touching on
astrological geography conventionally taken as the sign governing the Jews and
Holy Land (though also England and the English!). It was also the first sign of
the year, which commenced in March, and was generally accepted as the one
under which Creation had taken place. Thus Albumasar (a Latin translation of
whose major works had appeared at Augsburg in 1489, though they had been
known through multitudinous manuscripts previously) attempted to prove in De
Magnis Coniunctionibus that the World had been made when the seven planets
were in conjunction in the first degree of Aries. Roger Bacon, as on many other
matters followed Albumasar; the sun was placed by God in the Ram at the
beginning he writes since it has its major dignity there, adding "it was necessary
for the world that the aux of the sun should have been in Aries because the
position of aux is far nobler than any other part of the eccentric orbit."(79) Dee
adds a variation when in his Almanac of 1591, explaining the principles on which
his calendar reform was made, he states (as his starting point) that Christ was
conceived at the sun's entrance into Aries, i.e., the vernal equinox (80).
Moreover as an alchemical symbol, and Dee's world has also particular reference
to this science, it represented fire, which was the chief external agent necessary
for the carrying out of the Grant Work (particularly so emphasised by the
Paracelsians (81)) and stimulated "Male Mercury" to produce the stone; "the Sun
in the Ram's belly," is one of the most common alchemical phrases, referring to
the last stage of purification of the material in the fire from which process
artificial gold will be born. Proclus had also contributed to this picture of the
virtues of the Ram - associating it with the triangle which Dee adopted as his
personal emblem - in a manner which must have appeared compatible with all
these other qualities, the celestial triangle which divinely connects all things in
the universe he declared is "proximate to the Ram, which the Egyptians
particularly honour on account of Ammon having the face of a ram, and also
because the ram is the principle of generation, and is moved with the greatest
celerity, as being among the constellations established about the equinoctial";
the city of Plato he adds has Neith as its tutelary goddess, who is Athena, which
goddess has "an allotment in the heavens, and illuminates generation with
forms. For of the signs of the Zodiac, the Ram is ascribed to the Goddess, and
the equinoctial circle itself where especially a power motive of the universe is
established."(82)

From the combination of these two signs - of Mercury or Intellect, the all
pervading law and reason of things, and of Aries, or divine fire, chief instrument
of creation, which is under the direct surveillance of Wisdom (Pallas) - Dee
produces a symbol from which he finds he can easily extract the "signatures" of
all the subsidiary powers operating in the universe; he therefore proceeds to
investigate its particular virtue, by subjecting his hieroglyph - however fantastic
and puerile his methods may seem today - to what is in effect a vigorous logical
analysis, along fairly well established lines (83). This treatment of the symbol in
the Renaissance was so common an activity and has been so frequently
discussed that there is perhaps no need to dwell on these general aspects here,
examples could be indefinitely multiplied to represent every gradation in the use
of abstract figures from what were intended as no more than elegant artificial
allegories embellishing rhetoric to the profoundly serious contemplation of them
as of central metaphysical significance that Dee's work here exhibits (84). The
connection with magical theory is also obvious - Dee states indeed that there is
no need for him to treat of the theoretical basis of this work as he has already
expanded it fully in his defence of Bacon, the Speculum Unitatis (85) - where
(and it is the general theme of Agrippa's second book of Occult Philosophy) the
figure, the talisman, is considered, just as the Word, to be the Act, the
realisation, of an intention of the Rational Soul, and hence the vehicle of its
power. Dee's figure however, though its parts may be put to such "artificial"
uses, is not held to derive from the thought of any subordinate intelligence, but
to contain the original schema of God's own total idea of his creation, and he is
more concerned with it as a pathway to knowledge, than as a potentially
practical instrument of "magic."

Now, although many early neo-Platonists such as Plotinus (who praises for
instance the way the Egyptian sages have expressed the true natures of each
thing in the hieroglyphs standing for them (86)) or Iamblichus, dealt with the
virtues of figures from this point of view, it is Proclus who offers some of the
fullest, most explicit discussions, and the most obviously relevant to Dee's
present work. He recurs frequently to the theme, seeming to regard the best
method in all instruction to be that which he attributes to the Pythagoreans,
which falls into three stages (perhaps corresponding to the familiar levels of
Sensible Intuition, Abstract Reason, and Spritual Reality) the first and third of
which employ this approach. For prior to scientific doctrine the Pythagoreans
render manifest the proposed objects of enquiry by approximate similitudes and
images, and finally once more have recourse to symbols of a different kind to
reveal the arcane virtues of these objects (87). In the preface to his commentary
on Euclid, a work in which Dee seems to have been thoroughly steeped, Proclus
declares that in Numbers, Figures and Musical Accords are to be found the three
ways in which the constitutive reasons of all intellectual, moral and theological
truths are presented to the human mind, and later has a lengthy discussion on
the virtues of figures reflecting directly on the position taken up in Dee's Monas;
after mentioning those used in Art he goes on: "Mais il y a des figures plus
importantes et plus remarquables que ces dernieres, notamment celles des
ouvrages de la nature: les unes qui concretisent les rapports qui leur sont
inherents dans les elements sublumaires, d'autres qui assignent leurs puissances
et leurs mouvements dans le ciel; car les corps celestes presentent en particulier
et les uns par rapport aux autres une abondante et admirable variete des figures
qui montrent tantot d'autres formes apportant les puissances incorporelles et
immaterielles par leurs evolutions bien proportionnes," beyond these are the
figures of souls "pleines de vie et se mouvant d'elles memes, anterieures aux
choses mues...qui...sont au dessus des choses dimensionnes et materielles:
figures au sujet desquelles Timee nous renseigne..." "Above these, and more
divine, are figures partaking of intelligence," "elles sont fecondes, actives et
perfectionnantes de l'universalite des choses; elles sont presentes en toutes
celles ci d'une maniere egale et resident en elles avec stabilite; elles apportent
l'union aux figures des ames et rappellent les changements des figures sensibles
dans les limites qui leur sont propre." Above these again are those of the gods
which "terminent ensemble toutes les figures et maintiennent toutes les choses
dans leur uniques limites." "La Theurgie, en representant leurs proprietes
confere diverses figures a diverses images des dieux," these figures it evolves
"d'une maniere mysterieuse, par des signes caracteristiques car ceux-ci revelent
les puissances ignorees des dieux." That significant communication is possible in
this manner Proclus justifies on the assumption that "il y a, anterieurement aux
figures sensibles, des concepts de propre impulsion, intellectuels et divins des
figures; nous sommes impressionnees par les figures sensibles et emettons en
nous memes des concepts qui sont les images d'autres figures; et c'est pourquoi
nous avons la connaissance des figures sensibles par des exemplaires et la
connaissance des figures intelligibles et divines par des images; car les concept
developpees en nous memes nous montrent les formes des dieux et les limites
d'une seule espece de toutes les choses par lesquelles toutes sont ramenees a
elles memes et se contiennent mysterieusement en elles-memes." In
contemplating such figures the mind is looking as it were in a mirror, being at
once both viewer and viewed (88).

Such a position provides an answer to Socrates' objection to such procedures at

the end of the Cratylus (89) that the far better and surer way to knowledge is to
avoid such an attempt to learn from the image (word or sign), however exact an
imitation it may be, and to examine the things themselves, that are supposedly
represented. For to Dee, the figures he examines would appear to stand for
intelligible concepts, employed by God in creation, principles not directly manifest
to sense through particular objects, complex symbolic syntheses of the universal
law. This also applies in part to his more conventional "Cabalism," using words
and letters, in the Monas, while the way in which other standard objections - as
those raised in the Cratylus - were thought to be adequately answered has
already been discussed (90). It is interesting however that Roger Bacon relies on
the same text as Dee cites in the prefatory letter, to justify such practises;
writing "For the Lord says, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the alw
till all be fulfilled. And therefore there is an admirable exposition in the book on
the meanings of the scriptures stating how the individual letters of the Hebrew
Alphabet had significance respecting the ancient people, and how they show the
number of centuries through which the state of that race passed as regards its
different periods and ages, in accordance with the special powers and potencies
ofthe letters....I cannot sufficiently admire the manner in which the examination
was derived, although it may seem to the uninitiated to have a weak basis in the
letters of the alphabet which are the first rudiments of children. But according to
the teaching of the Apostles lesser things are more necessary and are to be
accorded greater honour...."(91) Bacon, as Dee here also, gives equal status to
the Greek and Latin alphabets. Agrippa does the same, declaring that it is God
who has given man discourse in different languages, of which the written
characters have a fixed order, and particular shapes which are not the result of
chance, or human invention, but divinely formed in accordance with the celestial
bodies and angelic powers and the virtue of these. In a manner very close to the
method of Dee's Monas, he attempts the reduction of letters to zodiacal and
planetary signs (92). Tymme sums up the case in his preface to his proposed
translation of Dee's book. Adam he says gave names to creatures "agreeing with
their nature," he inscribed in two tablets of stone with prophecies and philosophy
in hieroglyphical characters, one of which Noah discovered after the flood in
Armenia, and from this the signs of the planets derive. A universal science was
then possible by their means, but the knowledge it embodied has since then not
only diminished but has been divided up in such sort that its surviving fragments
"make one an Astronomer, another a Magitian, a third a Cabalist, and a fourth an
Alchemist"; but this lost unity of science Dee's work aims at reestablishing by
means of the primitive planetary figures and the Cabalah, which last says Tymme
"out of hidden and misticall sciences serveth to make away for men to come
unto God."(93)

It is of interest to note the intellectual and historical relation between Dee's

approach in the Monas and the search for a real character (Francis Bacon in the
Advancement of Learning, called for one which would represent "neither letters
nor words but things and notions," and would "serve for an antidote against the
curse of the confusion of tongues") and the universal language which occupied
so many in the succeeding century - Kircher, Dolgarno Hartleb and through him
Boyle, Wilkins (who declared "As men do generally agree in the same Principles
of Reason, so do they likewise agree in the same internal Notions or
Apprehensions of things") and others, and received in England the attentions
and encouragement of the Royal Society (94); Dee's manner of regardig his
hieroglyph and its constituent parts approaches in some respects Leibniz'
conception of the universal character which underlay, though it has been
inevitably overshadowed by his more fruitful vision of a general logical calculus,
for this latter implied the possibility of the reduction of all scientific concepts, by
analysis, into a small number originally constitutive of them, to be expressed in
ideographic symbols, revealing their nature and the operations they allowed of
and from which all scientific knowledge might be then deduced. A direct link with
seventeenth century thought in this sphere is supplied by Ashmole, who
practically quotes verbatim Dee's passage on the planetary signs from his letter
to Maximilian: "there are certain Characters for the Planets, Signes, Aspects,
Metals, Minerals, Weights, etc., all which have the power of Letters and run
current in the Understanding of every Language and continue as Reliques and
Remaines of the more Sacred and Secret Learning of the Ancients, whose
intentions and words were not expressed by the composition of syllables or
Letters, but by Forms, Figures and Characters." This Ashmole urges as a proof of
the possibility of a universal language, setting forth the advantages to follow "if
some general Forms and Characters were invented (agreeing as neer to the
natural quality of the Thing they are to signifie as might be) that (to Men of all
Languages) should universally express, whatsoever we are to declare by
writing."(95) A further link is the puritan John Webster, educational reformer on
utilitarian principles and polemicist against the vanities of conventional academic
instruction in the time of the commonwealth, in a work which relies heavily and
exlicitly on Dee's Preface for many of its views and proposals. He too presents
the current arguments in favour of the possibility of a universal language and the
benefits, commercial and other, which would follow from its adoption, but his
discussion is oddly involved with cabalism, digressions on the language of Adam,
and that in which God conversed with him in the garden, and the musical and
geometrical language which provides the structure for creation, and his
argument includes a strong plea for the revival and endowment of the study of
"Hieroglyphical, Emblematical, Symbolical and Cryptographical learning" by which
only the secret knowledge of the ancients will be restored to light, and sure
avenues to the comprehension of scientific and religious mysteries opened (96).
One further basic assumption must be noticed as it is fundamental to Dee's
whole procedure here, the doctrine - commonly met with in Renaissance neo-
Platonism - of the close interweaving and logical interconnection of all things in
the universe, which was invoked to justify what otherwise seem very arbitrary
mental transitions, when conclusions reached through considerations of one
topic are transferred bodily to another, over only the flimsiest bridge of analogy,
and which allowed almost indefinite deductive extensions to be made (97) from
any one fact that was felt as rightly formulated - that as Plato had declared,
since all things are akin, if man could only remember (i.e., learn) one thing
rightly, nothing should prevent him attaining a knowledge of all the rest (98).
Thus Dee here claims to have discovered the true mystico-mathematical symbols
of the planets (they are somewhat formalised compared with those of
conventional usage) and their natural combination in a single scheme, and he
makes the claim that from this sure starting point by "logical" progress, all
sciences should be derivable.

VI. Dee first proceeds in the text to build up his hieroglyph by justifying its
constituent parts. He opens (99) with the assertion that all things, natural, non-
evident, or spiritual, can be represented and demonstrated by means of the
circle and straight line (Theorem I). This would seem to be merely a cryptic
manner of affirming the geometrical structure of the universe by an allusion to
the classical limitation, to which Dee strictly professes adherence in the Euclid,
though it was frequently forsakenin the Renaissance, of geometrical procedures
to such constructions as could be performed by means of the straight edge and
compasses. The Circle, Dee continues, is dependent for its production on the line
(its radius), and this in turn on the (central) point, therefore it is from this and
from the Monad (which stands "beyond" this) that all things in principle emerge
originally, for no matter how large the periphery, no matter what may be
manifest there, the existence of such things still refers for support to the centre
(Theorem II) (100). The point would seem to represent God as originative
potency, the line, according to Theon, and most Pythagorean mathematicians -
and Dee's representation is at least compatible with this teaching - signifies, as
the indeterminate Dyad, the primitive unformed matter of the sensible world, the
circle is the full perfection and unity of extended creation, as has been noticed
the point when completed in this manner is the Cabalistic form of the iod, as
end. Dee's direct extraction of this metaphysical analogy from the construction of
the circle can be exactly paralleled in many passages of Renaissance writing in a
similar tradition (102) and its basis in the view of the circle as the symbol of
eternity, spiritual perfection, unity of a whole, and the line - a position Dee
develops in later theorems - as the symbol of the elemental, the material
considered in itself, are very ancient, thoroughly conventional, interpretations
(103).
Dee immediately particularises astronomically. The centre is the earth, round
which other planets revolve; the Sun having supreme dignity, is represented by a
circle with a visible centre (III). Upon this, intersecting it, he sets a half circle for
the moon, the sun's nearest rival, who borrows her light from the sun, reflecting
it always from a semisphere (IV) (104). The mystical level of "causal"
explanation at which Dee here is working emerges plainly from the reason he
gives for the moon's phases (reminiscent of Hegel's description of that body) -
which completely ignores the "natural" physical account, of which he was
perfectly well aware; the moon's regular "disappearance" from the heavens, and
reemergence some days later, he declares, is a result of its ardent desire to be
impregnated with the solar rays, and its successive attempts (which apparently it
cannot continuously maintain) to transform itself from silver to gold as an
alchemical process). This description perhaps suggests a doubt as to whether the
Ptolemaic scheme which is used in Theorem III, and elsewhere, indicates Dee's
actual acceptance of it for other purposes than such metaphorical reveries as he
is here indulging, but even if it does, and the motives for his adoption of it are of
the order revealed in this work, this in turn implies, that his reasons for rejecting
Copernicanism are entirely of a metaphysical type, lying beyond the limits of
astronomy proper; and if this is so it would account for his unstinted praise of
that system when speaking with reference strictly confined to methods of
describing conveniently, and calculating from, observable astronomical data. In
the conjoining of these two signs Dee sees - claiming it as justification for the
validity of his procedure so far - the Evening and the Morning, which made up
the first day, on which the light (of the Philosophers), as distinct from that of the
particular heavenly bodies) was produced. (This accords well with Dee's later
observation that when turned sideways, their union reveals the letter Alpha: the
beginning.)

Dee next considers the nature of the cross which supports this figure in his
hieroglyph. It is Ternary, for it consists of two lines and a central point. These
represent the Body, Spirit and Soul of man. It is Quaternary for it has four lines
enclosing four angles (105); combining its powers, a Septenary is reached
(seven was frequently employed by the numerologists as the number governing
the natural world, constrasting with the ninefold celestial orders (106))(VI). The
figure represents the four elements, since these when forcibly removed from
their natural places, return to them, as observation proves, along straight lines,
and here four straight lines run to a central point (VIII) (107). Dee expatiates on
the virtues of the quaternary (108), it generates the Decad by addition of its
parts, and this Dee relates to his general procedure by stating that it was
therefore that the Roman Sages adopted the right angled cross - the twenty first
(3 x 7) letter of their alphabet - to signify ten (VIII). He then shows the
compatibility of the figure with the previous one - on the grounds that a circle
may be drawn passing through the extremities of a straight line of any length
(IX). This recalls a symbol frequently employed by Al Jabir in alchemical writings
for the natural world - the cross of the four elements quartering an enclosing
circle - representing "substance."(109)

Dee then (110) adds two inverted semicircles to the base of his figure, the sign
of Aries. His reasons for employing this have been previously considered, and
those given in the text are purposely obscure; standing for Aries, he claims this
sign represents the quarter of the Heavens in which the Triple Fire originated,
and also shows that fire is necessary to separate the natures of Sun and Moon
(i.e., in alchemy)(X), and its properties are revealed when it divides a twenty-
four hour period by the equinox, thus giving rise, in some unspecified manner, to
highly secret proportions (XI). The Hieroglyph which Dee used thereafter almost
as a personal monogram is now completely formed, and the rest of the work
investigates its virtues. Among its other striking properties as a universal
scheme, though this is not directly observed but the features contributing to this
are discussed separately, is that of denoting the religious history of the universe
through time. For in the upper portion of the figure, Alpha is to be seen, and in
Aries, inverted, Omega, while between them stands the cross. The variety of apt
and easy applications he was able to extract from this device, were clearly the
chief cause of the great impression it made upon Dee's mind, and of his
conviction of its multitudinous mysterious virtues, which certified it, for him, as a
genuine discovery of a portion of the divine truth.

From the complete figure it is easy to arrive, by omitting various parts and
reorienting the remainder, at the six signs of the five planets (Mercury has two
signs, while those of the sun and moon were original constituents); a process
Dee sets out in tabular forms (XII). (His reasoning seems to be that since the
planetary signs can be derived from a single sign compounded of a few primitive
ones of known meanning, the nature and influence of the planets can be
determined from this basis.) Thus Mars is composed of the Sun and Aries, with
the magistery of the elements partly intervening; Venus of the sun and elements,
which shows how they are concerned in the work of "revivification." Mercury has
always a double nature and Dee exclaims in a phrase redolent with Cabalistic,
Alchemical and Christian neo-Platonist associations, on the mysteries of its
principle signs "Et (NUTU DEI) iste est Philosophorum MERCURIUS, ille
Celeberrimus, MICROCOSMVS & ADAM" (XIII)(111). Dee emphasises the
alchemical import by adding that the whole magistery depends therefore on sun
and moon, for Hermes Trismegistus has declared these to be his Father and
Mother, and it is known that Terra Lemnia (perhaps Mercury calx, sometimes
called Red Earth) is singularly affected by their rays (XIV). The principles of the
"Inferior Astronomy" - i.e., the family relationships of the metals (an alchemical
treastise of Kelly's for instance has the title The Theatre of Terrestrial
Astronomy) as they are revealed "in the anatomy of our Monad" are set out in a
table, and various astrological consequences on the nature of the planets
deduced from the whole figure (XV).
Dee proceeds to a further analysis of the cross (112) (XVI and XVII); his earlier
remarks on it having largely been limited to what would justify its inclusion in his
figure. Though it is a quaternary when upright, turned through forty-five degrees
it represents 10, its upper part alone is five, i.e., V, and includes the decadal
virtues within it for, turned through a further forty-five degrees this is seen to be
multiplied tenfold as L, and profound mysteries of God are revealed, since the
name of thihs letter is EL - the Hebrew name of God (113), and L is the tenth
letter of the alphabet (omitting J and K) and the tenth from V (if U is
overlooked); moreover the Mecubales (114) employed X to represent 21, this
confirming the position it holds in the Latin Alphabet. Combining these results (4
x 5 + 4 x 50 + 10 + 21 + 1) the "significant" total of 252 is attained. The virtues
of the Cross examined in this way are further proved, Dee declares, since from it
the word LVX is directly obtainable (115).

Since he has shown how physical astronomy is guided by the intelligible

astronomy of the monad, Dee now turns to showing how the parts of the latter
may be arranged in the figure of the egg (i.e., alchemically) from which the
misguided alchemists can truly learn what it is they ought to refer to when they
use the terms "calcined eggshells," "the White," and "the Yoke"; he tells the
fable of the Scarab and the eagle's eggs, affirming it is not Aesop but Oedipus
(who first revealed the deepest mysteries of nature under disguise of symbols)
who promptgs him (116). From the second example he concludes that it is clear
that nothing can be said to exist except by the virtue of the Hieroglyph of the
Monad (XVIII). He reaffirms - with special reference to alchemy - the doctrine of
the emanations from sun and moon which control all generation and corruption,
though the moon's "aqueous" humour is of less importance than the fiery liquor
of the sun "quibus rerum mortalium sustenatur corpulentia terrestris."(XIX) This
is an echo of the doctrines he had set out in the Aphorisms; they are quite usual
(117), but it is of interest to observe the conformity of his expression in the
Monas, and his additional use of the five planets, to Diodorus Siculus'
interpretation of the Egyptian theology, of which Dee was probably well aware
(118).

From the cross, symbol of the natural world, he proceeds to demonstrate the
insufficiency of the binary, i.e., its inability to exist by itself here (a
reminischence of the ancient numerologists on the indeterminate dyad) - for the
point at which the two lines intersect, though without dimensions, is
nevertheless an integral part of thse, indeed represents the secret conjuntion of
the elements, and thus converts the figure into a Ternary; whilke if it be
removed a quaternary - four separate lines - is immediately apparent (119). He
proceeds darkly to explore the consequence of this, but breaks off fearful lest he
has expressed himself too plainly; "Tu mi, Deus mihi ignoscas obsecro, Si ergo
tuam Peccauerim Majestatem, tatum in Publicis Scriptis Reuelans, Mysterium."
Nevertheless he hopes this secret will bring Maximilian and the house of Austria
to supreme power on earth, who will then restore the Glory of Christ's name, and
remove the abominable darkness which at present, declares Dee, covers the
earth (XX). These follow sections on the virtues of the hieroglyph reversed (XXI),
and on how secret letters may be extracted from it, and on the true shapes of all
chemical vessels and types of apparatus - one of the most important is that
formed of two hemispheres, or omega (" notatum videtis Vasculum est,
Mysteriorum Plenissimum") - and relations between these and letters of the
alphabet are pointed out, the figure is said to reveal the pestle and mortar in
which "Margaritas Artificiales non perforatas, Laminas chrystallinas, Beryllinasq;
Chrysolitos, Rubinos deinde prestiosos Carbunculos et alios Rarissimos Lapides
Artificiales in Pulueres subtillissimos Conteramus" (120) - which if taken literally
appears a very costly recipe, but the figure also apparently offers a way of
obtaining the ingredients artificially (XXII).

A number of tabulated parallels between the parts of the hieroglyph, the life of
Christ, and the stages of alchemical transmutation are set out (XXII). A claim is
made of direct inspiration by christ "cujus Spiritus celeriter haec per me
Scribentis, Calamum tantum esse Me & Opto & Spero," (121) and a detailed
examination of the numerical proportions of the figure is made, for those who
wish to engrave it on their seals or rings, or otherwise employ it, in which Dee
warns strictly against any infringement however small of its mystical symmetry.
He explains to Maximilian the method of working out permutations by continuous
multiplication, which he hopes he will find "tum in omni Naturae examinatione,
tum in aliis Reipubl. Negotijs utilissimo, remarking that he himself uses this
calculation with the greatest joy in the Themurah of the Hebrews. Numerical
tables of alchemical combinations are derived in this manner, with the note
"Numeri nostri hanc habet Dignitatem; ut illoru violare Leges, Peccatum sit
contra Natura Sapientia: quae eisdem nos docere velit (in Mysterijs suis maximis
examinandes) quibus certis limitibus. Statisque Illi deuincieatur," (122) these last
being Virtus, Pondera and Tempora. Under the table of combinations is written
"Sic Factus est Mundus," and the number of the Philosophers' Stone declared to
be 252 (XXIII). This long and crowded penultimate theorem is perhaps indicative
of Dee's difficulties in forcing all he has to say into the limits of the twenty-four
which he has prescribed to himself for the reasons set out in the final one - i.e.,
the use of this number in the Apocalypse. This twenty-fourth theorem also gives
praise to God in conclusion, and is signed with a triangle, denoting Dee himself,
for he is, he says, "the fourth letter." After the date, a diagram is given of a
circle, with the inscription "Intellectus Judicat Veritatem," and a tangent, with the
subscribed words "Contactus and Punctum" (123) and a concluding, far from
unjustified, comment "Vulgaris hic Oculis Caligabit Diffidetque plurimum." On the
last leaf is an emblematic version of the imperial coat of arms; the shield is here
ovoid, containing the Hieroglyph of the Monad, the crowned helmet from which
plumes emerge in the coat of arms, here becomes a sphere with the Hebrew
name of God inscribed on it, small human figures (?) cluster round it and
tongues of flame issue from it; overall, in place of the imperial eagle, is a seated
female figure, as it were enthroned, or upona cherub, holding a plam branch in
the left hand, and, aloft, a seven-pointed star in the right. This would seem to
represent the soul, and it is perhaps not too improbable that a reference to the
Timaeus is intended - as appropriate to the book - for the demiurge originally
implanted knowledge in the souls of men, when, "mounting them as it were in
chariots, he showed them the nature of the universe and declared to them the
laws of destiny," and the righteous soul after death returns to live in glory "with
its consort star."(124)

It is somewhat difficult to comprehend the considerable attention, and no little

credit, the Monas received in its day. At best one must take it for a collection of
fragmentary hints delivered in a sort of conceptual shorthand; the general
metaphysic or natural philosophy which Dee related it to, and felt his reasoning
in this work supported, remains entirely submerged. However, as has been
remarked of similar expositions "what appears to the modern mind as a
conscious and often strained divagation from simplicity and sincerity was more
often than not an entirely natural mode of expression," (125) and Dee's work lies
within a well-recognised tradition that legitimised its methods and lent colour to
its pretensions in many contemporary eyes.

VII. The figures which Dee analyses in the Monas and the propositions he draw
from them, have, and were intended to have, significance at a variety of levels -
his hieroglyph Dee claims is an all inclusive, universally effective, symbol. One of
the most immediately apparent of these is the alchemical - indeed the import of
the work seems often to have been regarded as being purely, or chiefly of this
kind (126) (and it is indeed obviously similar to some alchemical writings,
particularly to those of the Paracelsian school (127)). Thus Tymme, praising it as
"The rich and golden Jewell, wch the famous and profound Dr. Dee thought not
unfit the royall Ma.tie of Maximilian the Emperor," declares "In this Hieroglyphical
Monas of he hath comprehended the whole Science and practise of
Alchimie."(128) Dee gave full attention to this aspect of his work as his
annotations to other works (129), and the alchemical verse letters he wrote to
Gwynne in 1568 employing the same terminology, testify (130), moreover
alchemy was a fundamental branch of natural philosophy, and on the theory of
intimate analogies existing between all forms of knowledge, it was hardly
possible to write truly on any topic in a way that the adepts could not construe
as referring strictly to the transmutation of elements. Thus the works of ancient
philosophers, or myths, could be interpreted as embodying alchemical teaching,
Norton cites names of numerous philosophers who he claims have written on the
subject "in rhetorical guise," "musically" or under cover of treating of "Astrologia"
"Science Perspective" or "Magick natural!"(131) Plato in especial is frequently
cited in such contexts (132). Dee's use of a fable of Aesop's and his reference in
the same theorem, to Anaxagoras as an authority on Alchemy, and to Oedipus as
one of the first to reveal its secrets, denote the same attitude; and a poem of
Kelly, whose writings, all dating from his association with Dee, reflect very
closely in many places his master's known views - stresses the alchemical
content of the classic legends:

"Remember also how the Gods began

And by descent who ws to each the sire,

Then learn their lives and kingdoms if you can

Their manners eke, with all their whole attire

Which if thou do, and know to what effect

The learned Sophists will not thee reject."(133)

(Galileo later commented satirically that Chymists...find being led by their

melancholly humour, that all the sublimest wits of the World have writ of nothing
else in reality than of the way to make gold" and proceeds to mock at the
alchemical interpretations of classic myths (134).)

Dee's knowledge and practice in this science has sometimes been questioned -
and it is a matter of some significance in regard to his relations with Kelly. A.E.
Waite lent his authority to this view, declaring Dee "knew nothing of Alchemy,"
and "in particular he wrote nothing on Alchemy, and it is necessary to accentuate
this point."(135) But abundant evidences remain, if rather fragmentary in form,
of Dee's painstaking and long continued studies, industry, and even ingenuity of
invention, in this field (136). They reveal his investigations as not merely
directed towards transmutation but to a considerable extent to the preparation of
medicines, or other directly useful ends (137), so that he was able when his
servant Roger Cook (136b) being "of a melancholick nature," determined to
leave him, Dee's Diary notes (Sept. 3 1581), to impart to him by way of reward
"some pretty alchemicall experiments, whereuppon he might honestly live." Dee
speaks of his three laboratories at Mortlake their "storehouses, chambers and
garrets...replenished with chemical stuff (for above twenty years) of my getting
together far and neare, with great paines, costs and dangers" - in his journey to
Lorraine in 1571 "we brought from theme one great cart lading of purposely
made vessels &c." (138) and his Diaries show him to have employed a number of
assistants; but probably it was not until a later period of his life than the present,
impelled by the enthusiasm of Dyer and the greedy curiosity of Kelly, that Dee
became at all deeply involved in the pursuit of transmutation and the
Philosopher's Stone on any practical level. He seems from the Monas to have
been chiefly attentive to the science in its purely speculative aspects, and
because of its coherence with the general cosmology and its symbolical
representation of this that he was developing, and also for its spiritual
implications as a revelation of divine order and power in nature, full
comprehension of which implied a mystical ascent. This last claim had always
been a feature of Alchemical writings from those of Zosimus - some of the
earliest authentic western specimens onwards. (Even Roger Bacon - to whom
Dee perhaps in excessive admiration ascribed several treatises of other writers
on the subject - for all his praise of experimentation, seems to have regarded the
true student of alchemy, which he called "the lord of all sciences and the end of
all speculation" as a "knower" rather than a mechanician or a "doer," and "is
interested rather in the theory of alchemy than in the practical devices of the
Alchemist."(139)) Thus of the Stone Ashmole declared "the making of gold" was
"the lowest use the adepti made of the Materia," and elsewhere "For on
whomsoever God out of his especial grace is pleased to bestow this blessing he
first fits them for a most vertuous life...and...they straightway lay aside
ambitious thoughts and take up a retiredness...The consideration of this
Magistery being theirs does more fill their mindes than all the Treasures of the
Indies were they entailed on them."(140) Rabbards gives a similar account of the
consequences of success; the Stone is "founde of very fewe and they such as
rapte with the excelling thereof, have in contempt of the worlde retired
themselves from common societie keeping the same most secret to themselves
esteeming the world not worthy of so precious a jewel."(141) Dee's attitude is
similar; thus in notes on a treatise of Bacon he declares Alchemy to be the
greatest of all sciences "quia majores utilitates producit," dividing it into two
parts, a speculative part, and "est autem alchymia operativa et practica quae
docat facere metalla nobilia, et colores, et alia multa, melius et copiosus per
artem quam per naturam"; but the first, which accounts for the generation of all
things from their elements, and is connected with theology, he seems to regard
as by far the higher and more worthy the philosopher (142). Thus he records in
Theorem 23 of the Monas that four illustrious men, friends in Philosophy, when
practising the work were astonished at the miracle that resulted. They forthwith
dedicated themselves wholly to singing praises to God and preaching his word
because he had thus given them so much wisdom and power and so great an
Empire over all other creatures (143). Alchemy indeed is not infrequently spoken
of not only as a universal science but as a mystical theology. Sir Thomas Browne
writes "The smattering I have of the Philosopher's Stone (which) is something
more than the perfect exaltation of gold, hath taught me a great deal of
Diminity..."(144) and tenable discussing this aspect of the science - that under
cover of "Goldmaking" it taught the path to a spiritual resurrection, a new birth
attained without scriptual revelation to which he relates Paracelsian legends of
the homunculus, comments "L'Alchimie ressemble fort a une contre-Eglise."(145)

Alchemy was seldom even in its practical manual experimentation regarded

merely as a matter of mechanical operations, it was also a "spiritual" discipline.
This aspect of the science contributed largely to its survival in the face of its
continual and notorious failure to produce results (146), since it forbade the
application of any purely empirical standards of judgment to the process of
transmutation, by prescribing the necessity for special spiritual - and
unobservable - conditions in the operator which were of as much importance for
the result as the purity of the constituents of the accuracy of the procedures.
Thus an experiment was not invalidated by its failure on any occasion, and might
be endlessly repeated with undiminished hopes, since previous ill success might
be attributable to the moral defects of previous alchemists, covetousness, for
example, to attempt to make gold while desiring to possess gold - was held to be
invariably fatal to success. Norton gives strict injunctions that the workmen at
the furnaces must be kept from all "ribaldry" or disaster will ensue and points out
that:

"Wise men which for this Arte sought

Found some Places concordant, some places nought,

Trewly such Places where lechery is used

Must for this Arte be utterly refused."(147)

The English commentation on Pancirolli lists the qualities it is necessary to

possess before embarking on a study of the Spagyricall Art: "As for the Scholar
or Learner he must be virtuous and pious, an earnest Supplicant for this Gift to
Heaven. He must be prudent, and learn'd, a Linguist and a Philosopher, well
seen and vers'd in the Principles of Nature. He must be laborious and patient,
clear of all Troubles, disbanding all Cares; as free from passion as tenacious of
secrets; neither prodigal nor covetous; competently rich both in Money and
Books; very Studious and reserved, full of deep Contemplation, and hugely wary
of Diabolical Delusions. In a word, he must be well endow'd with Goods of Body,
Soul and Fortune."(148) Even so only a special grace of God accords the final
knowledge for "Cette Divine Philosophie, n'est point en la puissance des
hommes; moins peut-elle estre connue par leurs livres, si nostre bon Dieu ne
l'inspire en nos coeurs par son Saint Esprit."(149)

But it seems probably that a conference of Dee's with Elizabeth - Feb. 1568 - in
the gallery at Westminster, related to more directly practical aspects of the
subject. It was just after a second edition of his Aphorisms had appeared, which
had been presented to Elizabeth who expressed her "well liking" of it by
Pembroke, and for which Dee received L20 in return. Dee notes (in 1594) that he
talked with the Queen "as concerning the Great Secret for my sake to be
disclosed unto her Majesty by Nicolaus Grudius Nicolai, one of the Secretaries to
the Emperor Charles the Fifth &c. What was the hindrance of the perfecting of
that purpose on all sides God best knoweth."(150) The expression is vague, but
in the light of his later statements on the Queen's concern with his alchemical
labours, this seems the most likely explanation (151). The Queen's interest in
this art may well have been instrumental in involving Dee, whether he so desired
or no, in the increasingly extensive experimental practise of it that may be traced
in his later career; her support would have been in any case necessary to him,
for transmutation was a felony if practised otherwise than with Royal Licence
(152).

Dee never believed himself to have attained the Philosopher's Stone, though he
thought on occasions that Kelly knew the secret, and his son Arthur remained
convinced that his father had successfully manufactured gold. This promise to
Elizabeth was clearly conditional on the receipt of further information, which was
apparently not forthcoming (153). But the attempted transmutation of metals
was purused, with official support, on quite a large scale in the sixteenth
century. Thus Strype records of the year 1574 (the names mentioned seem to be
those of Dee's associates) "A great project had been carrying on now for two or
three years, of Alchymy, William Medley, being the great undertaker, to turn iron
into copper. Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State, had by some Experiments
made before him, a great Opinion of it. And for the better carrying it on and
bearing the Expences it was thought fit to be done by a Corporation: into which
by Smith's Encouragement, the Lord Burghley, and the Earl of Leicester entred
themselves with others: each member laying down an 100 L to go on with it"
(154); and Rabbards, confident of the ultimate success of the science properly
pursued, refers in 1591, to "Your Majestie's manifold fruitlesse still houses."(155)
The pursuit was encouraged not merely by legends such as those of the exploits
of Raymond Lull in England (where he turned 50,000 lb of quicksilver, lead and
brass into gold for Ed.II) but by the abundant well accredited contemporary
examples of success in the art (156) and the firm ocular testimony of participants
in such experiments of known integrity that could be produced (157).

VIII. It must be noted also that no physical theory of the time, as to the
constitution of matter and in terms of which all observable chemical changes
could claim to be explained, excluded the possibility of transmutation (158) (and
indeed it followed almost as a necessity on the widely held, long prevalent belief
in the natural formation and growth of metals within the earth (159)). On the
account in the Timaeus the elements, with the exception of earth (the cube),
were defined as merely a fusible type of water composed of large, and similar
sized, icosahedra, and chemical investigation was spoken of approvingly there as
the diversion of a wise man, for speaking of these speculations on the nature of
metals "when a man, for the sake of recreation, lays aside discourse about
eternal things and gains an innocent pleasure from such plausible accounts of
becoming, he will add to his life a sober and sensible pastime."(160) Aristotle
also had described how the elements were generated from each other, and were
hence interchangeable, and censured Plato for holding the construction of
"earth" to be such as to exclude it from this cycle of mutual transformations
(161). A typical Renaissance view of the implications of the process, is provided
by Panciroli's discussion as to whether alchemy is not perhaps a sacreligious
activity: "it is doubted whether chymistry be lawful or not...in regard it is the
only Prerogative of the Creator to change one substance into another." He
concludes it is not forbidden, for in any case "the Art of Man cannot transmute
one substance into another" - that is change some divinely imposed specific form
of any truly elemental substance - but alchemy is nonetheless feasible, and the
actual chemical operations, theoretically simple "because all Metals proceed from
Sulphur and quicksilver...which if they have Air, Water and Sun in them in due
and right Proportions are converted into Gold," and "Heat and a due
temperament" merely rectify the defects of nature apparent in base metals; but
he warns as previously noted, that extreme virtue in the human agent is the
prime condition for success (162). Dee's view of generation as set out in the
Aphorisms and the Monas - the Monad, working internally to all things, as a
controlling germinating force in varying manners, describably in terms of portions
of the hieroglyph made up of various planetary signs, in interaction with the
emission of effective species from all other entities, but primarily with those from
the heavens which could be modified and redirected by human art - was entirely
concordant with much current alchemical theory (163). In many respects it still
remains similar to the doctrine of the generation of "natural things," expounded
by Roger Bacon, in, for instance, his "Questions" on the Physics and Metaphysics
of Aristotle (164): An undifferentiated substratum of matter gives rise to
individual substances and creatures, in combination with Forms. These appear as
a development of a secret, internal active power (the Monad), in which they are
latent, or which is perhaps the latent forms themselves. This "germ" needs the
cooperation of external agents before the forms can be brought to actuality, and
these work upon the matter through its "receptive power" which it possesses in
addition to its active principle. They are of two kinds, the immediate particular
agent - such as a man directly assisting the process by art - and universal agents
such as the sun, planets and heavens. The emergence of any entity may be
analysed into some combination of these three types of cause. However
theoretically satisfying, such a scheme would not appear heuristically very
fruitful. The unobservable internal seminal reasons, linked with the universal
workings of the divinely ordered cosmos, which acts by largely unobservable
emanations from every point, which Dee declared were fundamentally "spiritual"
in nature, controlling all change, approaches very close to the "Anima Mundi"
beloved of the Alchemists (165), and which performs the same functoin as Henry
More's "Spirit of Nature," "the great-quarter-master-general of divine
providence," whose omnipresent "plastical power" is employed in "raising such
phenomena in the world, by directing the paths of the matter and their motion,
as cannot be resolved into mere mechanical powers."(166) As chemical theory, if
unsupplemented by qualifying additions of a different order, it is clear that such
descriptions opened unlimited fields to purely metaphysical speculation but
provided no guide to directed experimental procedure, since they left the
appearance, or production of anything whatsoever in the realm of the possible
and as conceivably entertainable but were barren of concrete suggestion as to
how, in practise, anything at all could be attained. Yet explanations on this level
seemed unavoidable if any general theory were demanded at all to account for
what was observable in natural process, to provide some sort of coherent
connective tissue for data of the sort which would otherwise remaina mere
accumulation of diverse unrelated particular mysteries. Francis Bacon
summarises the situation at the end of his Natural History - though for his own
part he is prepared to accept the second alternative rather than entertain the
undemonstrable; "I would have men know" he writes - referring especially to
chemistry and medicine "that though I reprehend the easy passing over the
causes of things, by ascribing to them secret and hidden virtues, and proprieties,
for this hath arrested and laid asleep, all true enquiry and indications, yet I do
not understand, but that in the practical part of knowledge, much will be left to
experience and probation, whereunto indication cannot so fully reach; and this
not only in specie but in individuo."(167)

Practice as well as theory encouraged the hopes of the alchemists. There were
no workable criteria on which to decide what substances might be primary and
irresoluable; the metals seemed obviously related and similar, and far more
drastic chemical alteration could apparently be effected in various materials in
the laboratory than would appear necessary to change these one into another.
Boyle has usually been accredited with being the first to set forth clearly and
explicitly an idea of an element in the modern sense, for in The Sceptical
Chemist of 1651 he defined "elements" as "those primitive and simple Bodies of
which the mixtures are said to be composed, and into which they are ultimately
resolved." He did not however venture to identify any substance as even
probably being of this kind, and does not seem to have thought that the variety
of distinct types of original corpuscles that composed matter was very extensive,
if indeed he considered them as differing fundamentally at all. His description
found no echo in chemical practice for a century, and on the other hand the
concept it embodies has been traced back, and shown to have had a long history
in previous thought, though it there remains, as with Boyle, only of theoretical
importance (168).

Moreover nearly all the tests by which gold and other metals were identifiable in
the sixteenth century - colour, weight, ductility, were simulable by fairly well
known methods. (The chief, perhaps only, exception being cupellation - which
process had been placed by Agricola in De Re Metallica, a work Dee refers his
reders to in the Preface (169) on a very exact quantitative basis, which later
ages have found no reason to modify to any extent. Dee himself seems to have
been regarded as one of the contemporary experts on metallurgy, as he figures
as one of the commissioners in 1571 of the government company formed to
exploit Frobisher's "black stone" - but the years of controversy over Burcoth's
assayings and supposed extractions of gold, are a further illustration of the
confusion on such matter and inexactness prevailing in the day - 1701.) Thus the
shiftless apprecntice Quicksilver announces in Eastward Ho: "I will blanch copper
so cunningly that it shall endure all proofs but the test: it shall endure
malleation, it shall have the ponderosity of Luna, and the tenacity of Luna, by no
means friable."(171) Even Francis Bacon while reprehending such tintings and
imitations as fraud, and not overconfiden of effecting large scale transmutations,
was yet fertile of suggestions by which alchemy might be turned to profitable
account, for he considred there was "a middle way" to set about the process,
and thus declares "the drowning of metals within other metals, in such sort as
they can never rise again, is a thing of great profit. For if a quantity of silver can
be so buried in gold, as it will never be reduced again, neither by fire, nr parting
waters, nor other ways: and also that it serve all uses as well as pure gold, it is
in effect all one as if so much silver were turned into gold."(172) His scepticism
towards making gold is based on no better reason than that gold is the heaviest
of metals and it is much more difficult to increase weight by condensing a
substance than to lighten it! Therefore, he declares, "we commend the wit of the
Chinese, who despair of making of gold, but are mad upon the making of silver,"
but nonetheless "we conceive indeed that a perfect good concoction, or
digestion, or maturation of some metals will produce gold."(173) One further
suggestion of Bacon's may be mentioned, for a considerable school of wholly
empirical alchemists developed in the seventeenth century claiming to derive
from his teachings (against whom Mersenne was to polemicize in La Verite des
Sciences), and this formula reveals him, though rejecting Aristotelian "essences,"
yet as still thinking of things as made up of combinations of forms and qualities,
enquiry into whose separate causes, by induction, would be the key to Natural
Philosophy. "Gold hath then these natures; greatness of weight; closeness of
parts, fixation; pliantness, or softness; immunity from rust; colour or tincture of
yellow. Therefore the sure way, thought most about, to make gold is to know the
causes of the several natures before rehearsed, and the axioms concerning the
same. For if a man can make a metal that hath all these properties, let men
dispute whether it be gold or no."(174)

IX. But two significant and contrasting themes may be discerned running
throught he history of alchemical theory, not infrequently, as in Dee's case,
mingled, but nonetheless pointing in different directions in so far as they
influenced general physical doctrines and experiment. The dominating and most
generally stressed theory, up to and beyond Dee's own time, seemed much more
plausible and closer to observation, and to offer directions for practical chemical
investigations, yet it proved nonetheless thoroughly illusory; the other, which in
its early appearances seemed more related to pure speculations of a fanciful and
extravagant numerological type, and apparently as a hypothesis irreconcilably
divorced form laboratory work, nevertheless exhibits in its theory certain formal
features, and also as a consequence of similar fundamental assumptions, come
gradually increasingly to stress the importance of quantitative method in practical
chemistry, which allow it to be related to what today appears as the "scientific"
alchemy of Newton and Boyle in the seventeenth century, and even beyond
them, to modern chemical thought. The first theory gave an account of change,
and the interrelation of substances, drawing its strength from accepted
Aristotelian theory that all things tend naturally to their perfection, the full
realisation of their essences, and Gold was taken as the perfection, the
entelechy, of all other metals, perhaps of all other substances. Thus "Albertus
Magnus" asserts "Non dari rem elementatam, in cujus ultima substantione non
reperiatur aurum."(175) Norton, Ripley, "Dunstan," "Lull" all stress as the
groundwork of the feasibility of transmutation, the "sickness" that infects all
imperfect bodies - gold being the most nearly perfect of those found in nature
(the "Stone" itself being that entirely perfected substance which impels all other
substances to their improvement), but all imperfect bodies are by their
constitution corruptible, and from their putrefaction, if it can be induced - St.
Paul is usually cited here on the death of the seed in the earth as the necessary
preliminary to resurrection in glory - they will arise in their true purity and
emerge as gold. An excellent expression of this view is Nysement's Poeme
philosophic de la Verite de la Phisique Minerale, 1620, in which the science is not
unexpectedly closely bound up with the adoration of the "Spiritus Mundi." Of the
Alchemists he writes:

"Ils firent des Metaux la vraye anatomie

Vivifiant par Art leur vigeur endormie."

And again:

"Le but universal de la vraye Alchemie

Est d'oster aux metaux une impure cadmie

Qui leur pure substance empesche en l'infectant

D'arriver au sommet ou la nature tend."(176)

All the traditional laboratory stages in "The Work" - which follow fairly closely a
standard pattern - can be directly related to this interpretation of the process
that was supposed to be occurring. The theory suggested immediately practical
applications, and in performing these the alchemist could have at least some
idea of the effects he was aiming to produce, which would control and direct his
endeavours. At the same time observation was in fact crippled and its results
unprofitable, by being made always in relation to governing concepts of vague
and disputable content and implications, such as "perfection," and
"improvement."(177) The doctrine suggested no exact terminology for assessing
results which would render even classified "failures" significant data; moreover,
ultimately it discouraged experiment, and cramped all investigation, by its
insistence that all that could be done was to imitate nature by reproducing the
conditions which within the earth allowed the spontaneous generation of metals
one from another - by a mysterious power whose causal operations it was
beyond man's wit to comprehend in other than "mystical" phraseology. This
passive, incurious, but ever hopeful attitude can be illustrated for instance by a
seventeenth century treatise of Henry Harrington's: "I would wish" he declares,
"the Students of this Arte to continue in the true and simple way of Nature....Be
assured (Reader) that noe manuall rescip or work is or can be true, thou shalt
but delude and cosin theyselfe, for no manuall worke appertaineth to this Arte, a
true Ph.[ilosopher] doth but sett Nature in order by Placeing a true matter in a
convenient vessell, and keeping a true regiment of fire, Nature performeth all the
rest."(178) Nevertheless the theory long persisted, commending itself by a
superficially attractive simplicity and order. Many standard 17th century chemical
works continue to assert that there is a single type of perfect metal which is
gold, since those who denied this would have to prove that every metal was a
different "species," whereas the similarities between them were obvious to all
(179), and the doctrine lent itself readily to the attempt to construct evolutionary
chemical patterns - such as Glaubet's cyclical theory of the life histories of
metals.

The second trend in alchemical thought that may be contrasted with this
doctrine, seems frequently to derive from purely a priori considerations, to make
dogmatic statements impossible of verification, and to have little or no possible
connection with any observation or performable experimental work. Its
fundamental difference from the first may be illustrated by the view of the
constitution of the underlying character of nature that they respectively implied;
the one led to the idea that, in Arnold of Villanova's frequently cited phrase from
the Speculum "there abides in nature a certain pure matter, which being
discovered and brought by art to perfection, converts to itself proportionally all
imperfect bodies that it touches" (180); the second was inclined to regard
"matter" as some undifferentiated substratum, whose only quality was to be
susceptible of arrangement, and from the geometrical patternings
mathematically definable that it assumed all particular qualities took their being.
This view stems largely from the account of the elements in the Timaeus - not
infrequently thereafter to be encountered in Platonist writings - it is adopted for
instance by Nichomachus, and set out by Plutarch (181) - or even from
Pythagorean teachings, if their concretisation of number regarding it as the
essence of things be interpreted as referring to orderly groupings of "points"
having a certain extension (182). The connections between this "geometrical
atomism" (which must be sharply distinguished from that Epicurean atomism
which accounted for the qualities of varying substances by ascribing to their
atoms such shapes as if they had possessed them on a macroscopic level might
plausibly have explained the sense impressions they produced - that is, by
making them round, pointed or hooked - an interpretation advocated by various
chemical writers such as Lemery until the eighteenth century) and neo-Platonism
generally have been previously touched upon - thus quantity and divisibility were
the only features Avicenna would admit matter as possessing per se; traces of
this view are to be found in Roger Bacon's Questions on Aristotle that have
already been compared to Dee's views on "generation," in which it is implied that
the forms which are imposed on the single undifferentiated matter to produce all
variety in it are "numerical"; and by the seventeenth century, the Cambridge
Platonists were prepared to find a mechanical corpuscular theory not merely
compatible with the intellectual structure of the universe, they postulated but the
only "intelligible" system that could be devised for the interpretation of physical
phenomena. As regards alchemy the most influential exponent of comparable
views was al Jabir, to whom Dee's thought seems in many respects to be
indebted, his prime thesis applicable to every science would seem to have been
that the specific qualities of things are "measurable" and depend on definite
numerical proportions and Kraus has given detailed description and analysis of
his work from this point of view. Al Jabir makes no distinction it is true between
exact physical measurement and numerological fantasy, but he represents a
sharp break with the verbal, mystical tradition of alchemical writing, and these
"donnees arithmologiques represent sans aucun doute le trait le plus
caracteristique du Corpus"; his applications of them vary in detail "mais leur
principe est toujours la meme: c'est de fonder l'alchimie aussi que toutes les
autres sciences sur les lois du nombre et de la mesure, de soumettre toute la
Nature a ce que Jabir appelle la theorie de la Balance."(183) This last "a pour but
de ramener tous les changements qualitatifs du monde corporel a des
changements de quantite, et de construire avec les donnees du Timee et de la
doctrine pythagoricienne le system d'une physique quantitatif."(184) The number
17 plays a leading part in his theories; one of the chief reasons being that there
are 17 consonants in the Greek alphabet which divide into 9 mutes and 8
semivowels, the proportion 9:8 being that of the tone (the seven vowels are the
seven notes of the scale)(185). He postulates that all bodies have related
structures "governed" by this number, and it is the exterior part of this structure
which produces their observable chemical properties, the retruse and not easily
affected inner structure - composed of the "unmanifested" remainder of 17 -
endows their nature with stability. "La transmutation d'unm corps en un autre
n'est donc pas le fait d'un simple chamgement par augmentation ou diminution
survenue du dejors. L'operation alchimique n'a pour but que de changer les
rapports qui existent, dans le corps meme, entre ses parties manifestes et ses
parties latentes, de rendro manifeste une quantite determinee de telle Nature
latente ou d'en repousser une quantite determinee a l'interieur. Ainsi, le corps
primitif disparaitre et un autre prendre sa place, mais l'equilibre exprime par la
somme des Natures manifestes et latents restera toujours le meme."(186)

Now passing to the seventeenth century, Boyle may be taken as an enthusiastic

alchemist, working along lines typical of the age. He petitioned parliament and
obtained the repeal of the Act of Henry IV against "multipliers of gold"; he
claimed to have purified quicksilver into an essential mercury which approached
closely the Hermetic "prima materia" (an experimental discourse of Quicksilver
growing hot with gold, 1675), he "reduced" gold to silver, using a dark red
powder - reminiscent of that employed by Kelly (An historical account of a
degradation of gold made by antielixir: a strange chemical narrative). These
activities seem traditional, but the general theories from which Boyle is working
are radically different from those based on the tending of metals towards their
perfection - gold, for "Boyle as a consequence of being a Corpuscularian would
regard transmutation as a necessary principle of nature."(187) He envisaged
differing chemical qualities as arising from differing geometrical patternings of
identical atoms, and these "forms" as being directly alterable by experiment.
Even more striking is the case of Newton who similarly declared "God in the
Beginning, form'd matter in solid, massy hard, impenetrable, moveable Particles
of such sizes and Figures, and with such other Properties, and in such proportion
to Space as most conduc'd to the End for which he form'd them."(188) Newton's
alchemical papers in the Portsmouth Collection run to over half a million words;
once more many of his experiments are in appearance along very traditional
lines, and this connection is emphasized by his view of the science as being "an
inlet to something more noble," which was not to be communicated to the world
(189). However a recent examination - "defence" or "apology" might better
convey its flavour - of Newton's alchemical theories has been made by Soviet
Academician S.J. Vavilov, who claims that Newton "built up a picture of the
microstructure of matter remarkable for its profundity, foresight and
correctness."(190) Regarding all "pure" substances as made up of elementary
complex "particles" in which the corpuscular pattern determined the qualities of
the substance, Newton attributed ordinary chemical change, resulting from the
formation of compounds, as alterations solely in the outer "layers" of such
structures; his alchemical researches it is pointed out were directed chiefly to the
discovery of a solvent penetrating enough to affect the more stable core. Apart
from Newton's obvious unawareness of the actual magnitude of these chemical
atoms, the scheme is said by Vavilov to be otherwise comparable to, even an
anticipation of, modern chemical theory, which ascribes "normal" chemical
changes to affections of the outer electrons and transmutation as only produced
when an alteration is made in the nuclear structure. But it is clear tht the
similarity between Newton's and modern theories (or the no less striking
similarity between Newton's and for instance Al Jabir's (192)) are not a result of
any similarity between the empirical evidence available in these different ages,
from which inductive conclusions were drawn; nor, however, are the similarities
the result of mere chance. They arise from the employment in all cases of
related concepts, they are systems which indicate a departure from similar initial
"axioms" which define, inevitably, a similar approach to, and therefore similar
conclusions about, nature. All three of these examples are particular formulations
emerging froma continuous, though developing tradition, it survived up to and
through the Renaissance by its association with, or logical derivation from,
certain metaphysical assumptions; in the seventeenth century, as far as its
chemical application is concerned, its strength is drawn from its concordance
with views and methods which in other branches of science had achieved direct
practical success; but it is perhaps only from the end of the eighteenth century
onwards, though in all its manifestations it had reacted on, not always
insignificantly, experimental technique - that it begins to be truly reflected in the
methods of practical chemistry and "confirmed" by a rapidly expanding body of
direct empirical evidence.

Despite the presence of many superficially dissimilar features we have noted in

the Monas, Aphorisms and elsewhere, Dee's chemical theories can be said,
broadly, to belong within this tradition. (He would even seem to have taken over
along with much else from Al Jabir the doctrine of the significance of 17 as
applied to the material structure of things (193).) His approach chiefly contrasts
for instance with those of Newton and Boyle in that Dee generally prefers to look
upwards from the numerical harmonies which he affirms maintain in nature, to
search for their correspondencies in the intellectual and angelical worlds, which
unprofitable path he regards as philosophically superior, rather than to develop
in greater detail and explore the physical applications of these theories, though
he held this to be an equally possible and legitimate course. Nevertheless he is
insistent in the Preface that in terms of number, measure and weight alone, the
essences of all things and their natural causes are to be understood, that the
exact operations involving thse, and the mathematical logic which bases its
calculations upon the results of the precise measurements of these, made up the
true method in natural philosophy. This triplicity had long received lip service
from the alchemists (194), without however greatly infiltrating their practice or
producing any marked attention to quantitative considerations. But Dee's
treatment is of a far different kind, particularly so in his references to "Weight"
as a factor to be attended to in investigation. Indeed he is conscious of dealing
with an almost new science when he discusses it in the Preface and inserts a
prayer to God for guidance as a preface to his exposition, which he regards as
needful, since men are "advertised by thy mercifull goodness, that three
principall wayes, were, of the, vsed in Cration of all thy Cratures, namely
Number, Waight and Measure, and for as much as, of Number and Measure, the
two Artes (auncient, famous and to humaine vses most necessary) are, all ready,
sufficiently knowen and extant. This third key, we beseech thee (through thy
accustomed goodness) that it may come to the nedefull and sufficient knwledge,
of such thy Servauntes, as in thy workemanship, would gladly finde thy true
occasions (purposely of the vsed), Whereby we should glorifie they
name...."(195) Dee's views lend him to break with the Aristotelian doctrine - at
least to evade its pernicious consequences for he speaks of the "lightness" of fire
as a limited force susceptible of measurement - that heaviness and lightness
were equally existing contraries, so that some bodies were possessed of absolute
lightness, and which, since it taught that no substance possessed weight in its
proper place, implied that perceptible weight - a result of a substance's
dislocation from such a place - was a mere adventitious accident, a purely local
manifestation (it may be noted here that Dee's investigations in this field also
lead him to reject Aristotle's declaration that speed of fall is proportional to
weight - for often describing some part of the rare Art Statike, which he calls
"the Experimentes of the Balance" he adds "By thse vercties, great Errors may be
reformed, in Opinion of the Naturall Motion of thinges, Light and Heavy. Which
errors, are in Naturall Philosophie (almost) of all me alloweds: to much trusting
to Authority and false Suppositions. As Of any two bodyes, the heavyer to move
downward faster then the lighter" (196)). Dee on the other hand seems to
ascribe some degree of heaviness to all substances and to regard the proportion
of weight to volume, while the density of the surrounding medium remains
constant as one of the permanent identifying characteristics of any particular
substance. He translates into English for the first time here some sections of
Archimedes statics (197), he informs his readers that especially by this science
"You may deale for the proportion of the Elementes, in thinges Compounded"
and suggests numerous "experiments" to which the exact determination of
weights will provide the key (198) - these are in great measure inspired by the
fourth part of Cusa's Idepts, which is an exposition of the utility of the "Bolanxe"
as an instrument in all fields for the inquisition of nature.

But this topic, in relation to the contents of the Preface, their influence, and
connection with the growth of dynamics and experimental investigation, it is
intended to cover more fully in a later study, and as it has only an indirect
bearing upon alchemical doctrines further expansion would be irrelevant to the
present purpose. However some side lights on Dee's more strictly chemical
theories are provided by his copy of Pantheus' Voarchadumia, a work he
commends to the emperor in the Prefactory letter to the Monas, and of which
later, the angels, through the mouth of Kelly expressed their high approval
(199). This little work attacks the methods of tinting, etc., usually employed by
the alchemists as "sophistic," for they leave the basic substance of the materials
they are applied to unchanged (200). It sets out to explore the principles of
chemistry from a more fundamental point of view. In order to do this it employs
an extensive artificial vocabulary which has been constructed after tha manner of
word building recommended in the Cratylus, Pantheus apologising for the
necessity of this, says the justification for it will be apparent to the intelligent
reader "Cui (sane) veritati aptissimo astipulatur illa peripateticorum Principia
doctrina edocentis (ingenere relationes) oportere aliquando pro explicandis
rerum proprietatibus nomina cofingere."(201) The chief instrument employed
throughout is the Cabalah - an examination of the construction and numerical
values of the Hebrew characters revealed by God to Moses (202), and an
analysis of Hebrew words and phrases made after this fashion. At the same time
it aims at being a practical handbook and has many full-page illustrations of
laboratory equipment and machines for use in the Work, showing complex
arrangements of gears, rollers, and presses, with instructions for their use. Dee
has interleaved his copy with manuscript, containing comment often fuller than
the text, sometimes merely extracts from it. Going back beyond the hypostatised
qualities of moist, dry, heat and cold, and the conventional four elements, Dee
interprets these as affections of matter resulting from its organisation, and
seems to approach a corpuscularian point of view, as quantitative indivisibility
seems the one characteristic he allows to the concept of Element declaring
"Elementa minima particula corporis est."(203) Discussing "corruption" as
produced by alchemical processes he declares it is not of matter, for that is
indestructible, in itself, by natural or artificial powers, but of the substantial form
which is a result of the proportion and arrangement of "elements" - "Sed
Essentia et forma qua ex mixtione susceperant bene pentus annihilatur" (a
statement which conforms with the long directios he gives for arithmetically
determining "the newe Forme resulting" when compounding a medicine when
the exact proportions and the specific qualities quantitatively represented - of the
ingredients are known, in the Preface (204)); a whole, Dee continues, is an
integration of parts, a house may be taken to pieces, in which case the "house"
is destroyed but the wood and stone from which it was built remain. He
interprets various natural processes on this model. Water in a vessel stood upon
a fire will evaporate. Has not, he asks, the fire destroyed the moistness so that
nothing remains? and answers that the water has taken on another form, and is
now steam - it has assumed the form of air, which is generated by heat and
dampness, as a consequence of rarefaction. Thus, he says, clouds ascend by
virtue of fire against "Nature," since water is heavier than air in its normal
"form"; "et cum venit ad locu perpetui frigorus, in quo frigidatas superat
caliditate tunc Nubes converitur in aqua; virtute sua frigidatus inspissantias" and
rain results (205). (His treatment of the four qualities as effects of varieties of
motion with a body is reminiscent of Urac's theories previously noted.) He
attempts to explain standard alchemical processes such as putrefaction interms
of the rearrangement of parts that is taking place internally to the substance. As
far as possible he employs numbers in his descriptions, but while his notes have
many observations and calculations, of proportions by weight and measure of
the possible constitution of various substances, he, like the text, derives most of
this data from Cabalistic exercises; thus (206) he writes "Primu ergo principium
naturale, est materia, seu causa materilis terrae aquae, Ignia et aeris, sub Nutu
Dei, vel Marthek: quod graece neusi theu dicitur, et Hebraici rec on Heloim
positio in literis et numeris: notatis per Linea perpendiculario; ut infra ac divisis
ot aequales et inequales pertes tali videlicet modo." There follow tables which set
out Nuta Dei, and Marthek, in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, turn them into numbers,
and combine these in turn, in various manners, and apply the totals to
"Putrefactic," "Generatio," "Alteratus" etc.(207)

Despite the fragmentary nature of the evidence it is perhaps enough to indicate

Dee's place in regard to Alchemical theory. But though it formed an organic, and
in practise far from neglected, part of his whole cosmology, he seems to have
regarded it like mechanics and other applied sciences, chiefly as a wholesome
diversion that might prove not unprofitable in daily life, and by no means
comparable in worth or importance with the principles of pure mathematics, and
the intellects upward ascent from them. These embraced in turn such activities
as alchemy, which were to be viewed as valid deductions from them. These
embraced in turn such activities as alchemy, which were to be viewed as valid
deductions from them, but except in private notes, and in the Preface - a
manifesto on the utility as well as the divinity of number - Dee largely refrained
from any direct discussion in his works of these lower branchesof knowledge,
except in the manner he employs in the Monas (if considered as an alchemical
work), where the primary reference of his thought is always the more general
aspects of the hideen relationships and mysterious harmonies maintaining in the
universe as a whole, and their significance for the dianoetic faculty operating in
the service of the soul's felicity that follows on this comprehension of them. So
even in the Preface he concludes his discussion of Statics, which has dealt with
its utility, and act out physical experiments at considerable length, with the
comment "Thus, can the Mathematical minde, deale Speculatively in his own
Arte: and by good meanes, Mount above the cloudes and sterres: And thirdly, he
can, by order, Descend, to frame Naturall thinges, to wonderfull vses: and when
he list, retire home into his owne Centre: and there prepare more Meanes, to
Ascend or Descend by: and all, to the glory of God, and our honest delectation in
earth."(208)

Chapter VII.

THE MORTLAKE CIRCLE AND ELIZABETHAN ENDEAVOUR

(1564-1583).

I. Dee settles at Mortlake - his household - connections with Sydney family - with
the mathematician Thomas Allen - attacked with Allen, Lopez and Julio in
Leicester's Commonwealth - friendship with Dyer - attempts to engage Dyer's
influence in his political schemes.

II. Mystical works on triangle and circle (n.28 & 29) - edition of de Superficerum
Divisiorum with Commandine in Italy - Dee's identification of the work as
Euclid's.

III. The English Euclid published - Dee, Billingsley and Whitehead - its novelty -
thesis of the Preface, the three levels of mathematics - reflections of this in
introductions to the separate books - Dee's defence against charges of conjuring
- his appeal for wider mathematical instruction and for dissemination of scientific
works in the vernacular - parallels with Gilbert's proposal for founding Academy
on new educational principals and for scientific research.

IV. Concern of the Preface and Dee's annotations with the new artisan and
technical classes - the appeal Dee's work had for them - their conscious
independence, experimental approach and increasing respect for mathematics.

V. Dee's special interest in navigation - his paradoxal compass - the problem of

longitude finding (n.91) - his compass of variation and contemporary
descriptions.

VI. Connections with the voyagers and general exploration - and Frobisher's
Black Stone company (n.101) - views on the N.W. Passage and Gilbert's treatise
- instructions to Hall and Frobisher - to Jackson and Pott - interest in Far East -
associations with Gilbert's last enterprise - its historical importance - plans with
Davis and Adrian Gilbert to colonise and convert America - receives a grant of
greater part of Canada.

I. Some time after his return from the Low Countries, where he had overseen the
printing of the Monas, Dee established himself at Mortlake, in what is described
in a survey of 1617 as being then "an ancient house," and which after Dee's
death was converted into - certainly its grounds became the site of - the Royal
Tapestry Works (1). Despite increasing financial difficulties Dee enlarged the
original premises and estate from time to time, by the purchase of adjacent
tenements. Here he housed his vast library (2), his collection of scientific
instruments, and objects of antiquarian interest - he mentions a collection of
ancient seals he possessed, as well as a body of Welsh and Irish records, and a
large and increasing family and numerous assistants and servants. Some thirty
years later, in 1597, in the depths of his poverty, his household still numbered
eighteen, which he estimated as the minimum possible for maintaining the
normal essential routine of daily life (3). He also erected, or converted to this use
- as his Diary jottings reveal - at least three separate "laboratories" - or still
houses, and elaborately equipped them. Mortlake was of easy access from
London by land or water (4). The Queen rode out here on occasion, and Dee
received frequent visitors from Court and city. Here, among others (several more
regular resident pupils are mentioned in the diaries (5)). Sir Philip Sydney came
to him for instruction in Chemistry (6), and for him Dee drew up a sixty-two page
horoscope, full of golden predictions of talents and success (7). Indeed it is
probable that Dee retained some intimacy with the whole Sydney circle, for
Philip's mother was the daughter of Northumberland to whose household Dee
had been attached, and his sister, Mary Countess of Pembroke, employed Adrian
Gilbert, who was a close associate in various of Dee's activities, and was even
admitted to the sittings with Kelly when angelic correspondence was established.
Aubrey records of this countess "In her time Wilton house was like a College,
there were so many learned, and ingeniose persons. She was the greatest
patrenesse of witt and learning of any lady on her time. She was a great chymist
and spent yearly a great deale in that study. She kept for her laborator in the
house Adrian Gilbert (vulgarly called Dr. Gilbert), halfe brother to Sir Walter
Ralegh, who was a great chymist in those dayes....She also gave an honorable
yearly pension to Dr. Mouffet, who hath writt a booke De Insectis. Also one
Boston, a good chymist....who did undoe himselfe by studying the philosopher's
stone."(8) Dee's circle, which had as its centre at Mortlake, until his departure for
the continent in 1583, has been ascribed a place of high importance in the
development of English scientific thought by F.R. Johnson. After examining
various learned societies of the latter part of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries he concludes "Of far greater import, however, was the success of John
Dee....in gathering about him a group of friends and pupils which in effect
constituted a sort of scientific academy," and this group must be ranked as the
earliest ancestor of the Royal Society to contribute significantly to its patrimony
(9).

Among Dee's acquaintances of this time deserving of particular mention was

Thomas Allen (1543-1632). From the fragmentary information surviving, Dee and
Allen seem to have been of very similar temperaments and inclinations, though
unfortunately few of Allen's writings remain, and those scattered and neglected
in MS. Their names are sometimes coupled in contemporary writings; they both
accumulated extensive libraries, each of which boasted a manuscript of
Chalcidius commentary on the Timaeus (10); and on Dee's death various of his
books and manuscripts passed into Allen's hands (11); Allen's collection
containing these was presented to the Bodleian by Kenelm Digby, an intimate
friend of Allen's, and who was termed by him "The Mirandula of the age."(12)
Allen is reported to have rivalled Dee in mathematics, for he is described as "not
only the prince of Coryphaeus, but the very Soul and Sun of all the
mathematicians of his time."(13) Like Dee he was suspected and accused of
being a "conjuror" and engaging in diabolical practices; in Fuller's well-known
phrase he "succeeded to the skill and scandal of Friar Bacon,"(14) and his
servants, says Aubrey, would alarm the country folk by announcing that they
frequently "met the spirits coming up the stairs like bees."(15) He was also,
according to Wood, much courted by Northumberland "whereupon spending
some time with him he was infinitely beloved and admired, not only by that
Count, but by such artists who then lived with, or often retired to him, as Tho.
Harriot, John Dee, Walt. Warner, Nath. Torperley, etc. the Atlantes of the
Mathematic World." After leaving Oxford in 1567 he seems to have shared his
principal patron with Dee. This was Leicester, who apparently made him similar
offers of ecclesiastical advancement as he had once made to the elder
philosopher for, says Wood "he would have conferr'd upon him (Allen) a
Bishoprick, but for the sweetness of a retired life, he denied that also."(16) The
scurrilous Leicesters Commonwealth (1584) to which Sydney was engaged to
write a refutation in 1585, couples Dee and Allen once more - as magicians;
proclaiming "His Lordship doth alwaies covet, to be furnished with certaine
chosen men about him, for divers affairs: as these two Galenists in the
University: Dee and Allen (two Atheists) for figuring and conjuring: Julio the
Italian, and Lopas the Jew, for poysoning, and for the art of destroying children
in women's bellies; Verneis for murdering: Digbies for Bauds: and the like in
occupations which his Lordship exercises."(17) They were closely associated
during the affair of Frobisher's Black stone, Allen succeeding Lock as treasurer of
the company - he was later receiver for it - formed to exploit the stone after
Frobisher's third voyage (18). Just as Dee on occasion kept close conference with
the Queen to reassure her at the appearance of comets and the new star, so
Aubrey says of Allen: "Queen Elizabeth sent for him to have his advice about the
new star that appeared in the Swan or Cassiopeia (but I think the Swan_ to
which he gave his judgment very learnedly."(19) Laski, whom Dee and Kelly
accompanied on his return to the continent, seems, previously, to have extended
a similar invitation to Allen; while it is possible that Kelly came to Dee after
service with Allen - it was perhaps from him that Kelly picked up those scraps of
abstruse learning by which he was able to impress Dee and lend colour to his
"visions" which were undoubtedly in part calculated deception and imposture -
for Wood states that Kelly served as Allen's amanuensis at the time when he was
instructing Sir John Davis in mathematics (20).

This period of Dee's life also probably marks the beginnings of his friendship with
Edward Dyer (b.1543) - also a close friend of the Sydneys (21) - who thereafter
continued one of Dee's most intimate disciples, and an associate in his various
speculative or practical ventures, geographical, political and occult. Dyer's father
had died in 1565, leaving him, according to Aubrey, L4,000 p.a., and L80,000 in
moneys, and then came straightway to Court and took service under Leicester
(22). It was in this same year that Dee wrote his Reipublicae Brittannicae
Synopsis in English, a lost work which may perhaps be identified with one written
for Dyer, spoken of in later writings, and if so from the nature of its contents
there indicated, it may not be unreasonable to conjecture that "by this date Dee
had already begun to dream of England as Mistress of a Northern Empire, based
on the command of the seas."(23) For, discussing a possible English discovery of
a North West passage and its importance for such a project, Dee wrote in
General and Rare Memorials that he had previously treated of the matter in his
"old Atlanticall Discourses to the selfsame purpose (at the sayd M. Dyer his
request) almost ten years sins set down in wryting."(24) Dee attempted
continually to engage Dyer's political influence (25) in his various schemes for
English aggrandisement, those of his works addressed specifically to Dyer have
this as their chief theme; unfortunately perhaps for the success of these, Dyer
seems to have been primarily interested in the alchemical side of Dee's
researches, and in encouraging him in further efforts in this field (26).
Nevertheless, Dyer's wide patronage of the arts and sciences, and his generosity
towards scholars (27) probably proved useful to Dee; who was from now on
through the rest of his life in chronic need of financial assistance.

II. In the same year as he addressed his "Atlanticall" treatise to Dyer, Dee
composed De Trigono circinoque analogico. Opusculum Mathematisum et
Mechanicum lib. 4. From the surviving fragments of it, it may have been
intended for publication, as this is a fair copy, with scribbled directions in the
margin in English relating to the placing of the figures of the text. But its
mathematics are of a kind comparable to those of the "Monas" and one suspects
therefore that it was largely designed to illustrate the mystic properties of the
triangle (28), a figure Dee held in high esteem, employed as a personal
monogram (it is used invariably to indicate himself throughout the "Spiritual
Diaries"), and later, by a grant from Rudolph II incorporated into his arms. The
probable purpose of the book is reflected in a long letter he addressed to
Camden ten years later on the virtues of this figure (29).

A more important mathematical achievement was the edition he produced, in

conjunction with Federigo Commandino (30) of de Superficierum Divisionibus
(31) tajeb from a manuscript in Dee's possession, of a Latin translation by
Gherard of Cremona from the Arabic, which attributed the work to Machumetus
Bagdedinus. It was printed in 1570 at Pisa and reissued there the same year in
an Italian translation (32). That, as in the case of the Monas and Aphorisms, Dee
should publish abroad may be an indication of difficulties encountered in the
production of abstrusely learned works in England, and perhaps accounts in
some measure for the small proportion of Dee's writings that arrived at
publication. Dee had been staying at Urbino (33) with Commandine, since the
latter who describes Dee as "Vir praestanti ingenio, atque eruditione singluari,"
says addressing Frederic Maria in the dedication, that he "Illustrissima vestrae
aule fama compulsus maxima itinerum difficultate superata sese huc
contulit."(34) The most probable date for Dee's visit would seem to be 1568 or
1569 (35) for there seems to have been little delay in the publication. Dee
proceeded to Rome for the summer, concluding his preface: "Iam conficiendi
itineris ration me avocat, ne maiorem horum, qui nunc nos circumfundunt
aestuum tolerare, cogar iniuriam antequam in umbris romanas hinc me recipere
quea" and directed Commandine to send copies for him to the "singluar patron
of all good arts but especially of the mathematical," Sir William Pickering at
London from where they could be most readily conveyed to his own library (36)
which seems to indicate that he did not anticipate that he would have returned
to England by the time the work appeared. Dee presented a transcript he had
made and not the original, to Commandine on leaving, for he refers to the
author's name as found "ia ipso, unde descripsi uetustissimo exemplare" (37)
and left Commandine to do the detailed editing and preparation for the press.
For Commandine writes "Cum Joannes Dee....libellum huc...mihi discendens
amoris ergo me sui testem relinqueret" he expressed a wish that it could be
made generally available to students of mathematics; "Itaque ego &
honestissima amici hominis, ac doctissimi voluntate commotus, & mira libelli
utilitate allectus," proceeded to rearrange its contents and publish it (38).

Dee contributed a prefatory letter in which he declared that his major

preoccupation for many years had been the discovery and preservation of the
monuments of the ancient philosophers. The present MS was extremely difficult
to decipher and he seems to have employed artificial aids to better his sight:
"libellus, charactere quidem scriptus deformi nimis et ab ipsam etiam vetustatis
inuriam vix legibili. At oculos ut videre effeci; lynceos: & frequenti meditatione,
usuqz lectionis sum consecutus facilitatem."(39) After he had made it out he
realised its extreme importance. He was certain that the author was not
Mahomet Bagdadicus but wondered for a long time if it might not be Albategnus,
whom he says Copernicus often mentions "as a very considerable author in
astronomy." But he is now fairly confident that it was written by Euclid and
equates it with the lost work mentioned by Proclus in his commentary on the
Elements , which seems to have been concerned with the division of figures into
like - as triangles into triangles - and unlike regular figures - Dee adds that he
has some skill in such attributions, as a number of friends of his can testify that
he has restored a work "in Philosophia occulta, mysticaqz incomparabilem," by
most sure proofs to its rightful author, Anaxagoras, though it had long falsely
passed under the name of Aristotle (40). In the present case the work soon
became well known, and Dee's attribution was generally accepted (41); as far as
the substance of the work goes, this is so today and the equation of it with the
work of which the title is cited in Proclus' commentary is judged correct. It was
translated by Leke and Serle in their Euclid of 1661 (42) and was included in
Gregory's Euclid of 1703. In the present century it has been reissued
accompanied with a full discussion on its problematic authenticity and with notes
on its considerable influence (43).

III. 1570 also saw the appearance of the English Euclid, one of the most
outstanding monuments in English scholarship, educational work and book
production of the sixteenth century. The translation, more accurate, felicitous
and easily comprehensible than many of its successors, was made from the
Greek (not the usually employed later version of Campanus) by Henry Billingsley,
later Lord Mayor of London. Of him Wood writes that he "did spent some time
among the Muses in this University (i.e., Oxford) as others did who were
afterwards traders in London...but before our author Billingsley had continued
there three Years...he was taken thence and bound Apprentice to an
Haberdasher as it seems in London (44). But though Billingsley may also have
been at Oxford for a time his university education was not so restricted as this
account implies, for he matriculated at St. John's Cambridge - 150, and became
a scholar there the next year. Wood goes on to assert that much of the work
was done by an Augustinian friar, Whitehead, who sheltered in Billingsley's
house, after expulsion from Oxford, and who instructed his benefactor there and
left him at his death all the notes "which he had with great pains drawn up and
digested upon Euclid." Wood's information, despite the impressive dignity of the
manner in which he delivers it, which lends a spurious air of authority to his
pronouncements, is too often only a recasting, and often a quite inaccurate one,
of the miscellaneous gossip with which Aubrey supplied him. The present story is
usually discounted. However, in this case, Whitehead's cooperation is testified to,
by a more nearly contemporary witness (1582), who declares "Great pains were
taken at the time of the impression by M. Doctor Whitehead a profound learned
man, and Mr. John Dee, who is accounted of the learned mathematicians
throughout Europe ye prince of Mathematicians of this age: as Cicero named
Cratippus ye prince of Philosophers in his age. This M. Dee hath put unto these
englished elements many scholies, annotations, corollaries and expositions which
give great light and facilitie to the understanding of them."(45) Dee also
corrected or redesigned many of the more complicated diagrams to assist a more
ready comprehension, and was perhaps partly responsible for the device (not
wholly an innovation, there are traces of it in the works of Durer, Cardan and
others), which excited much admiration of supplying additional figures, offered
as illustrations - they are carefully distinguished from true geometrical procedure
- appealing to the intuition which were possessed of moveable parts, or which
when cut out in pasteboard, could be folded into three dimensional
representations, as for instance of the regular solids. Dee also contributed a
lengthy Preface of some fifty folio pages addressed generally "To the unfained
Lovers of Truthe, and constant Studentes of Noble Sciences" and more
particularly "framed" "to Plato his fugitive scholers."(46)

The Preface, the work for which Dee was chiefly remembered, until Casaubon's
publication of his "spiritual diaries," threw his other achievements into the shade
- and of which a Latin translation was being urged nearly a century later (47) is
an eloquent and forceful exposition of a neo-Platonic "numerical" philosophy,
based on the assumption of three cognitive levels reflecting three levels of
"being" subsisting in creation. The rise of mathematics is traced from abstract
principles innate in the mind, and a multitude of arts and sciences are catalogued
and examined which are from the "Mathematicall fountaines, derived into the
fieldes of Nature, are refreshed, quickened, and provoked to grow, shote up,
floure, and give frote infinite, and incredible."(48) Dee rises to lyrical heights of
enthusiasm in his pleas for a recognition of the proper dignities of this neglected
science of mathematics. "O comfortable allurement," he exclaims, "O ravishing
perswasion, to deale with a Science, whose Subiect, is so Auncient, so pure, so
excellent, so surmounting all creatures, so vsed of the Almighty and
incomprehensible wisdome of the Creator, in the distinct creation of all
creatures: in all their distinct partes, properties, natures, and vertues, by order,
and most absolute number, brought, from Nothing to the Formalitie of their
being and state."(49)

The summaries and comments which precede the various books, are possibly
Billingsley's but they reflect what is a uniform tone pervading the whole
production, and range over, and mingle with no sense of disparity the purely
mathematical, the utilitarian, the "metaphysical" and matter of natural
philosophy. Thus it is pointed out how book II provides a geometrical foundation
for the theory of the equation (50); and the extreme logical importance, as an
example of a self-contained deductive system independent of figures and
paralleling arithmetical reasoning, of Book V which was a book usually omitted
from normal instruction as too difficult, and abstract, or extraneous to geometry
as a whole, until the late nineteenth century, is admirably brought out (51).
Similar pains are conscientiously taken to render Book X comprehensible and to
dissipate the legend of its extreme obscurity, difficulty and uselessness (52). Or
again, Book VI is recommended to special attention because "On the Theorems
and Problems of this booke, depend for the most part, the composition of all
instruments of measuring length, breadth or deepness, and also the reason of
theuse of the same instruments as of the Geometrical Square, the Scale of the
Astrolabe, the quadrant, the staffe, and such other. The use of which
instruments beside all other mechanical instruments of raising up, of moving and
drawing huge things incredible to the ignorant, and infinite other ginnes (which
likewise have their grounde out of this Booke) are of wonderfull and unspeakable
profite, beside the inestimable pleasure which is in them."(53) Book III it is
noted, treats of the circle "whereof it is much more to be esteemed than the two
bookes going before" (which dealt with right lined figures) for "of all figures the
circle is of most absolute perfection whose proprieties and passions are here set
forth" and "sciences take their dignity from the worthyness of the matter they
intreat of."(54) Apropos of Bk.XI, the editors explain why the heavenly bodies
are necessarily of spherical form, for they were designed to be in continual
motion and "a sphere is a figure most apt to all motion, as having no base
whereon to stay," and so on (55). Throughout, the Platonic mathematicism of
the Preface is recurrently stressed. A clear example is the introduction to Book
VII. where Euclid's consideration of number is used as an excuse for exhibiting
the superiority of Arithmetic to Geometry, since it is more self-sufficient, and the
subject it deals with "cannot be judged by any sense but only by consideration of
the mind and understanding. Now things sensible are far under in degree than
are things intellectual and are of nature much more gross than they, wherefore
Number, as being only intellectual, is more pure, more immateriall, and more
subtile, farre than is magnitude and extendeth itselfe farther....The wisest and
best learned philosophers that have bene, as Pithagoras, Timaeus, Plato and
their followers found out and taught most pithely and purely the secret and
hidden knowledge ofthe nature and condicion of all thinges, by nombers and by
the proprieties and passions of them....Yea it hath been taught of the chiefest
amongest philosophers, that all natural things are framed and have their
constitucion of nomer....Timaeus in his booke, and also Plato in his Timaeus
following him, show how the soule is composed of harmonicall nombers and
consonantes of musicke. Number compareth all thinges, and is (after these men)
the being and very essence of all thinges, and ministreth ayde and helpe as to all
other knowledge."(56)

The contents, sources and influence of the English Euclid, forming the subject of
the complementary study to the present, it is only necessary here briefly to
notice its appearance. One or two features however may be more particularly
noted. Towards the end of the Preface, Dee forsakes his theme to burst into an
impassioned rebuttal of the charge of "Conjuring" that rumour had raised against
him, it is the first of several "Apologies" that we have from his pen, and as a
personal record part of it maynot improperly be reproduced here. It also exhibits
in a striking manner the qualities of Dee's English prose at its height; at once
cumbrous and nervous, headlong, and superficially involved, but rhetorically
effective and generally clear as to underlying sense. "Should I" he demands, "for
my xx or xxv yeares Studie: for two or three thousand Markes spending: seven
or eight thousand Miles going and trauiling, onely for good learninges sake: And
that, in all maner of wethers: in all maner of waies and passages: both early and
late: in daunger of violence by man: in daunger of destruction by wilde beastes:
in hunger: in thirst: in perilous heates by day, with toyle on foote: in daungerous
dampes of colde, by night, almost bereuing life: (as god knoweth): with
lodginges, oft times, to small ease: and sometime to lesse securitie. And for
much more (then all this) done & suffred, for Learning and attaining of
Wisedome: Should I (I pray you) for all this, no otherwise, nor more warily: or
(by Gods mercifulness) no more luckily have fished, with so large, and costly, a
Nette, so long time in drawing (and that with the helpe and advise of Lady
Philosophie and Queene Theologie): but at length, to have catched, and drawen
vp, a Frog? Nay, a Devill? For, so, doth the Common povish Pratler Imagine and
Jangle: And, so, doth the Malicious Skorner, secretly wishe, & bravely and boldly
face down behinde my backe. Ah, what a miserable thing, is this kinde of Men?
How great is the blindness & boldness, of the Multitude, in thinges above their
Capacitie? What a Land: what a People: what Maners: what Times are these?
Are they become Devils, themselves: and, by false witnesse bearing against their
Neighbour, would they also, become Murderers? Doth God, so long gave them
respite, to reclaime themselves in, and from this horrible slaundering of this
giltlesse: contrary to their owne Consciences: and yet will they not cease? Doth
the Innocent, forbeare the calling of them, Juridically to aunswere him, according
to the rigour of the Lawes: and will they despise his Charitable pacience? As
they, against him, by name, do forge, fable, rage and raise slaunder, by Worde
& Print: Will they prouoke him, by worde and Print, likewise to Note their Names
to the World: with their particular deuise, fables, beastly Imaginations, and
unchristenlike slaunders? Well: Well. O (you such) my unkinde Countreymen. O
vnnaturall Countreymen. Why oppresse you me, thus violently, with your
slaundering of me: Contrary to Veritie: and contrary to your owne Consciences:
and I, to this hower, neither by worde, deede, or thought have bene, anyway,
hurtfull, damageable, or iniurious to you, or yours?"(57)

The Preface also embodies a call for more general education, especially outside
the Universities, in mathematics and its derived sciences which may prove of
infinite commodity and service to the commonwealth at large. Dee, following the
tradition of Recorde and others, advocates the wide circulation of scientific work
in the vernacular, and the translation of ancient and foreign scientific books into
English (58). Among his additions to Euclid's text, many of which are concerned
with logical method, he looks to the evolution of a uniform style of exposition
which shall present its matter clearly and indisputably, since in form it will be
modelled upon procedure of mathematical proofs; it should, he declares, follow
that method taught by Plato to Leodamus; i.e., to begin by initially assuming the
truth of the hypothesis to be established, and, arguing from this to certain and
recognised truths, and returning from these again, deductively to the original
hypothesis: and thus demonstrating the hypothesis since it will have been shown
to be necessarily implied by accepted data (59). (Galileo and other
mathematicians similarly advocate this Resolutive-Compositive method.)

Dee's views on education that are to be found in the Preface and elsewhere, find
a curious reflection in the proposals for the establishment of an Academy laid
before Burleigh and the Queen this same year by Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Gilbert
was a close associate of Dee's in this period of his life; in most of the ventures of
each the other's name may be found conjoined; Gilbert is praised in the Preface
itself where it is deplored that service in Ireland prevented the fruition of his
plans for a voyage of discovery some years previously (60), and another of
Gilbert's schemes, a political project he laid before the Queen in 1577, seems
also probably to have stemmed in part from Dee (61). In Gilbert's proposals (62)
much stress is laid on teaching in English, all practice in Rhetoric is to be in the
vernacular, since "in what language soever learning is attayned, the appliaunce
to use is principally in the vulgar speech," moreover great "ornament will thereby
grow to our tonge" - and the authority of Cheke is invoked in support of these
views (63). Mathematics figures largely in the curriculum, for two lecturers with
assistants are to be appointed, one of which would concentrate on the
application (much as described in the Preface), of these sciences to
"imbattelinges fortificacios, and matters of warre, with the practice of Artillery
and use of all manner of Instruments belonging to the same....and trayne his
Auditorie to draw in paper, make in modell, and stake owt all kinds of
fortificacios."(64) "The other Mathematician shall reade one day Cosmographie
and Astronomy, and the other tend the practyces thereof only to the arte of
Navigacion, with the Knowledge of necessary starres, the making use of
Instrumentes appertayning to the same....Also there shall be one who shall each
to draw Mappes, Sea Chartes etc. and to take by view of eye the platte of any
thinge, and shall reade the groundes and rules of proportion and necessarie
perspective and mensuration belonging to the same." Greek, Latin and Hebrew
were also to be taught, and there should be a Reader in Physic who, it is strictly
laid down, "shall never alleage any medicine be yt of simples, salves, saltes,
balmes, cycles, spirits, tinctures, or otherwise but that he shall declare the
reason philosophicall of every particular ingrediente for such operacion: and
shew his hearers the mechanicall making and working thereof."(65) This
insistence not merely upon the utility of knowledge but on the carrying back to
first principles of what is taught, in order to inculcate a thorough comprehension
rather than a more pragmatical ability, is also strikingly present throughout the
English Euclid, and represents a markedly superior view to that of the succeeding
century, when this aspect of instruction, markedly in mathematics but also in
other subjects, was increasingly neglected or cried down. Thus Snell in The Right
Teaching or Useful Knowledge in 1659, warns "care shall be taken that no
unprofitable learning shall bee taught," and that "In teaching of necessarie Arts
there shall bee no superfluous and overteaching which is a grievous losing of
time, but everie knowledge shall bee taught so far onely as the learner shall
have occasion to use it."(66)

The Academy was intended to become a centre of learning and research such as
Dee later hoped to establish on a small scale at St. Cross. Thus it is directed that
the Physician "shall continually practise together with the naturall Philosopher, by
the fire and otherwise to search and try owt the secrets of nature as many waies
as they possiblie may: and shall be sworne once every yeare to deliver unto the
Treasurer his office, faire and plane written in parchement without equivocations
or enigmaticall phrases, under their handes, all these their proofes and trialles
made within the forepassed yeare: together with the true events of thinges, and
all other necessary accidentes growing thereby, to th'end that their successors
may knowe both the way of working and the event thereof, the better to follow
the good and avoyd the evil which in time must of force bring great thinges to
light, yf in Awcomistrie there be any such thinges hidd, for whose saffetyes I
would wish the Statue of the 5th of Henry the 4th touching multiplication to be
disappeared at large."(67) At least every three years the Academy was to
produce and publish translations of scientific works that might serve useful
purposes, and there is perhaps an echo of Dee's proposals to Mary in the
suggestions that are made for the establishment of a library for it: a grant of
L2000 to be made towards it initially, and thereafter all books coming into
England to be first offered to the Academy and "all Printers in England shall for
ever be charged to deliver unto the Library of the Academy, at their owne
charges, one copy well bownde of every Booke Proclamcacion or Pamflette that
they shall printe."(68)

The proposals end with a defence of the principle of the proposed Academy, and
a criticism of the older universities. "Both Plato and Lycurgus" it states, in a tone
similar to that with which Dee usually speaks of the commonwealth and its
overriding of private interests, "with other great Philosophers having bene of
opinion that the education of children should not altogether be under the
puissance of their fathers, but under the publique power and aucthority, because
the publique have therein more Intereste than their parents," and it claims to
represent an educational reform for "whereas, in the Universities men study only
Schole-learnings, in this Academy they shall study matters of action meet for
present practize both of peace and warre," and ends hopefully "by erecting this
Academe there shall be hereafter, in effecte, no Gentlman within this Realme,
but good for somewhat whereas now the moste parto of them are good for
nothinge...whereby your Majesty and your successors Courtes shall be for ever,
insteade of a Nurserie of idleness, become a most noble Academe of Chevalerie,
Policy and Philosophie."(69) Though Gilbert's scheme came to nothing, yet it is
interesting to observe that a flourishing academy under Royal patronage was
established by Sir Francis Kynaston in 1634 in which the constitution is in many
points practially identical with the Gilbert-Dee proposals (70).

IV. Another feature of the Preface (and English Euclid) that may be mentioned is
the immense appeal this had for the new, explanding classes of artisans and
technical craftsmen. Not only did they find it a practical guide clearly laying down
a method they themselves had been gradually and falteringly compelled towards,
but it provided also a welcome defence of the dignity and theoretical importance
of their pursuits, and it is not infrequent to find even the metaphysical
preoccupations of the Preface reflected in their writings (71). The work was
sometimes spoken of as if it contained an adequate and complete education in
itself. Thus, Robert Norman declares that mechanicians although they know no
dead tonges will find all the knowledge required for their great feats in the work
of Recorde and the English Euclid (72). Dee openly professing his wish to
present his knowledge in a form in which it might prove advantageous for the
public good, and most widely useful (73), abandons all the secretiveness and
obscurity which at times, and on other topics he appeared to cultivate and
addressed himself largely to this class in the Preface and annotations, he thus
exhorted them to "esteme one Drop of Truth (yea in Naturall Philosophihe) more
worth, then whole Libraries of Opinions, vndemonstrated: or not answering to
Natures Law, and your experience" (speaking of the use of the balance for
experimental investigation) and in consequence of such passages was sometimes
looked upon as the exponent of a new and radical empiricism, totally foreign to
the vain speculations of orthodox academic learning (74). It has been very
properly observed that in the Preface Dee displays "a clear understanding of
what we mean today, by the experimental method - that is the continual
alternation between the collection of data by observation, the mathematical
elaboration of these data, and by the devising of new experiments to check the
validity of the theories deduced mathematically as probable consequences of the
original observations."(75) Dee is moreover fertile in suggestions, clearly
distinguishing them from geomertical method, for illustrating theoretical
conclusions by sensible results, to be reached by various experiments, in the
workshop, with the double effect of rendering his subject matter more familiar
and comprehensible, and persuading his readers of the correspondence between
mathematical abstractions known a priori and explored by logic, and the
phenomena experienced in the physical world. One of his chief objects is to
propound methods which will produce "workable" results, so he describes for
instance various mechanical devices for doubling the cube or squaring the circle,
which feats may be thus performed to any degree of accuracy desired by the
operator, within the limits permitted by the actual instruments he employed.
Methods of approximation are consequently given an important place, after the
theory of ideal computation has been properly expounded. Thus Dee explains
how to extract cube roots by a series of successive approximations: "And where
those numbers are not by logisticall consideation accounted Cubick numbers, ye
may use the logisticall secret of approching nere to the precyse verytye: so that
the roof most easily you shall perceave that your fayle is of the sence, never to
be perceived: it is to wete as in a lyne of an inch long not to want or exceede the
thousand part: of farther you may (infinitely) approche at pleasure. O
Mechanicall frend, be of good comfort, put to thy hand; Labor improbus omnia
vincit."(76)

Dee's contacts with these new "Mechaniciens" (77) as recorded in his diaries and
elsewhere, and their own laudatory references to him would form a lengthy
catalogue. Prominent amongst those he directly influenced were Eden the
navigator, John Davis the Compassmaker, Adrian Gilbert the chemist, John
Bourne, gunner and general "inventor" and Thomas Digges, who surveyed a
wide variety of applied sciences, in fullfilment of the ambitious intention he
announces in Pantometria "so meane I, god sparing life, to imploy no small
portion of this my shorte and transitorie tie in storing our native tongue with
Methamaticall demonstrations, and some such other rare experiments and
practical conclusions, as no forraine Reelme hath hitherto beene, I suppose,
partaker of" (78) making it his beast that he had "spent so many of my years in
reducing the Sciences Mathematicall, from Demonstrative Contemplations, to
Experimental Actions, for the service of my Prince and Countrey."(79) The
objects of such men were in the main utilitarian, their methods largely empirical.
The spirit of their investigations, and the direction of their interests, is that which
informs Purchase's proud affirmation "I had rather have the meanest of Ulysses
his followers relating his wanderings, than wander from certainty with Homer,
after all his reading and conjectures," (80) and it is well conveyed in the
enomium of Pancirolli's commentator on the forgotten inventor of the mariners'
Compass: "Whoever he was that was the first Discoverer of this noble Invention,
'tis pity he should lie hid in so neglected an Obscurity; and that so great a
Benefactor to the World should want a Lapidary, when the Disturbers of it have
so precious a Memory. And this unknown fellow...hath deserv'd more than then
thousand Alexanders, and as many Aristotles. And this single Art hath improv'd
knowledge and done more good to the World, than all the Niceties of the subtle
schools."(81) Failure of experiment drove these men to a thorough re-
examination of statements relating to principles or data, long accepted as
authoritative. It was a laborious process and such accounts as Thomas Fales
gives (1593) of his own efforts anare perhaps typical. He had believed, he
declares, that his books was complete seven years previously, but he had had to
revise the whole with empirical checks at every stage when he had discovered
that he had been misled in an important point, by reliance upon traditional
authority. "For after we found some precepts in Witekindus to be false, we were
enforced to trie and examine with great care each figure and exaumple in the
Summe."(82) Authority after authority failed inthis same way when their
verifiable statements about the natural world were tested. A spirit of
independence, not unmixed with pride, evident in the many proclamations of the
novelty and originality of their procedures, informed the activities of such men,
which although still at this stage grateful for the assistance and encouragement
offered by theoretical philosophers such as Dee, and willing to gather a
demonstrative method from their teachings in a later age, was to deny all
connection between the flourishing science it claimed to have generated and the
metaphysical tradition which had once been of perhaps inestimable value in
legitimising, rendering reputable to current thought, and supplying a coherent
formal framework to the new procedures. Robert Norman's remark in 1581 is
typical and significant; that although many in the past have written of the
magnet and its properties "yet I meane God willyng, without derogatyng fro
them, or exalting myself, to set down a late experimental truth found in this
Stone, contrary to the opinions of all that have heretofore written thereof,"
therefore he will pass them all over, giving them no consideration "founding my
arguments onely upon experience, reason and demonstratio which are the
groundes of Artes." He can even contemplate with equanimity the possibilities of
an apparent conflict arising between abstract reason and observation in natural
philosophy, but has no doubt which is to be preferred, for "Nevertheless by
experience in all things, wherin consisteth truth and reason, of necessities reason
must yield when truth is present."(83) What have been held to be the three most
definitive characteristics of the "New Philosophy" as it flourished from the middle
of the next century (84) - that it ws experimental in method, quantitative and
mathematical in its theorising, and consciously independent of authority - are all
found to a pronounced degree among these late sixteenth century
"Mechanicians," with many of whom Dee is to be found closely associated.
V. Dee was particularly concerned with promoting the development of navigation
and discovery; he refers frequently to two inventions he has made, which he
considered important contributions to progress in this field - his "Paradoxall
Compass" and Compass of Variation. There is evidence of Dee's longstanding
interest in the magnet - he used it as an example in the Aphorisms for the secret
influence fromthe stars acting at a distance through interposing matter (85), and
his copy of Peregrine's De Magnete survives, heavily underlined and annotated
(1562) (86) - but it is not possible to fix the exact period when he devised these
instruments. On the title page and in the preface to General and Rare Memorials
(1576) he speaks of them as invented by him 20 years past, but he was possibly
predating these inventions to rebut more thoroughly a counter claim to the
invention of the paradoxall compass, advanced by James Alday perhaps,
Professor Taylor suggests - some little while previously and which Dee,
aggrieved, notes among the other manifold injuries done him by his countrymen
(87). Of the exact nature of the paradoxall compass we have no knowledge, for
Dee though he promised to append a full description of it to General and Rare
Memorials failed to do so. It seems likely however that it was designed to
overcome certain difficulties connected with sailing in the polar regions (88)
where the considerable dip of the needle and the convergence of the meridians
resulting in a close spiralling of the thumbs, made accurage navigation almost
impossible. Professor Taylor suggests that "This Paradoxall Compass enable the
master to lay a course along a successio of rhumbs which would make an
approximation to great circle sailing," and that it was a practical development of
certain teachings of Pedro Nunez (89). It is possible that it embodied an
adjustable rose (90) to be used in conjunctions with the compass of variation.
From some papers of Dee's bearing on his invention, it might appear that it was
as much a new method of computing data, by the aid of sets of tables, as a
mechanical instrument, and was perhaps intended as a way of achieving the
same advantages, while employing the standard charts of the time, as Mercator's
charts on which loxodromes could be drawn as straight lines, later offered,
though only for fairly low latitudes. Whatever its details, it apparently came into
fairly general use as John Davis' list of instruments essential to a "Skilful
Seaman" in 1595 runs "Sea Compasse, a crossestaffe, a Quadrant, an Astrolabe,
a Chart, an instrument magneticall for the finding of the variation of the
compasse, an Horizontall plane Sphere, a Globe and a paradoxall compasse." "By
which instruments all conclusions and infallible demonstration, hidrographicall,
geographicall, and Cosmographicall, are without controlment of errour to be
performed."(91)

Of Dee's compass of variation we can form a more exact idea, since chapter two
of Wm. Barlow's The Navigators Supply (92) is devoted to a description of it. In
essence it consists of the attachment to a compass of an upright style which will
cast a shadow, from whose length and direction the sun's altitude and azimuth
from the magnetic meridian, denoted by the needle, may respectively be
determined. If two readings are taken before and after noon when the sun is at
equal altitudes, and thus equidistant from the geographical meridian, half the
difference between the observed azimuth gives the variation of the compass.
Barlow describes it as an ordinary seaman's compass having two additions; on
the inside of the Box is a circle divided into 360 divisions, and "athward the
upper face of the glass a Ruler of Latten" as long as the diameter of the box and
half an inch broad. On each end are fixed vertical metal sights 3" high, one with
a narrow slit down the middle, the other a mere frame with a central lutestring
on which is strung a bead; the lutestring stands at the southern point of the
compass. The box is turned to the East in the morning until the shadow of the
lute string falls along the central line on the ruler and the division on the ruler
where the shadow of the bead falls is marked. The operation is repeated, with
the box turned to the West, at that time in the afternoon when the shadow of
the bead again reaches the same division on the ruler. If the readings, on the
degree divisions on the outer circle, pointed to by the compass wires attached to
the magnet needle at these times, are identical, then there is no variation,
otherwise it is equal to half the difference between the readings. Barlow remarks
that this compass can also be used for taking distances and "to set the land"
better than any other compass (93). Dee's compass and his view of variation
probably lies at the base of his assertion in 1576 that he had devised a method
for the determination of longitude even "without sight of sunne moone or
star."(94) It was a commonly entertained hypothesis that variation remained
constant in time over the whole earth and that therefore a determination of its
value would give an accurate indication of longitudinal position. Thus Guillaume
de Nautonnier's enormous work La mecometrie de l'Eymont ou l'art de trouver la
longitude par le declination de l'Eymont (1601) contains complete tables of
variation (largely supplied conjecturally, of course) for every degree of latitude
and longitude, for this purpose. So also does Stevins De Hovenwindung which
appeared in 1599 and of which an English version was made in the same year
(95).

VI. A full account has been given by Professor Taylor (96) of Dee's influence on
contemporary navigation and exploration and a detailed recapitulation of
information there available is superfluous though abrief sketch of this, with a
little additional information, will not be out of place here. Dee acted as instructor
and technical adviser at various times to Richard Chancellor, Stephen and William
Boroughs, Anthony Jenkinson, Hall, Frobisher, Humphrey and Adrian Gilbert,
John Davis, Ralegh, Jackman and Pett, while the evidence is "cumulative" (97)
that he was the directing spirit behind Drake's voyages. He contributed to
Hackluyt's collections (98), several items he lists among his works at this period
(up to his departure from England in 1583) consist of maps or instructions to
seafarers, and he himself was a frequent recipient of reports and narratives of
seamen's voyages (99) some of which survive with his marginal comments, and
many of which he embodied in his Famous and Rich Discoveries throughout
which, as also in private correspondence (100) he shows himself generously
anxious to publish as widely as possible the substance of his personal collection
of geographical materials. His name figures with those of Philip Sydney, Hatton,
Leicester, Burleigh, Sussex, Sir Thomas Bromley etc., in the lists of the
"Merchant Adventurers," and with Gresham, Dyer, Lok, and others he took a
prominent part and was a heavy financial loser in the unfortunate episode of the
Black stone brought back by Frobisher (101), indeed there is some evidence to
indicate that Dee sailed himself with Frobisher on this voyage (102) the only
occasion on which it appears that he may have taken such an actively personal
part in exploration.

Dee's chief preoccupation in matters exploratory was the discovery of a N.E. or

N.W. passage (103). He encouraged and helped to plan the arctic expedition of
John Davis, though this was not actually made until 1585 after Dee had left
England; and his diary records in June 1583 a conference he held with John
Davis, Adrian Gilbert and Walsingham at "Mr. Beale his house, where only we
four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretarie privie of the N.W. Passage and all
charts and rutters were agreed upon in general." He speaks more frequently of
one to the N.E., a belief "based on a faulty interpretation of the Arab geographer
Abulfeda."(104) Dee in his General and Rare Memorials quoting Abalfeda
Ismaelis cosmography, to the effect that the coast of Asia tends to the N.W. until
it reaches the confines of Russia, proclaims this "a record worthy to be printed in
gold." He states in the same place (105) that his own views had been set out in
his "old Atlanticall discourses," but they are perhaps fairly accurately reflected in
a pamphlet he had read some months previously that Dyer had brought to his
notice which he here praises, and in which, he says "no small piece of Credit (for
the attempt to be liked of) was ascribed to M. Dee his judgment." This work of
which Dee gives no further details except that Gascoigne had written the preface
- is Sir Humphrey Gilbert's A discourse of a discouerie for a new Passage to
Cataia dated April 12, 1576, and to which Gascoigne contributed a preface in
which he declared "it treateth of a matter whereof no man hath heretofore
written particularly, nor showed ani approved reason for the same." Gilbert
boasts of Dee's support in it, writing that "a great learned man (even M. DEE)
doth seeme very well to like of this Discoverie, and doth much commend the
author, the which he declareth in his Mathematicall preface to th english Euclid. I
refer thee (Reader) to peruse the same and think it not strange though I be
encouraged by so learned a foreleader to set forth a thing which he so well liked
of." Gilbert undertakes to demonstrate the existence of a passage to the N.E. by
four lines of argument, based on Authority, Reason, Experience and
Circumstance. He equantes America with the "Atlantis" of the Timaeus and
Critias (Dee also invariably calls America by this name), and points out that since
Plato describes this as an island, it must be surrounded by water; moreoever
coins of Augustus Caesar are to be found in the mines of South America (his
witness is Marinus Siculus' Chronicles of Spayne) and Red Indians are cast away
from time to time on the coast of the Baltic, after having sailed off their course
and drifted down the passage (107). His copy of this work, Dee declared, he has
heavily annotated and the same day he read it, immediately wrote out eighteen
further considerations of his own to justify a similar voyage of discovery
(probably one to the N.W.).

Dee was in close touch with Muscovy House and lent his influence there to the
encouragementof this discovery. He records in the same passage of General and
Rare Memorials in which he refers to Gilbert's work that he was requested by
Frobisher and Sir Leonard Duckett to instruct Frobisher and Christopher Hall at
Muscovy House for a voyage in 1576. They found him he states "(above their
expectation) skilfull, and (more than could be wished for) Carefull, for their well
doing in this their commendable and honourable attempt." Witness to this is a
letter, he cites that Frobisher and Hall wrote him from the Bay of St. Tronians 26
June 1576, thanking him for his directions "which when we use we do remember
you and hold ourselves bound to you are youre poore disciples, not able to be
scholars bu tin good will, for want of learning." (Dee had given them intensive
instruction in mathematics before their departure, though he writes that they
"greatly misliked their want of tyme sufficient for the Complemet and principall
pointes of the Perfect Art of Navigation learning at his hands. Such pointes (I
meane) as needed either great knowledge in the Sciences Mathematicall and
Artes Mechanicall: or expert skill of many Causes and effects Naturall: Such
points (I say) to their affaires and the Perfect Art of Navigation incident: he very
aptly ould, & right willingly wold have dealt with them in: yf that pinch of tyme
wold have so permitted," (107A) and they perhaps in return gave the name of
Dee's Pinnacles to some crags off what they believed to be "Frizeland" (actually
Greenland). Dee was similarly employed in 1580. Strype records (108): "that
great and famous English Mathematician and Astronomer; noted throughout the
world for his deep knowledge in those Sciences....in May anno 1580 wrote
instructions for the North East passage to China, delivered to the two Masters
Charles Jackman and Arthur Pett, at the Court Day, May 17, holden at the
Muscovy House in London. With which instructions a new Chart made by his
Hand, was given also to each of them, expressing their Cathay Voyage, more
exactly than any yet published." William Borroughs presented advice to the two
on currents, the use of the lode and on taking observations of coastlines.
Mercator contributed commercial advice on trading with the natives of China,
and on noting the natural commodities of places discovered, Dee presented them
with Charts, calculations of the distances of various stages of their journey,
advice about the best places to winter at, and some general information about
Japan, "where you shall find Christenmen, Jesuits of many countries of
Christendom" from whom he recommends them to seek further advice (109).

Dee seems to have been regarded as a specialist upon far eastern geography
and affiars - a large part of Famous and Rich Discoveries is devoted to
descriptions of them and in 1577 it appears from his diary that he was planning
to find an overland route to N.E. Asia with Simon Alexander, and in 1581 he
conferred with J.L. Haller about a proposed journey to China. A personal glimpse
of him at work in this field is provided by a passage which concludes William
Bourne's Hydrographicall Discourse, which discusses five possible passages to
Cathay (110). He writes "And it is not unknowen but that the Great Cane of
Cattay, is a Prince of great power as well by sea as by land; then judge you
whether that such a Prince of such a force and wealth will not provide for all
thinges meete for warres. Therefore as soone as they (explorers) come into
those coasts they must orderly use the trade of Marchandize, and not use force
etc. Moreover upon a time I being with Master Dee at his house at Murclacke,
and falling in talke about the discoverie to Cattay and the shipping there abouts;
thereupon he opened a booke and showed me a note what number of ships the
great Cane had readie at one time to goe unto the sea about his affairs; you
would thinke it incredible, for the number was 15000 which is a huge armie by
Sea. I replied againe that it might be that they were but small things, and yet
they might call them shippes; and then he turned unto another place where the
great Cane did send one of his daughters by sea, and did appurt 14 of his ships,
and the least of the 14 ships had 250 mariners, beside all the rest of his
daughters train and such Nobles as did accompany hir, which would be no small
number. Therefore it is most manifest that the great Cane is a great Prince of
power as well by sea as by land."

Dee's last and most ambitious project in this field represents one of the offshoots
of Humphrey Gilbert's final enterprise, which was already bruited in the spring of
1582 and which "branched into a great maze of individual and corporate
enterprises for the conquest and settlement of North America, and although
Gilbert lost his life in attempting to carry out his part of it, led to the first
plantation of Virginia less than a year after his death."(111) Indeed Gilbert had
been granted the First Royal letters Patent authorising the planting of an English
Colony in 1578, and Hakluyt hails him as "the first to erect an habitation and
government in those Northerly Countereys of America."(112) Dee, Adrian Gilbert
and John Davies attempted the foundation of a company (113) for the
colonisation, conversion and general exploitation of Atlantis (America) in 1583.
They were to be known, according to the scheme they drew up when applying
for a charter, as "the colleagues of the fellowship of the New Navigations
Atlantical and Spetentrional," and they there suggest that they be granted a
monopoly of all lands discovered, with full powers to make laws in those
territories, and that the three originators be exempted from all customs duties
for ever (114). A grant was made but perhaps never executed (115), for after
Dee had left England similar application was still being made, Ralegh's name
replacing that of Dee (116). One of Dee's works, which he dates 1581 (now lost)
bears on one subject much emphasized in the original proposals, and which is
generally recurrent in English colonising schemes of the day (117). (The
dedications mentioned in the title are perhaps an indication of the broad
"liberalism" of Dee's religious attitude; they might seem a little surprising for an
English work of this date, and Dee politically seems to have been ardently
antagonistic towards Spain; Wright discussing this last Grand Design of Gilberts
of 1583 observes, however, that it "curiously had the support of violent
Protestants and patriotic Catholics, who both emphasized a religious motive in
their endeavour."(118)) This is Dee's De Modo Evangelii Jesu Christi pulicandi,
propagandi, stabiliendique, inter infideles Atlanticos; volumen magnum libris
distinctum quatuor; quorum primus ad Serenissimam nostram Potentissimamque
Reginam Elizabetham inscribitur; Secundus ad summos privati suae sacrae
Majestatis consilii senatores: Tertius, ad Hispanarum Regem, Philippum: Quartus,
ad Pontificem Romanum.

There is no record of Dee's obtaining any direct profit from any of the
enterprises with which he was associated, though it is to be suspected that in a
number of cases - as with Frobisher's "gold ore" - he emerged a financial loser.
He did however receive various pledges of future benefits. Thus the "Diary"
notes during July 1582 "a meridie hor. 3 1/2 cam Sir George Peckham to me to
know the tytle for Norombegia in respect of Spayn and Portugall parting the
whole worlds discoveries. He promysed me of his gift and of his patent 5000
akers of ye new conquest and thought to get so moch of Mr. Gerardes gift to be
sent to me with seale within a few days." (Peckham was an anti-Spanish Catholic
who had allied himself with the puritan Gilbert in his scheme of American
Colonisation hoping it would result in the establishment of a Catholic refuge
abroad (119).) Or again on the 10th Sept. 1580 Gilbert in the presence of
witnesses made him a solemn promise of the rights of all future discoveries
North of the fiftieth parallel of latitude. From the map presented by Dee to the
Queen, 30th Oct. 1580, it is apparent, D.B. Quinn observes (120), that this
promise gave Dee the greater part of Canada to exploit as he pleased, for he
only includes on this map as already known, the straits of Belle Isle, an island
representing northern New Foundland, a great part of the St. Lawrence Estuary
and Labradoe up to 59 degrees 40' N. But before such benefits could mature,
Dee had left for the continent, and seems never after his return some years later
to have been able to re-establish fully his former contacts, or anything
approaching the same position of respect and influence in public, commercial,
and technical affairs as he had once enjoyed.

Chapter VIII.

GREAT AFFAIRS, CELESTIAL AND POLITICAL

(1573-1583)

I. Dee's Diaries - the knowledge they give of him - financial straits - slanderers -
attention to dreams and omens - journey to Lorraine - Letter to Burleigh for
permission to examine records of Wigmore Castle and for licence to search for
mines and buried treasure - frequently consulted by others on subject - methods
of discovery and natural magic.

II. The New Star in Cassiopeia - its astronomical and philosophical significance -
Dee's and Digge's books on it - purely mathematical in approach - Digges
advocates Copernicanism, Dee is noncommittal towards both hypotheses - they
demonstrate star is above moon and falsity of Aristotelian doctrines of solid orbs
and unchanging heavens - their suggested use of optical instruments and
contemporary optics (n.27) - Dee's theory of the stars retrogression - its
probable basis - Tycho Brahe's interest in it - it would seem to involve
acceptance of the rotation of earth.

III. The Comet of 1577 - Digges as prognosticator - Dee's reassurance to

Elizabeth - his promise to her "of great importance" - granted a crest - services
to Elizabeth in witchcraft case - marriage to Jane Fromond.

IV. The General and Rare Memorials - the proposed tetralogy - its grandiose
design - Dee's introductory apology against his slanderers - his prediction of the
divine destiny of Britain - the emblematic representation of the theme in the title
page - Dee's imperialism - a spiritual as well as political scheme.

V. Dee's New Britain - a corporate state, commonwealth taking precedence over

private interest - the first step, the building of a powerful navy - the beneficial
collateral consequences - finance of the scheme - measures for building up the
fishing trade.

VI. The M.S. continuation sent to Dyer twenty years later - a legalistic,
antiquarian discussion of Elizabeth's titles and British sea limits - Dee's principle
that the sea is divided midway between opposing foreign shores - the
consequent British rights.

VII. Influence and contemporary parallels - Elizabethan concern with navy -

Aubrey's complimentary letter to Dee - Hitchcock's scheme for refounding fishing
industry - similarities with Dee's work - advocacy of it in Parliament - general
recognition of gravity of problem - Camden echoes Dee - Raleigh, Gentlemen,
Keymer make later similar proposals - adoption of Dee's suggestions for purifying
Thames - other reactions to G.R.M. up to mid-seventeenth century.

VIII. Dee's Imperialism not a personal idiosyncracy - his antiquarian arguments

from Anglo-Saxon records become standard in following century - Owen Madoc,
from whom he derives titles for Elizabeth, generally accepted as foundation of
British rights in America - Influence of Dee's legal arguments - Elizabeth's
rejection of his principle - officially commissioned seventeenth century treatises
on British sea limits - their importance and relations with Dee - Selden's even
more sweeping claims.

IX. The M.S. of Famous and Rich Discoveries - its general character - Solomon's
Voyage (n.142) - Dee's survey of Asia, Europe and British origins - his objects
and scrupulous concern for truth.

X. Dee commissioned to reform calendar - general recognition of need for this -

Dee's description of his method in his almanac of 1591 - his treatise on the
reform - initial favourable reception - vetoed by the bishops - Dee continues
propaganda for it - subsequent recognition of value of this unprinted work
(n.186).

XI. Dee at the climax of his worldly career.

Chapter VIII (cont)

I. The primary source of our knowledge of the events of Dee's life from the
middle of the period of his Mortlake residence onwards is his "diary" - or rather a
collection of scribbled jottings and miscellaneous memoranda in the margins of
almanacs (1). They record his constant succession of visitors eminent in diverse
spheres, and their requests for advice and assistance; they reveal also his
increasing financial difficulties from which, encumbered with a growing
household and many other commitments, he was never thereafter to be free.
(Notes of borrowings and pawnings are frequent: thus June 20 1577 he raised
27L on the security of a gold chain, Nov. 18 1577 he borrowed 30L from Ed. Hyle
of Mortlake, etc.) His deep piety also emerges, as does his pervading sense of
surrounding spiritual powers, which leads him to attribute the slightest turn for
good or ill in his household affairs to almost direct supernatural intervention.
Another feature of his character is displayed with growing clarity, which is
perhaps to be attributed to the ignorant or malicious suspicions which he was
keenly aware many felt towards him, this is his growing distrust of the behaviour
of even assured friends and patrons - and his fearful doubts as to what their real
attitude towards himself might be - later this seems to have become an almost
paranoic obsession which Kelly unscrupulously exploited to isolate Dee from his
former intimates and increase his dependence on himself. In some cases Dee's
notes of his own fears in this respect had a basis in fact, as his entries respecting
Vincent Murfyn and "his abominable misusing me behind my back" (May 2,
1577) (2), but forebodings of "betrayal" by friends and patrons at court find
increasing expression here, as also in the later spiritual diaries, forming the True
and Faithful Relation, and dream and omens are solemnly recorded, and indeed
more fully, than graver matters. Thus Nov. 24, 1582: "Saturday night I dreamed
that I was deade and afterwards my bowels were taken out (i.e., as in an
execution for treason of which he was accused under Mary or even for the
"conjuring" of which he was suspected), I walked and talked with diverse, and
among others with the lord Thresorer (Burleigh) who was com to my house to
burn my bokes when I was dead, and thought he loked sourely on me."

The first biographical entry does not occur however until 16th Jan. 1577, when a
visit by Leicester, Sydney and Dyer is recorded, preceding notes are largely
memoranda of dates and places of births for the casting of nativities, and our
knowledge of Dee's life at Mortlake before this time is very slight. After the
appearance of the English Euclid, he made, in 1571, a journey to the Duchy of
Lorraine (3) in the course of which he visited the library of Ortelius at Antwerp;
after his return, he fell seriously ill and Elizabeth despatched her own physicians,
Doctors Apslow and Balthorp to attend him at Mortlake. A letter to Burleigh Oct.
3, 1574 (4) reveals his straitened circumstances at this period. He has passed his
life, he declares, "in zeale to the best Lerning and knowledge, and incredible
toyle of body and mynde, very many yeares, therefore onely endured: I know
most assuredly that this Land never bred any man, whose account therin can
evidently be proved greater than myne"; but now "the same zeale remayneth
(yea rather greater is grown) but the hability, for charges, is far lesser." He
speaks of the borrowing he is put to in order to live "which (as God knoweth)
findeth not me, and my pore families necessary meat, drink and fewel; for a
frugall and philosophical Diet," for "that little exhibition which I enjoye" - and
even this he remarks he would have lost on various occasions when overseas
unless Burleigh had then looked after his interests - has become miserably
insufficient. Two or three hundred pounds a year would be ample for his needs,
but "if no better or easier turn will fall to my lot from her Majesties' hands," he
asks Burleigh to obtain him a licence which will permit him, legally, to "do the
best I can at my own cost and charge to discover and deliver true proofe of a
myne vayn, or ore of gold or silver, in some places of her Grace's kingdom." But
it is not only prospecting for mines that he wishes to engage on but a search for
treasure trove, promising Burleigh one half his findings and the queen her share,
and this topic he claims to have given deep consideration to for many years; he
submits a map on which ten places are marked where such treasures may
probably be located, and urges "The value of a mine is matter for Kings
Treasure, but a pott of two or three hundred hid in the ground, wall, or tree, is
but the price of a good book, or instrument for perspective astronomy, or some
feat of importance." Dee required the reassurance of a licence for this activity,
not only because to search without it was an infringement of the royal
prerogative but also, perhaps, because the statute against conjuring passed in
1563 had decreed a year's imprisonment with four appearances in the pillory -
and death for a second offence, for any who presumed to discover hidden
treasure or recover stolen property by magical means (5), and any attempts not
having official sanction might well be suspected of employing these. There is no
real evidence that Dee had already commenced those "spiritualistic" pursuits,
that he was to attempt to apply to treasure seeking on the continent (6), but he
may have intended to use such methods as the divining rod which Agricola
describes, and the many records of contemporary treasure seeking suggests that
very dubious means, smacking of conjuring, were very frequently employed (7).
Dee here cites the story to be found in English Chronicles of the Saracen who by
art discovered a great treasure in the Welsh Marches in 1346; he quotes a work
of Theseus Ambrosius which contains many curiosities "Et in edus praecipua
quadem parte tractabur de Thesauris per totam fere orbem reconditis, atque
Calentinuo quorum admodum clara, atque specificica notio haberi poterat" and
also Pandulphus' de Meatibus terrae "a strange boke which in old tyme was in
this land" which two he quotes in defence of the practicality of his proposals and
"so that, by this, and the former boke, it may appeare what manner of
Philosopher and Mathematiciens have bin in tymes past." Moreover he declares
that during twenty years he has had various locations of treasures in various
lands detected to him, and "of late, I have byn sued unto by diverse sorts of
peoples, of which some by vehement, iterated dreames, some by vision (as they
have thought) other by speche forced to their imagination by night, have byn
informed of cartayn places where Threasor doth lye hid; which all, for feare of
Kepars (as the phrase commonly nameth them) or for mistrust of truth in the
places assigned and some for some other causes, have forborn to deale farder,
unleast I shold corrage them or cownsaile them how to procede. Wherain I have
allways byn contented to heare the histories, fantasies or illusions to me reported
but never entermeddled according to the desire of much." Nevertheless, he now
urges "But if (besides all bokes, dreames, visions, reports, and virgula divina by
any other naturall meanes and likely demonstrations of Sympathia and Antipathia
rerum; or by attraction and repulsion, the places may be descryed or discovered
where gold, silver or better matter doth lye hid within a certayn distance: How
great a commodity shold it be for the Quenes Majestie and the commonweale of
this Kingdome." Dee did not apparently obtain his licence, but may have been
more fortunate in the other request contained in the letter which is for a
recommendation to Harley, Keeper of the Records at Wigmore castle, for
permission to examine the documents stored there. "My fantasy is, I can get
from them at my leisure, matter for chronicle or pedigree, by way of recreation."

II. Dee was compelled to write this letter at the zenith of his scientific fame, for
the previous year he had published a book which perhaps did more to establish
his reputation especially among continental scholars than any of his other works.
This was his Paralecticae Commentationis, Praxeosq: Nucleus quidam 1573. It
had been prompted by the appearance of the supernova in Cassiopeia in 1572
which was at first as bright as Venus at its maximum, and could be seen through
cloud at night or in the middle of the day, and remained visible for seventeen
months. The New Star not only caused much general amazement and
bewilderment - Covell writing twenty years later records "Al the world marked it,
for 3 yeares together: al the astronomers admyred it, and remaine yet
astonished. The wise of the world who in a deepe irreligious policy thought al
things to be eternal, now began to worship a Creator" (8) - it was an event of
considerable philosophical importance. For if it could be shown to be above the
moon it deal a severe blow to the Aristotelian teachings of the perfect and
unchanging heavens (and also of course to the Averroist consequence from this
that the mechanics of the universe would break up in chaos if a single new star
were to disappear from, or appear in, the heavens) (9) and of the solid
concentric orbs in which the stars and planets were set (10). Hitherto the only
comparable precedent had been Hipparchus' (11) observation of a new star in
125 B.C. - which had been remote enough to be discounted as evidence by the
dogmatists - and the privileged exception, since miraculous, of the star which
had appeared at the birth of Christ (though certain Averroist astronomers
following Arabic interpretation, did not hesitate to explain this last phenomenon
as due to a conjunction of three major planets). While thinkers like Tycho were
prepared to accept the star as a new creation (12), those who, like Cardan,
attempted to maintain more orthodox cosmological doctrines, were put to
desperate shifts if they were prepared to admit, as all the evidence seemed to
demonstrate, the star's supra-lunar position; Cardan was driven to declare that
the star had been present since the beginning of time in the heavens, essentially
unaltered, was in fact that which had guided the Magi, but had merely remained
invisible hitherto to men, from causes unconnected with its own quintessential
nature (13), others of course declared flatly that it was a meteorological
phenomenon - as comets were still generally looked upon as being - and below
the moon; thus Bodin speaks of comets that are stationary - like that of
November 1573, which, he declares, appear in order to signify God's wrath (14).

Dee's work was printed in March 1573 by John Day, almost at the same time as
one of Digges, printed by Thomas Marsh at the end of February (15), to which it
is closely related, indeed as they are often to be found bound into one volume
they give the appearance, which seems almost certainly intentional from their
contents, of forming two parts of a single work (15A). Digges' book is confidently
entitled Alae seu Scalae Mathematicae, quibus visibilium remotissima Coelorum
Theatra conscendi, & Planetarum omnium itinera nouis & inauditis Methodis
explorari: tum huius portentiosi systeris in Mundi Boreali plaga insolito fulgore
coruscantis, Distantia & Magnitudo immensa, Situso: protinus tremendus
indagari, Dei; stupendum ostentum, Terricolis expositum, cognosci liqui dissime
posset. Both works adopt a Euclidean form of exposition, commencing with
definitions and proceeding to general theorems and through these to special
problems; both are concerned with devising methods for the measurement of
extremely small parallax, and both tend to show that the new star is above the
moon and in the heavens proper. Digges applying the same methods as those
used by Kepler's teacher the Copernican Maestlin, to his various observations,
could detect no change in the position of the new star relative to the other fixed
stars, and concluded that its parallax was extremely small (less than 2') or
nonexistent, and he was also unable to detect any annual parallax. Dee's
observations and conclusions from them were reserved for another book never
published, the present is a more abstract, strictly mathematical work on the
application of spherical trigonometry to astronomy, set out as a number of
theorems deduced from axioms and with directions for their employment. Both
Digges and Dee make courteous reference to their friendship and the help each
has received from the other. Dee speaks of "charissimus mihi Iuuenis,
Mathematicus meus dignissimus haeres Thomas Diggseus" (16) and he in turn
refers to Dee as his "friend and other parent" (17) writing "Eruditissimo meo
Amico D. Iohanni Dee comunicaui, qui protinus mihi etiam de Phoenomeni
Parallaxibus Demonstrationem luculentam, facilem summaque laude dignissima a
sese nuper inventam ostendit, retulito mihi preterea sese in animo propuisse
Methodis aliis quo antea iniusitatia haius, rarissimi Phaenomini subtillissimas
eruere Parallaxeis, at vt id ipsum versaime expediret, plurima parauit
instrumenta nova et inusitata, nullis parcens, sumptibus nec labori, corporis, aut
animi, mira industria, et incredibile solertia, a prima sua apparitione Noctes;
varias, miris ingenijs subtilissimo artificio, obseruauit, quibus Parallaxium omnium
varietates quae hactenus contigere exactissime dare poterit; Prout oculatus testis
vere testificari potero."(18) The two works have a further similarity of tone in
their general attitude to astronomy, for they both stress its dignity as a science
and its metaphysical importance in revealing the universal harmony (19).

The association and evident community of spirit and investigation is of particular

interest in that Digges was an ardent Copernican. The Alae is written from this
standpoint (he complains that although "pulcherrimam nobis Mundi Anatomiam
ex partibus absolutissima proportione et Symmetria coniunctis exhibere
debuissent," the Ptolemaic astronomers, by their complications of epicycles and
eccentrics in fact show the universal frame "mutilum et mancum" - (20)) and he
hopes that by the measurement of stellar parallax an experimental decision can
be made between the two systems. He announced in his Stratioticus (21) that he
would publish "commentaries upon the Revolutions of Copernicus by evidente
Demonstrations ground upon Late Observations to ratifye and confirme his
Theorikes and Hypothesis." Dee's work however presents an entirely
mathematical approach to the problem he discusses, and whatever his personal
convictions, they are here not allowed to intrude, he carefully, as though
suspending judgment until the question of observable parallax has been settled,
specifies as hypotheses whatever physical assumption the convenient expression
of the geometrical theorems in his book may require (22).

These works and the important conclusions they indicated, received much credit
at the time (23), and for long after (24). Camden records of the star "Thomas
Diggs and John Dee two famous mathematicians amongst us have learnedly
proved, by the doctrine of parallaxes, that it was in the celestial, not in the
elementary retion, and were of opinion that it disappeared little and little by
ascending. Tis certain that, after eight months, all men perceived it grow less
and less."(25) Tycho Brahe devotes a considerable section of his work on the
new star - some thirty pages - more than twice as many as he allows to the
consideration of the various other opinions and investigations of it that he passed
under review, to Digges's book, and is not sparing in his praise of Dee's
astronomical merits (26). Digges' and Tycho's observations never in fact differed
by more than four minutes of arc, Dee's were reserved for a second work, whose
non-publication Tycho much deplored. Tycho made use of a huge and specially
constructed sextant, Digges from his mention of Chancellor's "invention" in the
Alae, probably of the ten foot cross staff with transversals devised by Dee and
Chancellor many years before (27). Both Dee and Digges, because of their
conclusions as to the star's position, were objects of a bitter denunciation of the
Aristotelian Craig in his criticism of Tycho Brahe, who obstinately insisted that
despite any evidence to the contrary, the star and the comet of 1577, must have
been situated below the moon, and that all other conjectures were physically
impossible (28).

In this same year, 1573, Dee wrote two further works now lost, concerned with
the new Star. Hipparchus Redivivus, Tractatulus (29) and De stella admiranda in
Cassiopeae Asterismo, coelitus demissa ad orbem usque Veneris: Iterumque in
Caeli penetralia perpendicularitur retracta, post decimum sextum suae
apparitionis mensem. This last opinion of Dee's gained some fame, as can be
seen from Camden's mention of it already cited. It was connected perhaps with
his unpublished observations on the star, and is, probably, the work referred to
by Digges that embodied them. Thus Tycho Brahe, speaking of Digges, writes
"Facit postea mentionem Scripti cuiusdem Nobilissimi viri et Clarissimi Philosophi
atque Mathematici IOHANNIS DEE LONDINIENSIS quod de hac Stella plurimis et
inusitatis Organis multoties Organis multoties observata, edere in procinta
habuit, quod tamen nondum vidimus: nec etiam publici iuris hactenus factum
esse, a quoquem cognovi" (30); and later, "Optandum foret, si quas obtinuit in
hac Stella praestantissimus ille DEE accuratas animadversiones, eas publici, iuvis
factas esse. Neque enim dubito, ipsum, ut est perspicaci ingenio praeditus,
praecipuaque industria et subtilitate que sunt Philosophica tractat, solida quoque
diligentia, huius Sieris Apparentijs, attendisse." He discusses and rejects Dee's
theory of its recession, which he says Dee had expounded in conversation to
Wilhelm Landgrave of Hassus, and Cornelius Gemma had thought not
improbable: "Quae sane opinio, etai ab Illustrissimo praedicto Principe, tum
etiam Cornelio Gemma non improbanda uisa est: pace tamen tam horum, tum
ipsius DEE (dixerim) nullatenus huic Stellae consentanea fuit Praeterquam enim
quod tales per rectam lineam accensus atque decensus, motoque imperfecta,
coelestibus, circulari tantum modo gyrationi eidemque absolutae et regulari
perpetuo assuetis, attribui merito nequest, accedit et hoc, quod, si aliquando
humilior fuit haec Stalle, ait Parallaxima habuit aliquam, aut nullam"; an
observed parallax might argue, indeed would be the only direct evidence
producible, for the theory, but none has been observed, so remains unprovable
"esset enim is extra omnes sensus et demonstrationes vias universas
praecluderest." He goes on "Stellam haec per lineam rectam esse a Terris
elongasse nequaquam probabile evadit; natura etiam Coelstiam idipsum, uti
diximus, adversante" (31) and combats the theory on physical grounds. Tycho
himself held the star to be a new creation in the eighth sphere, which, originally
one hundred tiems as large as the earth, was gradually diminishing in size. The
reasons Dee felt supported his theory are unknown, the only possible one would
seem to be a mistaken detection of some parallax, gradually decreasing (that he
later discovered this supposition to be in error, would be an adequate motive for
his refraining from publication). In this connection it is of interest that the same
theory was advanced by Elias Camerarius of Frankfurt, apparently entirely
independently of Dee, and also apparently the only other astronomer to put
forward this hypothesis (32). Camerarius claimed to have originally observed a
parallax of 12' which had diminished by January 1573 to 4 1/2', which indicated
a recession in a straight line towards the sphere of the fixed stars. Whatever the
reasons behind it, Dee's willingness to form such an hypothesis has several
points of interest. It means that he did not postulate solid orbs carrying round
the planets, since this star he believed penetrated to the sphere of Venus; it
would seem that he must have accepted a rotation of the earth rather than a
diurnal revolution of the eighth sphere, since if the star receded in a straight line
in relation to the earth, at the same time maintaining its position in relation to
other fixed stars, then if these revolved every twenty-four hours and not the
earth, the new star's apparent rectilineal recession could only be the result of a
real motion in an irregular spiral of extreme complexity (33). The admission of
motion in a straight line into the supra lunar regions where only perfect circular
motion was generally supposed to be evidenced, was a more revolutionary
hypothesis in its day than might immediately appear - it even exceeds in this
respect Copernicus' innovation, who clung from "metaphysical" motives to the
doctrine of the perfectly circular paths of the heavenly bodies, which was still
generally cited as the fatal objection against Kepler, when he attempted to revive
Dee's theory fifty years later (33A). There is also here an interesting similarity to
the theory Galileo was fascinated by, and whose invention he ascribes to Plato,
that the stars and planets when first created were set moving by God in straight
lines until they had accelerated to their predestined speeds when their motion
was converted to a circular form, in which form by its nature, and in this alone,
any velocity is maintained perpetually without any alteration (34).

III. Astronomers of advanced views were fortunate in this era for in 1577
appeared a comet, which could be shown, by applying such methods for the
determination of parallax as Dee and Digges had evolved and which once more
yielded negative results, to be a truly celestial and not merely a meteorological
phenomenon (up to this date even Tycho had accepted the sublunar nature of
comets), which conclusion dealt a further blow to the unchanging Aristotelian
heavens. However such phenomena were baleful and terrifying to those who set
much store by astrology, and it is interesting that though no concern at all for
this science is discernible in Digges' printed works, yet he submitted when so
requested his opinions on the "significance" of the new star to the Privy Council
(35). On the occasion of the comet's appearance - which provided the basis for
Kepler's famous predictions, which were later popularly regarded as foretelling
the career of Gustavus Adolphus and on which Tycho also issued copious
astrological prognostications, Dee records that "whereas the judgment of some
had unduly bred great feare and doubt in many of the Court; being men of no
small account," he spent some time closeted with the Queen to tender advice
and reassurance; who "for three divers daies, did use me," and, on their parting,
"promised unto me great security against any of her Kingdome, that would by
reason of any my rare studies and philosophicall exercises, unduly seeke my
overthrowe." At this time he writes he made to the Queen "a very faithfull and
inviolable promise of great importance." Its nature is obscure but was possibly
concerned with alchemy, he continues (the date of this account is 1592) "The
first part whereof, God is my witnes, I have truly and sincerely performed;
though it be not yet evident, how truly or of what incredible value: The second
part by God his great mercyes and helpes may in due tyme be performed, if my
plat for the meanes be not misused or defaced."(36) Dee's astronomical learning
seems to have been held in high respect by Elizabeth, but this does not seem to
have brought him any material remuneration. He was however granted by her a
crest to his coat of arms in 1574, whereupon he wrote a study of it, which he
variously (37) describes as "My Hieroglyphical and Philosophical blason of the
crest or cognisance, lawfully confirmed to my antient armes," and "Ten sundry
and very rare Heraldic Blasonings of one Crest or Cognisance, lawfully confirmed
to certaine auncient Armes." The year after the comets appearance Dee's
services were again required at Court when a wax image of the Queen stuck with
pigs bristles was found in Lincoln's Inn Fields (38); the Privy Council called upon
him "to prevent the mischiefe," "by divers messages sent unto me one after
another in one morning"; he rapidly quieted their fears by precautions taken "in
godly and artificiall manner," though he insisted onthe presence of Mr. Secretary
Wilson throughout his proceedings as a witness that he was not engaging, in his
countermeasures, in necromancy (39). This was a period when Dee was
frequently at court. It is possible that it was during a visit there which extended
according to his diary from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1 1577, at the time of the comet,
that he met Jane Fromond, who was according to the Compendious Rehearsall, a
lady in waiting to Lady Howard of Effingham, whom he married on Feb. 5 1578.
She was his second wife, but we are ignorant even as to the name of his first,
who died in 1575, and whom he may have married only the previous year (40).
Dee's first child Arthur, to which Dyer stood godfather, was born July 13 1579,
and his family thereafter increased at regular intervals.

IV. In 1576 Dee published the first part of what was one of his most ambitious
projects. It was issued in an edition of 100 folio copies by John Day Archbishop
Parker's printer, who chiefly specialised in works of theology and ecclesiastical
history but had also brought out the English Euclid. The thread of Dee's
discourse frequently wanders, or is laid aside while collateral issues and matters
of almost irrelevant detail are worked out with careful calculation, but the main
tendency of the whole is abundantly clear, and amounts to nothing less than a
scheme for the establishment of a worldwide British Suzerainty ruled by Elizabeth
as Empress. The running title of the whole was to be General and Rare
Memorials pertaining to the perfect art of Navigation. The first and only
published volume is The Brytish Monarchy (otherwise called the Petty Navy
Royall): for the politique security, abundant wealth, and the triumphant state of
this Kingdome (with Gods favor) procuring. The remaining volumes he describes
here in a "Necessary Advertisement."(41) The second was "The Brytish
Complement, of the perfect Art of Navigation; a great volume: in which, are
contained our Quene Elizabeth her Arithmeticall Tables Gubernauticke: for
Navigation by the Paradoxall compasse (of me invented 1557) and Navigation by
great Circles: and for longitudes, and latitudes: and the variation of the
compasse finding most easilie and speedily: yea (if needs be) in one minute of
time, and sometimes without sight of sunne, moone, or star; with many other,
new and needefull inventions Gubernauticke." This, though written in four
months only, he declares is greater in bulk than the English Bible, and "the
contents therof, are above the most part of the best learned mens expectations
(yea, or hope) of being brought to pas." But its size and large sections of tables
mean that its printing would require several hundred pounds, and therefore it
must be withheld "tyll a comfortable and sufficient opportunity of supply doth
very well serve thereto." (A sentence he sets in capitals; and then proceeds to
tell how the work contains a section "contrived and dedicated vnto the aeternall,
royall and heroicall honor and renown" of Elizabeth, publication of which will
ensure that all peoples, of every language, heathen or Christian, "that have to
deale with hydrography" shall "most thankfully and for ever sing and extoll her
marveilous princely benefit herin.") The third volume contained matter so secret
that for the present it was to be "vtterly suppressed, or delivered to Vulcan his
custody." The fourth volume was Of Famous and Rich Discoveries, "an earthly
paradise...a booke for the BRYTISH HONOR and WEALTH...such an one as never
King Ptolomaeus, or Prince Abilfada Ismael, or any geographicall or
hydrographicall discouerer did write or collect." It contains "the generall survey
hydrographicall of all the whole world" and also "the lawfull and very honorable
entitling of our most gratious and soueraigne Lady, Quene Elizabeth, (and so this
Brytish Sceptre Royall) to very large forrein dominions." None of these were to
be published until the suggestions in this first volume, the necessary groundwork
to the whole, had been implemented.

The work, dedicated to Hatton (42), opens with "a brief Note Scholastical"
"whereby it may appere that they [the contents of his book] are not Scopae
dissolutae or Du Coq a l'Asne: But by the Will and Grace of the Highest, thus
recorded," and explaining why the work must be prefaced by "a mournfull and
dolefull Supplication generall to all his Cuntrymen" recording his own past
sufferings. Here Dee compares the three parts of man - Mens, Dianoia, and
Sensus - to the three types of mankind who have contributed to the making of
the book, the Philosophus or Instructor, the Mechanicus, and the Vulgariter
Iustus (or Unknown Friend); for the work is set out under a transparent veil of
anonymity, purporting to be written up by the third, from material supplied by
the mechanician, who has gathered these in many private conferences with Dee,
the philosopher. Dee then proceeds, in the person of "the Unknown Friend" to "A
necessary advertisement...to the modest, and godly reader" (43). It explains the
disguised authorship by observing that such slanders have been set on foot
against the Philosopher that anything issued under his own name would initially
be discredited by large numbers. Maintaining the third person, Dee recounts the
wrongs and impediments he has suffered during his studious career. These
reduce to the undue curiosity of others as to his researches, and ignorant
suspicions as to their nature, the theft of his inventions, secret enemies whose
machinations have deprived him of rewards or salary, those who have invented
murders and treason, and "have fastened the same vpon the very innocent" (in
the margin in Greek characters: "As Clerk who hang himself in the Tour Sir Jon
Bourn knight Pridiox Maxel &c." (44)), those who for "private lucre only" have
practised "the counterfeting of other honest and learned men their letters: as,
written vnto them, in such their vngodly and unlawfull affrayes" (in the margin
"Vincent Murphin"), and others "falsely reporting their conferences had with
them [i.e., honest and learned men] to the behoof (say they) of such as are
become their miserable and cosened clients" (in the margin "Filson"). He refers
to the charge of "Conjuring," "unduly and unadvisedly, first admitted" into a
work recording "those mens acts, who dyed in the cause of veritie," and which
has "settled this intolerable sklander of the vertuous, among the glorious renown
of the righteous," (45) and was "even then recorded, when this courteous
Ientleman was also a prisoner himself, (and bedfellow with one maister Barthelet
Greene)"; a passage referring to Foxe's statements (46) which have been
already examined. He notes the charge of plagiarism made against the Monas
and Aphorisms, and Offusius' unacknowledged use of material Dee had supplied
him with, and theft of Dee's own cosmological theories (47). Some particular
injuries are set down; as the conduct of the Doctor (now reconciled after an
apology) who had urged his banishment from the land for ever, since he claimed
Dee never disclosed the results of his studies, and "the most Judas like pranke,
of another Doctor," whom Dee had treated with "great friendship and humanity"
in Paris, but who during Dee's arrest, attempted to persuade Bonner and the
Lord Chancellor that Dee should be committed to perpetual prison (48). "And so
hath the Feend Infernall, most craftily and unduly gotten the honest Name and
Fame of one extraordinary Studious Ientleman, of the land, within his Clawes,"
that many hope he will never be able to redeem his reputation at all (49). As a
consequence of this treatment Dee threatens that though from God he has
"receyued a great Talent of knowledge and Sciences...and both by God being
warned, and, of his own disposition, desirous not only to enlarge and multiply
the same, but also to communicate to other," he now "partly demeth himself (in
Gods Iudgement) excusable, not to bestow any more of his Talent & Carefull
Trauailes, upon the Ingrateful and Thankles," for "The Brytish Philosopher
is...discouraged to labor or pen any more Treatises or bookes himself in Artificial
Method for his vnkinde, vnthankfull, disdainfull and sklanderous countrymen to
vse (nay abuse)."(50) However once more, though anonymously, he will set
forth a work, the promised sequels to which he then describes. His reasons for
doing so introduce an apocalyptic note which is recurrent in his "Spiritual Diary" -
a belief that his actions are making important contributions to God's larger
purposes which are on the point of consummation (that perhaps he regarded the
new star as an annunciation of such a new era is indicated by his dating of this
"Advertisement" (51)) "Anno Stellae (Coelo Demissae, rectaque reversae)
Quinto; Julij Vero Die 4. Et Anno Mundi 5540" - later Kelly's angels revealed to
him - or perhaps confirmed his previous supposition, that the divine number,
ruling Britain's destiny was 5536, i.e., the first year of the star (52). Thus after
he has described his whole project, and Elizabeth's approaching recovery for
England of "very large forrein dominions," he notes "The course of the Divine
Providence generall, in this present age will bring to light and life, matter of
great importance and consequency, both to the glory of God and the benefit of
all Christendom and Heathens," which is connected in some way with his Famous
and Rich Discoveries, "for, in the secret centre therof is more bestowed and
stored up, than I may, or (in this place) will express." (The only surviving clue to
this last is perhaps Dee's statement of 1583 that the Angel Annael is "the Chief
Governor General of this Great Period, as I have noted in my booke of Famous
and Rich Discoveries."(53))

The main theme of the text is allegorically represented in an elaborate

frontispiece carefully engraved from Dee's own design (54). Elizabeth sits at the
helm of the ship of state, which contains representatives of the three estates
nobles, clergy and commons, her hand is stretched out to grasp the hair, blown
towards her, of a naked "Occasio," who surmounts a fortified citadel on land, her
foot resting on a tetrahedrom that crowns it (55); St. Michael with sword and
shield protects the vessel; stars, sun and Moon appear together in the sky,
favouring the enterprise, and a radiant sphere, bearing the Hebrew
tetragammaton emits beneficent effluence from the top right corner (56). A
female figure kneels on the shore addressing Elizabeth, a navy is placed on the
left and in the foreground, on land, two figures, one of which comes from the
fleet, are shown in various stages of what is apparently an amicable conclusion
of a treaty. As the ships fly Dutch colours (57), this is probably a suggestion for
an open alliance with the Netherlands (which had been receiving officially
sanctioned though unrecognised, support in men and materials for some years
from England) against Spain, such as Dyer and Gilbert urged. (Later Dee was to
express regret that Elizabeth did not accept their proffered crown.) Dee refers to
this title page in the text (58): "Why should not we HOPE that, RES PUBL.
BRYTANICA, on her knees very humbly and earnestly Soliciting the most
Excellent Royall Majesty of our ELIZABETH, (sitting at the HELM of the most
Imperiall Monarchy: or, rather, at the Helm of the IMPERIAL SHIP, of the moste
parte of Christendome, if so it be her Grace's Pleasure) Shall obteyn (or Perfect
Policie may persuade her Highnes) that, which is the Pyth or Intent of RES PUBL.
BRYTANICA Her Supplication? Which is, that may help us not only to But make
us, also, Partakers of Public Commodities Innumerable, and (as yet) Incredible.
Unto which the HEAVENLY KING, for these many yeres last past, hath by
MANIFEST OCCASION, most Graciously not only invited us: but also, hath made
Even Now the way and means most evident, easy and Compendious," for now
"there is a little lock of LADY OCCASION, Flickring in the Ayre by our hands, to
catch hold on." Similar opportunities have been missed in the past when "The
Brytish Monarchy hath byn Capable of the greatest Civile Felicity that ever was in
any Particular Monarchy Els, in the whole world: Yea, so Incomparably that it
might have Cotended for the Generall Monarchie, with any that have byn. If
requisit Policy therto had byn used in Due time and Constantly Followed."

Dee claims that his view of Britain's future is a result not of national partisanship
but is based on a consideration of global politics and development; thus he
writes of himself, referring to his travels and geographical studies, that it is "a
purpose, somewhat answerable to a perfect Cosmographer, to fynde hymself
COSMOPOLITES: A CITIZEN AND MEMBER OF THE WHOLE AND ONLY ONE
MYSTICALL CITY UNIVERSALL: And so consequently to meditate of the
Cosmopoliticall Government thereof, under the King Almighty: passing on, very
swiftly, towards the most Dreadfull and most Comfortable Term prefixed."(59)
The mystical and apocalyptic imperialism that appeared in Dee's address to
Maximilian in the Monas, and is evident again in his relations with Rudolph II,
and which he perhaps imbibed in some measure from his persistent studies of
Roger Bacon (60), is here focussed on Britain whose monarchy he equates with
the "Templum Pacis" which is Solomon's Temple, and declares "The Preeminence
and Priviledge by GOD and NATURE appropriate to this BRYTISH MONARCHY is
Incredible; and will be yet for a while."(61) Continual stress is laid on Elizabeth's
rights titles and coming imperial status (62), but despite various rhetorical
passages of passionate exhortation (as that on the necessity of seizing control of
the sea beginning "O LABION, O BRYTAN, O ENGLAND, and (I say) O BRYTAIN
agayn...."(63)) Dee's approach in general to the matters he discusses is severely
practical in tone; he is more concerned with suggesting material details that can
be at once enforced and will bear immediate fruit than in developing the deeper,
and perhaps, religious, implications that he clearly looks forward to as involved in
the completed scheme. Only occasionally does he indicate that what he here
envisages will contribute to, and in turn be assisted by, "secret Philosophy."
Thus, discussing the expenditures of moneys raised for his general purpose, he
follows the suggested allocation of a fund for endowing engineers to encourage
them to develop military mechanical inventions and improved fortifications with
the further, apparently for him, equally important request "Moreover some Parte
to be bestowed on Fowr Christian Philosophers, Skilful or to become Skilful, and
also Excellent: both in Speculation, and also Practise, of the best Manner of the
Ancient and Secret Philosophie: which is not Vulgar: but Vndowtedly, which may
be most Comfortable and Profitable to Some, of Courteous KALID his
Disposition"; and by the titles of matter on which these should be employed, Dee
writes (of himself) "it may Evidently appere that my Instructor hath (as it were)
but opened the Doore of his Philosophicall and Politicall Brytish Furniture," in the
present volume (64).

V. The Britain Dee envisages as emerging from his policy is a closeknit corporate
state, firmly based on Tudor "compromise democracy." The Commonwealth he
divides into Commons, Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal and Elizabeth (65); the
three estates to be "cared for" with their own consents (organised in
Parliaments, etc.) by the sovereign (66). Many of the measures he proposes are
aimed at the centralised control, or state annexation, of activities which are liable
to be positively harmful, or not developed in accordance with the greatest
possible degree of public welfare, if left to unrestricted private enterprise. It is
essential, he holds, to frame a policy "so, that Private Gayne, Delight, or
wilfulness shall not so much either recklessly, craftily or violently devoure or bar
the PROFIT PUBLIK."(67) He discusses however the dangers in administering
through public boards and commissions the various activities necessary to the
building up of sea power his plan involves, and the control of monys for the Petty
Navy Royal. These he identifies as, chiefly, probable corruption, the diversion of
funds from their proper purposes by the commons and waste and inefficiency. All
these he admits as extensively operative in the past, but he hopes they will not
affect his scheme, which is such as to evoke a new moral spirit of national
honesty and pride which will eliminate them. "But, in this our Gift, and Publick
Oblation, the whole Realm is privy: the whole Realm consenting: the whole
Realm ayding: and the whole Realm, certainly feeling the Publick Commodity of
Peace, Wealth, and Blessed Security thereby enioyed."(68) Dee is so certain of
the unity of feeling and ideals that will permeate the citizens of the new Britain,
that he goes so far as to suggest (69) when discussing methods of taxation to be
imposed to meet expenses incurred in establishing and maintaining the Petty
Navy Royal, that the discussion if not now of purely theoretical interest, at most
will be of practical importance only in the initial stages of the experiment, after
which the benefit of the scheme will be so apparent to all, and so directly affect
them, that the spontaneous generosity of the people will provide all funds
necessary for its continuance. And then at last will arrive - "O godly Intent, o
long looked for Commonwealth," "Commonwealth, Invincible Strength, and
Immortal triumphant Fame, three most lawfull Brytish Children, and long wished
for, of the true Brytish and Christian Druids, they being also Politicall
Philosophers, and not Sophisticate."(70)

This scheme seems to have been long meditated by Dee (71) and he now
produces his whole armoury of arguments in favour of the establishment of the
Petty Navy Royall, the first step, towards his more general aims, and principle
instrument for this realisation, "the only Master Key wherewith to open all locks
that keepe oute, or hinder, this Incomparable British Empire...from a great mass
of Treasure" and which will usher in "the most joyfull and pleasant Brytish
Histories...that ever to this or any other kingdom in the whole world els was
known or perceived."(72) Advice to the same effect by Pericles ("quod Naves
Divitias, Divitias vero aegestatem ducerant") is reported and analysed (73).
Thucydides is drawn on for his account of the admirable Athenian "Sea
Ordinances" - and a whole Latin treatise of Georgius Gemistus Pletho - de Rebus
Pelopennesi - offering advice to Emanuel Emperor of Constantinople on the
building up of a secure state by means of a powerful navy, is reprinted (74).
(This Dee extracted from a book published little more than a year before his own
(75), and is perhaps of interest as being the only direct reference to Pletho, the
fountainhead of the great tradition of mystical neo-Platonism in the west, in any
of Dee's extant writings though other works of Pletho appear in his library list.)
Dee also holds up as a model the policy ("O wisdom Imperial, most diligently to
be Imitated") that he attributes to Edgar "that Saxonicall Alexander" "one of the
perfect Imperiall Monarches of the British Empire," for by his possession of a
large navy and by his sailing in person once a year round the confines of Britain
accompanied by four thousand sail "at least," he "made evident to the whole
world, that, As he wisely knew the Ancient Bounds and Limits of the Brytish
Empire: so that he could, and wold, Royally, Justly, and Triumphantly Enioy the
same: Spite of the Divell and Maugre the Force of any Forreyn Potentate." For,
writes Dee, "This peacable King Edgar had in his minde about six hundred yeares
past, the representation of a great part of the self same Idaea which from Above
only and by no man's devise hath streamed down into my imagination."(76)

The Petty Navy Royal Dee suggests should consist of sixty ships, each between
160 and 200 tons, as well as twenty smaller barks (77). 6660 men would man
them, and "those men liberally waged."(78) The consequent advantages (79)
would be that all foreign shipping in British waters could be easily controlled, fear
of invasions would be eliminated, merchants would be protected on the seas,
and the threat off such a navy would enforce their privileges abroad, all pirate
vessels could be suppressed and their personnel could then be conscripted,
foreign fishing in British waters could be checked, or regulated, the vagrancy
problem would be solved, with the consequent increase of merchant shipping
more skilled sailors would be available in time of war, there would be a standing
force of some thousands of "Sea Soldiers" "to this Realme a Treasure
Incomparable," which could also be employed upon land in suppressing of rebels
in Scotland and Ireland and in the speedy apprehension of all foreign offenders
lurking within British Territories.

The total cost of the enterprise Dee estimates at 200,000L yearly, of which one
half could be immediately covered if one tenth of all foreign fishing in British
waters should be levied as a tax and allocated to the navy for ever. He suggests
also "a perpetuall benevolence for sea security" in the form of a direct tax on
income and property, and a poll tax on foreigners residing in Britain which if
enforced on the scale he recommends would remove the need for any other
form of subsidy (80). A mass of exactly calculated detail is presented to cover
every aspect of the project. The amounts of provision, and armaments necessary
are stipulated. The practise of exporting saltpetre, gunpowder, and other
munitions or their ingredients to foreign and potentially enemy powers is
deplored. Private building is to be severely restricted to conserve materials
needed in the general plan for naval expansion, and ironworks are to be stopped
to preserve England's woods which are the more necessary commodity in Dee's
eyes, particularly as, he claims, English iron is of poorer quality and dearer to
produce than foreign. The nation's food supplies are to be regulated by an
enforced storage of grain in times of plenty, which procedure will lower the price
and maintain it always at a consistent level; Dee works out the permanent prices
for a variety of foodstuffs that are to be achieved by similar methods of control.
He vehemently attacks the "Stinching, Souyling (or rather Beslavering)," of the
Thames, which results in a severe loss to the national revenue by driving away
the Western Smelt, as well as threatening the public health - and he goes so far
as to put forward alternative proposals for the disposal of sewage to those
generally used, in order to keep the Thames pure. He demands the prohibition of
three - formerly illegal - "engines" from the Thames: Trinkers, Timbernets and
Kyddels, the use of which causes a loss which he calculates at 90,000 bushels
annually "of Myddle Marketable good Fish" by destruction of the fry, and he
produces other economic as well as legal (e.g., citing Statute of Henry VI, anno 2
against them) arguments to urge this measure (81). Especially is he concerned
to build up the English Herring fishery (in regard to which the question of "Sea
limits," which he treats of in another work, becomes highly important) and to
check foreign poaching in English waters, which, he calculates, results in a
monstrous loss of revenue and national income annually, and to impose a heavy
tax on all permitted foreign fishing.

Of his plan for this Petty Navy Royal and his exactly detailed programme for its
foundation and upkeep, and the consequent reformation in the spirit of the
country at home, and the inevitable effect on Britain's position in the world at
large, Dee writes: "Yt seemeth to be (almost) a Mathematicall
demonstration...for a feasable Policy to bring or praeserve Victorious Brytish
Monarchy in a marveilous Security."(82)

VI. More than twenty years later, when it must have been only too apparent that
no general contemporary realisation of his proposals was to be looked for, Dee
apparently unable to abandon at least the contemplation and theoretical
elaboration of his theme, wrote in 1597 a continuation of, or rather expansion of
various points that had been raised in, General and Rare Memorials. This was
entitled (83) which it will be more appropriate to summarise here than in its
chronological place. This is once more written "To my very honorable frende Syr
Edward Dyer Knight," and was composed under difficult circumstances when Dee
was struggling with the confused and corrupt administration of Manchester
Collegiate Church, he "Having wonne (by snatches) from my College Cumbers
some few howres."(84) It represents perhaps Dee's last attempt to influence
directly and personally the policy and political development of Britain, the
glorious future of which he persisted in regarding as imminent, if only some
slight material support for his suggestions were forthcoming. But the memory of
past disappointments lingers noticeably in many passages of this later work. He
makes many references to General and Rare Memorials, as the book on which he
had chiefly relied to win the adoption of his programme, whose aims he declares
as being then shared by many others, for "At the time of which booke printing
great hoap was conceyved (of some no simple politicians) That her Matie might
then have become the Chief Commander, and, in manner Imperiall Governour of
all Christian kings, princes and estates: and chiefly of those parts of whose
Dominions and territories, did in any place admitt good landing from the Sea, or
whose Subjects with Ship or goods did or must pass and use any of her
Majesties appropriat and peculiar Seas."(83) Towards the end, he returns to this
theme; speaking of his earlier treatise on Elizabeth's title to many foreign
territories (1578) he adds "Yet, for all that my grief is not small; for that I can
not, as yet understand: what Just and sufficient Occasion hath byn, or could be
given or founde (for these 21 yeres last, past) wherefore neither the said Lands,
neither yet the Sea jurisdiction duely and dutifully declared and manifested) have
byn or ought to have byn made so little account of. And so, my Labours (after a
sort,) vaynly Employed."(86)

Nevertheless Dee once more is prepared to assume the role of "the carefull,
expert and faithfull politician subiect," (87) and takes up his earlier theme again,
this time considering the legal basis of his design rather than the practical
methods of enforcing it. He refers to his earlier work for "the consideration of her
Maties Royall Sea limits, and her peculiar Jurisdiction, in all the Seas next unto
her Maties Kingdomes, dominions and territories," but adds that now "it were
good that some expert Mathematician or Mechanician (somewhat skillfull in Jure
gentium et Civile and in the true Idea of Justice and Aequum and Bonum) would,
viva voce, explain unto you and also practically demonstrate some of those Laws
and Lawyers intents which are but briefly here touched" (88) and draw maps to
illustrate this.

As an aid to this object the present treatise is written; and invoking a host of
legal and historical authorities (Strabo, Ptolemy, "Caius, Calistratus, Paulus,
Pomponius, Celsus filius, Alphenus Florentinus, Proculus, Labeo") Dee expounds
"that Idea off perfect Equitie whereuppon, the philosophicall Judgment of Sea
Limits determinings" (89) is founded, by laws "de acquirendo rerum Dominio."
This is, briefly, that the limits to a Monarch's absolute dominion on the sea are to
be drawn exactly halfway between the coasts of his territories and those of
adjacent foreign powers. Once this is recognised Dee declares "if they [foreign
powers] do or will mislike hereof: [his present claims] Then (seeing our Right is
grounded upon Christian Aequitie and warranted by Law) we may by the Vigor of
the same our Right use Might sufficient to guarde and enjoye the same: as
Occasion shall require."(90)

This simple, equitable, proposition has far more formidable consequences than is
at first a parent. In the General and Rare Memorials he had bitterly attacked the
Portuguese-Spanish division of the world (91), and demanded, if "That Petty
Marchantlyke King of Portingall" can do this, "shall now we, have the Courage
and skill rightfully to enjoy the very precinct of our own Naturall Islandish Walls
and Royallty of our Sea Limits here, at home,and before our doors"? Now,
settling the rightful limits on the sea due to various countries, Dee manages to
engross considerably more than half the ocean surfaces of the world for Britain.
This he performs by taking her furthest outlying possessions as the starting point
from which to make the halfway division between British and foreign coasts.
Thus after dividing the sea between France and England southwards to Alderney,
he continues "And here you must take another consideration most needfull for
There, and in that Sea, Westerly (for no little tract) her Matie undowtedly, hath
absolute, peculiar and appropriate Sea Soveraigntie and Jurisdiction Royall. As
being the Seas betweene onely her owne England and her owne Ile of
Guernsey."(92) He also revives, as a basis for this division, claims for Elizabeth to
various foreign states. He insists on her title to France (93), which thus ensures
English control of the entire channel; and since Scotland owes fealty to England,
recognised by James' hommage to Henry VI in 1423 (94) one half of the Atlantic
- "The same lying betweene the Next Opposite Seashore of that famous and very
Ancient Platonicall or Solonicall Atlantis and the Kingdom of Scotland" (95) -
becomes British sea territory. Other rights are discovered by the evidence of
ancient British histories (96); Dee's study of these is indicated by a lost work
written in 1583: The Originals, and chiefe Points, of our auncient Brytish
Histories, discoursed upon, and examined (97), other titles are based on nothing
more than some anciently employed customary name (98). The whole, stuffed
with miscellaneous learning supporting entirely legalistic arguments, has an air of
fantasy about it of which it is hard to believe Dee himself to have been quite
unaware, since here his grandiose imaginings range entirely unchecked by
practical considerations of immediate measures that may possibly be taken to
effect his designs to which the earlier work was devoted.
VII. However personally peculiar or remote from actuality these writings of Dee
appear at first, they can be paralleled in almost every point by activities, or
active controversial discussion, connected with important exploits or contained in
other writings of the day, and in some respects Dee's suggestions do not seem
to have been devoid of practical fruit. In general one can remark that his
extreme patriotism, and confidence in an imperial future for Britain based on sea
dominion, is and long remained a common theme - it is as pervasively apparent
in Purchas' writings for instance as in Dee's, reflected in the frequent literary
identifications of Britain as in the Fortunate Isles, as Insula Deata (99). The
intense Elizabethan pride in the navy is another general characteristic of the age,
given expression by Dee, for though Elizabeth only increased the complement of
ships from twenty-seven to twenty-nine. She maintained them at a standard of
efficiency which later lapsed under James, and Fuller declares that "the Navy
Royall was erected by Queen Elizabeth"; again, Dee's advocacy of direct national
support for important ventures is by no means an isolated demand, and became
a crucial issue in respect to many of them, Fuller was regretfully to comment on
the Newfoundland project "Had this discovery been as fortunate in public
encouragement as private industry, probably before this time we had enjoyed
the Kernel of those countries whose shell only we now possess."(100)

One testimony to the seriousness with which Dee's work was regarded is a letter
written to him by Dr. Aubrey one of the Masters of Requests, dated 20 July 1577
after a reading of Generall and Rare Memorials (101). After some preliminary
courtesies and personal matters (he compares Dee's scheme with the child his
wife was then carrying, and says he is "trusting in God that shortly bothe in
theire severall kindes shall come to lighte and live long and yours having genium
for ever"), he proceeds "the matter doth so shine with the manner of the
handlying that I am in doubt whether I shall preferre the matter for the
substance weight and pythiness of the multitude of the arguments and reasons:
or the manner for the method: order, perspicuity and elocution in that height
and loftiness that I did not believe our tongue (I meane the English) to be
capable of. Marry our British for the riches of the tong in my affectionate opinion
is more copious and more advantageable to utter anything by a skilful
artificer...You argue or rather thoundre so thicke and so stronglie for the
necessitie and comoditie of yor Navye that you leade or rather drawe me obtorto
cello to be of opinion with you." He repeats at length some of Dee's arguments
on the advantages of a strong fleet, and on Elizabeth's sovereign rights over
various seas, and adds "As her Matie of right is given in the rest of the world by
Labre in our Learning to Antoninius the Emperour, so she should have the
execution and effect thereof in our world if your navie were as well settled as
you have plotted it...I would God all men would as willinglye bear the light
burdens that you lay upon them; for the supportation of the charges as you have
wisely and reasonablie devised the same." He ventures only two criticisms, firstly
as to the employment of the navy's personnel in times of peace, which Dee had
neglected, "assure yourself those whelpes of yours neither can nor will be Idle,
and except it may please you to prescribe unto the same some good occupations
and exercises, they will occupie themselves in occupations of their own choices,
whereof few shall be to your liking or meaning," and secondly - and this
indicates how outspoken Dee had been in his discussion of practical affairs of
high policy - Aubry writes of Dee's suggested prohibition of the export of
munitions etc. "Lette me be also bolde to offere to yor consideration whether it
be expedient for you so freely to deale with the carrying of ordinancies oute of
the realme" since a late order had expressly permitted this to be done.

Among the subjects treated by Dee, that were burning issues in the day, was the
problem of foreign herring fishing in English waters - carried on to such an
extent Dee had commented bitterly, that though the channel bears the name
Mare Brytanicum, "yet the Herring therein taken are called Halec Flandrorum"
(102) - and the encouragement of the English fishing trade, which long remained
a question of pressing importance and engaged the attentions of Keymer, Tobias
Gentleman, Sir William Monson, Sir John Burroughs, and Ralph Hitchcock (103).
This last, the brother of the Hitchcock to whom Dee presented a copy of his
work, who wrote on problems of victualling and armament of ships such as Dee
there touched on, is mentioned in it (104) as an "honest Ientleman of the middle
Temple" studying problems of Herring Fisheries "who very discretely and
faithfully hath dealt therein and still travaileth, (and by divers other wayes also)
to farder the Weale-Publick of England so much as in him lyeth" (the marginal
initials R.H. have been expanded to his full name by his brother in the B.M.
copy). Dee does not seem however to have known him personally at this time
and perhaps they were brought together by the publication of Dee's work, for
the Diary entry July 5, 1578 reads "Mr. Hitchcock, who had travayled in the plot
for fishing made acquaintance with me, and offered me great curtesy."
Hitchcock's scheme indeed offers many close parallels with Dee's own, and
although it was not published until some years after Dee's, in manuscript it had
been in circulation since 1574, and had excited apparently considerable public
attention at the time Dee was composing General and Rare Memorials. Hitchcock
published it on Jan. 1 1580 under the title: A Pollitique Platt for the honour of the
Prince, the greate profite of the publique state, relief of the poore, preservation
of the riche, reformation of Roges and Idle persones, and the wealth of
thousands that knowe not howe to live. Written for a New yeres gifte to
Englande, and the inhabitants thereof. Like Dee he complains bitterly of the
decline of English fishing under foreign competition; on a chart showing the chief
ports of the Netherlandes (105), he remarks that from twelve of these only
"there went out yerely of these twelve tounes...above fower hundred Busses or
great Shippes to Fishe for Herrynges upon the Easte Coaste of England," but like
Dee he looks to a general revival of English power and prosperity as resulting
from the implementation of his scheme for improving the English ports and
building a fleet of larger warships for their defence, a project he anticipates can
be completed in three years and "without coste or charges to any man."(106)
Like Dee, he enters upon minute calculations regarding every aspect of his
proposal. 80,000L is to be raised by a forced loan for three years at 10%, and
the precise contributions of the various shires and parts, proportioned to the
amount of benefit they will immediately receive, and the numbers of vessels to
be assigned each port, are laid down. The ships are to be of 70 tons on the
pattern of Flemish Busses, to cost to build and equip 200L each, and to be
manned by one skilful master, twelve regular mariners, "and XII of the strong
lustie Beggers, or poore men: taken up through this lande." The conscription of
these is an important factor of his plan, and by this he promises there will be
"Nyne thousande Marriners more then now presently there is 10 serve her
Maiesties shippes at all tymes neede bee."(107) The fish procured, by the
expeditions of this fleet (he prescribes they shall be barrelled after the Flemish
manner, as soon as caught with other details regarding their packing and
disposal), Hitchcock works out, will not only supply the whole realm sufficiently,
thus eliminating the present import of fish, but will leave up to 32000 "lasts,"
over, to be sold in France. Not only does Dee betray awareness of this "platt" in
the General and Rare Memorials, but he may well have felt encouraged in urging
his more extensive though similar proposals, by the active support that
Hitchcock's evidently had secured. For Hitchcock records (109) "In the
eighteenth yeare of the Queene's Maiesties raigne, five or sixe daies before the
Parliament house broke up, I hadde the Burgesses (almoste) of all the stately
Porte tounes of Englande and Wales, at a Dynner with me at Westminster,
amongest whom the substaunce of my Platte was red, and of every man well
lyked," many volunteered then and there he says, to advance from their own
pockets the money to build all the ships allocated to their particular ports, and
professed themselves ready to embark on the scheme as soon as possibly might
be. In 1574 a copy had been sent to Leicester, and now in 1576 further copies
were sent to the Queen, some members of the Privy Council, and twelve others
to "Councellors of the lawe and other men of greate credite hopyng that God
would stirre uppe some good man to set out this worke, which the author (beyng
a Soldiour, trained up in the warres and not in scholles, with greate charges, and
travaile of mynde for his countries sake) hath devised and laied as a foundacion,
for them that hath iudgement to buylde uppon" (109) (a sentence which
suggests a further possible connection with Dee's work, if Dee saw himself in
such a role). The matter was raised in Parliament, for Hitchcock continues,
"Amongest whom, Maister Leonerd Digges (110), (a proper Gentilman and a
Wise) had one Copie, who (being a Burgesse of the house) tooke occasion there
uppon, to desire licence to speake his mynd, concerning this Plat saieying he
spake for the common wealthe of all England, and for no private cause." Digges,
Hitchcock declares, "hath gained thereby, bothe fame and greate good likying of
all the hearers," but the matter was deferred until the next session, when the
"platt" might be read out in full, but nothing further seems to have been done.
The problem to which Dee and Hitchcock propounded solutions, though
abortively as far as any immediate consequences were concerned (111) was
however quite generally recognised at the time as one of considerable gravity
(112). A large proportion of Henry VIII's navy had been provided by the fishing
fleets, but they had declined after the Reformation, partly it was supposed, since
it was no longer obligatory to substitute fish for meat on the Friday; the
Navigation Act introduced by Cecil for the encouragement of lawful trade, which
earned the title "Cecil's Fast," had been in part aimed at rectifying this situation
by making the eating of meat on either the Friday or Saturday a misdemeanor,
and a series of bills from the time of Ed. VI aimed at the same purpose (113).
Fulke Greville praises Elizabeth for her concern with this matter for "she
cherished the fisherboats with priviledges along her Coasts, as nurseries of
Seamen; brought Groniland and Newfoundland fishing in reputation to encrease
her stock of Mariners, both by taking, and transporting what they took far off"
(114) and, under james I (in 1609) a proclamation was made, much in
accordance with Dee's demands, in this work, that required all foreign fishing
vessels to obtain a license, at London or Edinburgh before they could ply in
English waters (115), the extent of these being left undetermined: (in practise it
was completely ignored by the Dutch). Again in 1623 a scheme was urged,
which seemed to have same hopes of success, based on Dee and Hitchcock's
suggestions: A Fleet Royall of twenty ships was to be built to protect a host of
new fishing vessels, and the expenses of the scheme were to be defrayed by a
tribute of every tenth fish (116).

With the exception of Hitchcock's Platt which, however, was not published until
three years after Dee's work had appeared, the General and Rare Memorials is
perhaps the first extensive study of the problem to become at all well known, or
to receive serious attention. Though its arguments on this topic were still
remembered well into the following century by a few (117), its importance is less
reflected by its individual survival, than by the way in which it seems to have set
the tone for many other treatments that were produced after it throughout the
reigns of Elizabeth and James. Camden, a close acquaintance of Dee's complains
in much the same vein of how the Dutch have seized opportunities that the
English should have exploited. Visiting the coasts of the North Riding of
Yorkshire, he comments bitterly (and incidentally providing an isolated, but
perhaps not very weighty, piece of evidence that foreigners were officially
expected, or in fact ever troubled, to obtain licences for fishing in English
waters), "those of Holland and Zealand carry on a very great and gainful trade of
fishing in the sea here for herrings, after they have, according to ancient custom,
obtained licence for it from this castle [Scarborough]; for the English, always
granted leave for fishing, reserving the honour to themselves, but out of a lazy
humour, resigning the gains to others, it being almost incredible, what vast gains
the Hollanders make by the fishery on our coast."(118) A tract on the fisheries -
Observations on Trade and Commerce - is also concerned, like Dee's work, to
stimulate English efforts by alarming accounts of the Dutch fisheries in English
waters - the value of their annual exports is estimated to be two million pounds -
and the same line is adopted by Tobias Gentleman in England's Way to win
Wealth of 1614, who declares that "the British seas" are "the treasury" which has
enabled the Dutch to conquer Spain (119). A tract on the same lines as Dee's, it
is indeed a detailed working out of many points raised in the General and Rare
Memorials, accompanied by a wealth of similar calculations, but at first sight
even more fantastic in many of its claims, was that written by Keymer - Raleigh's
most trusted and devoted lieutenant - about 1603, "Demonstrating that there is
more Wealth rais'd out of Herrings and other Fish in his Majesty's Sea's, by the
Neighbouring Nations in one year, than the King of Spain hath from the Indies in
four."(120) Fishing in English waters he claims is "one of the greatest Sea-
businesses of the World," 20,000 sail are engaged on it; 400,000 persons
supported by it; but statistics prove that England itself has only a comparatively
negligible share in it, less than many single continental cities. "Embden...hath
1400 [fishing ships], almost as many as belong to all England," while Holland
puts us to shame by contriving to build 1000 new ships a year, "yet having in
their Soil neither Matter to build them, nor Merchandizes to set them forth."(121)
His picture of the benefits that will necessarily follow if England encourages its
fishing - the home industries that will be developed by the increased shipping,
the social reformation that will accompany full employment - is very similar to
that previously drawn by Dee. He ends with an account of the virtuous industry
of the Dutch which brings individual prosperity and commonwealth and national
security, which is intended to inspire England to imitation: "And not a beggar
there, everyone getting his own Living, is admirable to behold; there the Poor
man, tho' he be Blind, and have but one Hand, will get his own Living by turning
the Wheel for making Cables and Cordage; and another that has not one Leg,
will get his own Living, sitting on a seat, with Knitting, and making of Nets and
Hooks; every Boy and Wench from 10 to 12 years, and upwards, will get their
own Living by winding Hemp, Spinning Yarn, making Twine and thread for Nets.
So Idleness, Beggary and Penury will be driven out of this Land," (122) if the
fishing industry is developed in imitation of the Dutch.

Dee's general advocacy of large scale measures relating to the English fishing
and naval power were not therefore entirely without influence, at least on the
climate of opinion in the immediately succeeding period. At the same time, it
would appear from an account in the enlarged edition of 1618 of Stowe's Survey,
that some of Dee's more detailed suggestions for the preservation of fish in the
Thames, were adopted, and found in practice to be successful and beneficial.
Stowe finds this problem still acute, exclaiming "Oh that this worthy River might
be spared, but even one yeare from nets etc. but alas, then should many a pore
man be undone. In the meane time it is lamentable to see how it is and hath
been choacked of late, with sand and shelves, through the penning and arresting
of the course of the water, for commodities sake." But later, he adds: "And
whereas there are a certain company of Fishermen called Trinckermen,
frequenting the River of Thames Eastward, who (in times past) not onely have
been reported, but also manifestly approved and found out, to make an infinite
destruction of the young broode and Frie of Fish, by use of unlawfull nets, and
unpermittable engines, feeding and glutting their hogges with them, as M.
Doctor Dee reporteth: By the diligent and extraordinary cost and care of the Lord
Maior, his Brethren and the rest of the Citizens of London, as also the vigilant
respect of his worthy Officer the Water Bayliffe, day and night attending to cut
off such an horrible abuse; those unlawfull nets and engines are now quite
suppressed and a true and orderly forme of fishing brought into use that such
waste and havocke may no more be made. Through which restraint of robberies
and application of continuall providence our River of Thames (the Honor and
Beauty of this Whole Island) is become again most rich and plentifull, yielding
dayly out of her bountiful bosome great store of fish of all kinds, and at much
more reasonable rate, then in many yeeres past hath beene seene, as our
Weekely markets in this honourable cittie, can better testifie than I report, a
matter highly to be commended and (no doubt) but will be as heedfully
continued."(123)

Further evidence of the way General and Rare Memorials was regarded is
provided by a presentation copy in the British Museum; inscribed on the flyleaf
"Saylor Hichcocke book the gift of Dockter Dee '77." Hitchcock himself has
underlined much of the text and remarks "Doctor Dee intencioned one of the
best plats for England: yf it had been then performed, honourable and profytable
for prynce and subiectes." A second hand has added numerous notes, mainly of
the heads of Dee's discourses (chiefly on the foundation of the new navy, the
taxes necessary to finance it, on the herring fisheries and proposals for cleansing
the Thames). This unknown comments "Out of this Humorist (i.e., Dee) many
good noats may be gathered and grounds layd for petitions wch touch many
necessary redresses as in perusing him may be observed for the publicke good
of the Realm. Wth the reviving execution of sundry necessary Statutes which are
now neglected to the wrong of the whole Kingdom." Lastly a document only
partially preserved has been appended, of one hundred proposals "for Englands
Improvement Temporall" - styled by the writer "this century of Cooks and Bulls
(for when are all worldly thoughts other)," many taken directly from Dee, while
others are concerned with such diverse matters as cutting canals through various
areas of England, methods for subduing the Saquintiarias in America, or paying
the expenses of the Irish War. This document Professor Taylor has suggested
(124) was perhaps written by Sir Harry Vane, who was instrumental in putting
into force a number of similar measures to some of these here proposed, under
the commonwealth.

VIII. The imperialism that informs the whole, and indications of which are
frequently encountered elsewhere in Dee's writings, never perhaps in its full
scope attains unequivocal expression in General and Rare Memorials, though the
general trend of Dee's aims here is fairly apparent. While the ideal of a single,
secular, world government, or at least of the recognition of one great power
dominating a federation of other states, is not unconnected with, and may owe
much to, in tradition of such a doctrine, apparent in earlier thinkers such as
Ockham, or Marsilius of Padu (Dante argued at length that a world empire was
the only and necessary way to achieve the abolition of war and the enforcement
of universal law (125)) - the form in which it appears in the sixteenth century as
in Dee, is, in a novel sense, determinedly nationalistic. Dee's version of this ideal,
particularly the apocalyptic and visionary religiosity that for him was closely
involved in it (the Emperor was to be not merely Dominus Mundi of Roman Law,
but also by being the means of restoring Justice to the world and effecting a
general moral regeneration a sort of spiritual Redeemer) may be compared, as
may various other features of his thought, with the similar views of Postel, who
also advocated the establishment of an empire unifying the world, though for
Postel its head was to be the King of France; proclamations of the imminence of
this French Empire indeed recur constantly in his work, no matter how
apparently foreign to this theme their ostensible subjects may be. Thus he
concludes a work on the "True" significance of the constellations and their
symbols by a defence of the possibility of such an Empire, coming into being and
its consonancy with the laws of Fate in all three worlds, which concludes "Sic
enim Ratione humana duce (etiamsi nec sacrum, nec coeleste, nec humanum
pro suae primogeniturae iure decretum haberent) videntur Gallicae res esse
constitutae, vt sit impossible alterius populi consensu & votis formari, fundar &
defendi Imperium verum & Monarchicum, quam Gallici...Nam Lusitania Anglia,
Polonia Moschavia atque si quid est inter christianos Romano aut Germanica
imperio nondum subiectum ne ad momentum quide duraret si imperator Rex
Galliae esset, aut si, quod est vt facilius ita expedentius & magis praedestinatum,
Rex Galliae esse Imperator."(126) In England also, frequent echoes of Dee's
aims in this way are to be found, particularly when fervent protestantism joined
hands with an ardour for discovery, colonisation and commercial expansion. Thus
it is a constant theme in Parchus' writing that England will achieve imperial
status by acquiring dominions in the New World ousting Spain from her overseas
possessions, and will rise to World Power by means of a mighty navy; the
importance he placed upon this last leads him even to declare "Yea without a
Navy Salomon had not been so meet a type of Christ" or nearly so glorious in
other respects (127).

Nor should one dismiss too lightly, as purely idiosyncratic or negligible features,
in his treatment of this question, even the slightly fantastic legal and antiquarian
investigations of Dee into Elizabeth's "rightful" titles and dominions. That he was
consulted in all seriousness on similar matters, the Diaries show (as Peckham's
enquiries on the Hispano-Portuguese division of the World). Hackluyt reprinted in
Principle Navigations the whole of Dee's discourse from this work on King Edgar
which dealt to some extent with these topics and includes an exhortation that
England "discreetly and valiantly recover," some or all "our ancient and due
appurtenances to this Imperiall British Monarchie."(128) Dee's emphasis on
Edgar's exploits indeed would seem to have been fully justified, and it is echoed
by every later treatment of the subject, for as a modern authority declares:
"There appears to be only one instance before the Norman Conquest in regard to
which prima facie evidence was produced that an English King expressly claimed
the Sovereignity of the Seas" (129) which is Edgar (959-975); the chronicles
agree on his naval power, and the charter which he granted to the Cathedral
Church of Worcester was still extant in which he explicitly advanced this claim,
and was quoted by Dee (though the preamble in which it occurs has been
suspected of being a twelfth century forgery). Thus Charles I put Edgar's effigy
on the beak of his great ship Sovereign of the Sea, and inscribed his name on a
motto on his guns, and Cromwell quoted Edgar at the Dutch Ambassador during
the negotiations after his first war with Holland (130). Thus Selden in the second
book of his influential Mare Clausum, setting out to prove from Anglo-Saxon
records that the dominion of the seas had always been claimed by Britain, has to
rely very largely on accounts of Edgar. He cites Florentius and "the Monk of
Malmsburie" to show that Edgar sailed right round his possessions once a year to
maintain his sovereignty, he quotes Florentius again and Hoveden on Edgar's
three fleets of 1200 ships each and those "very stout ones" - though he would
prefer to believe John Brampton's figure of 4000, or Florilegus' of 4800 ships. He
describes Edgar rowed by eight Kings up the river Dee, himself at the tiller,
followed by his princes and peers, and, echoing Dee, declares Edgar's policy to
have been such "as if hee intended to set forth the splendor, magnificence and
as it were an Epitome of his whole Empire in Sea affairs and shipping." Selden's
final piece of evidence is of course still the Charter of 904 to Worcester
Cathedral, which he holds to be conclusive "if so bee the copie were rightly
rendred by those who many years since printed so much of it as concerns the
title." These were Dee and, after him Purchas, and Selden proceeds to quote it,
adding "So John DEE, a man well seen in most parts of learning did read it a
good while since," (though he notes that while Dee reads that Edgar claimed
"Regum insularum, Oceanique Brittaiani circumjacentis," others subsequently -
Edward Coke, and James Ussher - have translated the key phrase, not so
conveniently for his present purpose as "Insularum Oceani quae Brittaniam
circumjacent."(231)

A similar instance of the contemporary importance of such antiquarianism

applied to the establishment of Royal titles is the history of Owen Madoc. It was
on the evidence of his previous discovery of Florida and the country northwards
that Adrian Gilbert was granted his patent for the colonisation of America - a
scheme in which Dee and Davis were co-partners with him. It was probably also
from Dee that Peckham, who consulted him on the legality of the Spanish-
Portuguese division of the world, obtained the substance of the argument for his
anonymously printed tract of 1583, A True Report of the late Discovery and
Possession, taken in the Right of the Crowne of Englande, of the Newfound
Landes: By that valiaunt, and worthye Gentleman Sir Humfrey Gilbert Knight. (It
was dedicated to Walsingham, and has prefatory verses from Hawkins, Drake
and other seafarers and also from Raleigh's mathematician Mathew Roydon.)
The third chapter sets out to "shewe the lawfull tytle, which the Queenes most
excellent Maiestie hath unto these Countries, which through the ayde of
almightie God are mente to be inhabited." This right he bases on the history of
Madoc; for to plant a colony here is only to "restore her to her Highnesse
auncient right and interest in those Countries, into the which a noble and worthy
personage, lyneally descended from the blood royall, borne in Wales, named
Madocke ap Owen Gwyneth, departing from the coast of England about the year
of our Lord God 1170, arrived and there planted himselfe, and his Colonies, and
afterwards returned himselfe into England, leaving certain of his people there as
appeareth in an auncient Welch Chronicle," (from there, Peckham believes the
"Axteco" are descended, since many of their names for islands and birds clearly
derive from Welsh words) (132). In the next century Fuller still seriously employs
this report to justify the prior rights of the English in America, and Robert Alleyn
in his History of Henry VII of 1638 takes it as proved, since "Welsh" words and
monuments can be shown to have been present there before the arrival of the
first modern discoverers (133). The somewhat mystical ideas of England's
imperial destiny that Dee mingled with such researches is again reflected in the
increasingly frequent claim, associated with protestant religious teachings, upon
commercial expansion, of England's "Manifest Destiny" - i.e., a divine and
particular reservation of territory in the New World (134). Moreover it was at
Elizabeth's own request that Dee, in 1578, wrote out Her Majesties title Royall to
many forraine countreys, Kingdomes and provinces: in 12 velum skins of
parchment, faire written for her Majesties use, and by her Majesties
Commandment, and which she received with much favour (135). Possibly also
officially commissioned was the work that immediately followed this in 1579, the
loss of which is not the least deplorable of the many cases in which his
compositions seem to have irrecoverably disappeared or perished; this is Dee's
De Imperatoris nomme, authoritate, et potentia; dedicated to her Majestie, in
English.

Even Dee's superficially fantastic or "quaint" juristic sequel to the published part
of General and Rare Memorials previously described, did not lack either parallels
for its views in its own day or important successors in the next century. His
investigation of the exact applications of certain geographical names in ancient
writers are reflected in heated contemporary diplomatic disputes, supposedly of
weighty political consequence on the same subject (136). His old claim that
natural jurisdiction over the sea extended to a point midway between the
opposing native and foreign coasts, had been maintained by Plowden, an
eminent lawyer of Dee's day, in his consideration of the "bounds of England" in
1575 (137). Though it became increasingly desirable to reach some agreed
verdict as this matter, it may be noted that Dee's position, whatever its abstract
merits was finally rejected by official Elizabethan policy, when it was found
inexpedient to maintain it, since the King of Denmark, in 1602 taking his stand
on this principle laid claim to all the sea between Iceland and Norway since he
was the recognised sovereign of the coasts of both, and attempted, on these
grounds, to suppress English fishing there! Elizabeth protested, instructing her
ambassadors that if it were supposed "that for the property of a whole sea it is
sufficient to have the banks on both sides as in rivers," they were to reply "that
though property of seas in some small distance from the coast may yield some
oversight and jurisdiction, yet use not princes to forbid passages in
fishing...neither is it to be allowed that property of sea in whatsoever distance is
consequent to the banks as it happeneth in small rivers," as it would then follow
"that no sea were common," which could not be admitted (138). Nevertheless
apropos of Dee's legalistic discussions a modern authority has pointed out that
"It is the philosopher of Mortlake indeed who must be recognised as the literay
pioneer to the claims to the sovereignty of the sea which were put forward by
England in the seventeenth century."(139) Throughout the reigns of James and
Charles I works were officially commissioned on this topic - such as The
Sovereignty of the British seas proved by Records, History and the Municipall
lawes of this Kingdome written by Sir John Borough, keeper of records in the
Tower in 1635, and several very closely follow Dee in their principles and
detailed evidence (140). These culminated in the, commissioned, treatise of
Selden in 1635, Mare Clausum which only rejected Dee's principle in favour of a
much more extravagant assertion: according to this the sea of England was "that
which flows between England and the opposite shores and ports," and yet
throughout the seventeenth century, "Selden's authority was paramount on all
questions relating to the Sovereignty of the Sea," and only declined with the
emergence of the new principle - still in essence that which maintains today -
during the naval wars of the eighteenth century, that it was only such waters
within cannon shot of the coasts that were under the exclusive and permanent
dominion of the bordering state - "terrae dominium finitur ubi finitur armorum
vis."(141)

IX. Of the remaining three works designed to follow and accompany the Petty
Navy Royall, which should together compose the completed General and Rare
Memorials, only one, Of Famous and Rich Discoveries is still, partially, extant.
The first section of this which dealt with Salomon's Ophirian voyage is wholly
lacking. However Purchas had a copy, which he drew on freely for his Pilgrimes,
and from his extracts and comments an adequate impression can perhaps be
gained of this laborious achievement, which oddly mingles science and piety, a
mystical end and a wholly practical method, a literal acceptance of scriptural text
on the one hand, and onthe other a free expansion of its implications, made in
the light of modern geographical and other discoveries (142). Dee regarded the
extraction of numbers, and of such data as he arrives at here from the Bible as
work of great importance; he asserted in the Preface that many passages in
were not to be fully understood without the aid of mathematics, and his present
treatment offers another aspect of his meaning there besides the conventional
cabalistic claim that is immediately suggested. His approach, it may be noted,
was much urged by Roger Bacon, who counted such occupations as not least
among the benefits arising from skill in scientific and mathematical studies, and
speaks of the application of Euclid's teachings to discover the "literal sense" of
"artificial works" briefly mentioned in the Scriptures, such as the Ark and the
Temple, exclaiming "Oh how the ineffable beauty of the divine wisdom would
shine and infinite benefit would overflow, if these matters relating to geometry
which are contained in Scripture, should be placed by this form of research
before our eyes in their physical forms."(143)

The considerable portion that survives in MS (144) is a fragment, partly covering

Asia, Europe and British Origins, of what was once a vast survey of every country
in the world (145). It rests heavily on Ptolemy and on matter found in Pliny, but
Dee does not scruple to correct what he considered were their errors, and
incorporates all the data he could collect from contemporary discoverers, and
seems to have been engaged, even while writing, in a busy correspondence with
other authorities upon the points he was dealing with (146). He exhibits
premature and misleading accounts that have been made in the past by
discoverers "for it may be an instruction to other how to be circumspect in such
cases before reale report be given out of so weighty an enterprise," and adds as
a warning "an advice to all discoverers upon such a purpose to be very
circumspect, patient and constant till the uttermost search be made, and that
perfectly and not imperfectly."(147) He resolves: "I will evidently, by good
authority kepe me wthin the bounds of honest reason: unpartially labouring for
the preferment of that noble Empress LADY VERITY."(148) The resultant work is
much superior to the geography of the old T.O. maps, or such popularly
circulating contemporary geographical writings, as, for instance, that translated
by Dee's friend Twyne (149). Dee's method is to assemble all available evidence
about little known regions and then to argue from these as to the probable
nature of the country, the possibilities of trade, exploitation, and the wealth of
natural resources probably to be encountered there; a method he terms
"discovery after my manner of large conjecture and General Enquiry."(150) The
country of the Amazons and of the Cynocephali (151) are of course dealt with;
Gog and Magog are located in China and their relations to the prophecies of the
Apocalypse are discussed (152). The figure of Prester John seems to have had
an especial fascination for Dee and much time is spent in attempting to
determine the position of his capital (153). There are some odd general
reflections such as the suggestion that "natural" boundaries of continents and
countries are so placed by God as to have clear distinguishing features, to assist
geographers (154), but there is also a large factual mass of useful information -
tables of distances from various places in Europe and Africa, descriptions of
customary trade routes, etc.; and such injunctions (155) as: "Note. a good
Advise for perfect geographicall Descriptions making, by onely the differences of
Longitudes, as we ourselves goe fro place to place, not to depende onely upon
uncertayn or untrue bokes..." Most of his practical navigational advice however
was apparently contained in another of Dee's four works which made up his
general plan, and to which he sometimes here refers for further information of a
technical sort, as when the reader is directed (156) to "the rule given in the
Brytish Complement of Perfect Navigation,"(explained in a marginal note as "The
Longitude and Latitude of two places being given to find their distance").

What survives of the section on Britain is an expansion of the historical basis for
his general opinions previously noted. Marginal exclamations are frequent to the
tenour that "Note Brytain is the Incoparable Iland of the whole world" (157). He
is at pains to prove the original name was Brutannia, and so establish that its
first conqueror was not as many have thought "Some valiant Captayn named
Britus or Bries or Britannicus," but Brutus the "Italien Troian" (158) who was "the
first sea discoverer" (159). The long sections on "The most renowned and
Tryumphant Britane, King Arthur" (160) have unfortunately largely perished, but
Dee plainly employed Arthur's history as a ground for claims to further titles for
Elizabeth, and many of his previous ones are here repeated, as "That all the
Northern Isles and Regions Septentrionall...to be lawfully apertinent to the crown
of this British Empire."(161)

Taken all in all, though a storehouse of extensive deposits of miscellaneous

information, the work would seem rather over-cumbrous to form a usefull
handbook for any one purpose. There seems nothing about it, however, apart
from its bulkiness that could have restrained its printing, and it is possible that
only the lack of politically effective response to the initial volume Dee put forth
discouraged him from giving this concluding part of his tetralogy to the world.

X. Before it became apparent that the ambitious schemes urged in these works
were to have no immediate effect on national policies, while there still seemed
much influential support, and while he was still immersed in active navigational
and colonisation schemes with Gilbert (162) and others and in detailed
geographical researches (163), Dee received a commission from Elizabeth which
may perhaps have suggested to him that at last the Queen and her council were
prepared to utilise his talents for great ends in the service of the common good
which he had long hoped and pleaded for. He was requested to draw up a
scheme for the reformation of the calendar, and certainly no work of Dee's is
more confidently optimistic, so free from all personal complaint, as the brief but
elaborately prepared tractate he produced in 1582 entitled An advice and
discourse for her Majestie about the Reformation of the vulgar Julian year, by
her Majesties and the right honourable Council their commandment. lib 2 (164).
That such a reform was scientifically desirable was a matter on which no
mathematician was in doubt; that its introduction now would be attended by
great civil convenience was apparent to all whose dealings were not wholly
confined to within the coasts of Britain; the great stumbling block was that it was
a measure which had elsewhere been brought about by the Catholic Church -
Gregory XIII had entrusted Clavius, a pupil of Pedro Nunez, and who was known
as "the Euclid of his age" - with the reform in 1581; it was thus religiously
suspect.

Difficulty had always been occasioned by the incommensurability of the natural

day, the lunar month and the solar year. Reform was necessitated since the
Julian calendar had fixed the year at 365 1/4 days, which was 11 min. 8 secs.
too long, and had considered the lunar and solar cycles as coinciding every 19
year period, which was in error by 1 hr. 28 min. 11 secs. Easter was fixed
according to the first full moon of the vernal equinox, but the "equinoxes" and
"full moons" were determined from the above computations and hence became
increasingly discordant with the natural phenomena. Need for reform had long
been recognised, and successive attempts at rectification made from the earliest
times (165). Roger Bacon's treatise on the subject Dee here drew on heavily. He
may also have known Cusa's De Reparatione Calendarii, presented to the council
of Basle in 1437, which had then suggested the omission of seven days merely.
Earlier in this century in 1514 Leo X had attempted to effect the reform and had
invited Copernicus to assist, whose later observations tending to this end Dee
also now utilised. In England Ascham had concluded his Lytel Treatise of
Astromancye in 1552, dedicated to his former master and Dee's early patron,
Cheke, with a plea for this reformation, declaring that in time, if nothing were
done, December would fall in the middle of the summer; and Recorde in the
Castle of Knowledge (166), expressing his perturbation about the present
wrongful observation of Easter had prophecied that astronomy would be able to
reform the calendar. Roger Bacon's expressed motives for advocating reform it
may be remarked, were largely religious: he had complained disgustedly in the
Opus Majus that owing to calendar defects Christians fasted a week after the
true Easter, and ate flesh, instead of fasting, for a week at Quadragesima (167).
Dee also lays stress on the observance of feast days at the correct natural times.
He summarises his view and the procedure he adopted in preparing his
suggested reform in the dedication "To his very friend P.L." in A triple Almanack,
which he issued in the year 1591 (168). He observes here that Christ was
conceived at the sun's entrance into Aries, and was born on the shortest day of
the year, when the Sun enters Capricorn, "Wherefore to set Christmas upon the
shortest day and draw the Kalendar back in proportion thereunto, methought
was very expedient"; moreover, he continues, moveable feasts depending onthe
moon, although Constantine corrected their times, have since then by ignorance
of proper calculation become so falsified that "they misse their due tymes a
moneth at least," "and therefore friend P.L.," he concludes, "I have not
attempted this as a new fangled, and louer of nouelties (the which I have always
hated) but as a furtherer of the trueth, which I always haue loved."

The Playne Discourse and Humble Advice is written on parchment in Dee's fairest
hand. It contains a number of skilfully executed, delicately coloured diagrams,
and is addressed to Burleigh. It is prefaced by some doggerel lines, such as Dee
was in the habit of appending to his English works:

" and

I shew the thing and reason Why:

At large, in brief, in midell wise,

I humbly give a playne Advise

For want of tyme, The Tyme Untrew

If I have myst, command anew

Your Honour may: So shall you see

That Love of Truth, doth governe mee."

The title page is embellished with a plan of the universe, triangular in form. The
earth is set in the middle, the north pole forming the central part of the whole.
The landmasses are in green, their coastlines drawn so as to exhibit clearly an
arctic ocean which allows of free passage by N.E. and N.W. channels. Around the
earth are the spheres of sun, moon, planets and fixed stars. From each corner of
the triangular frame of the whole (169) the divine Tetragrammaton sends rays
converging on the centre (perhaps the primal secret seminal influences which
control all things, both directly and by the subordinate intermediary influence of
celestial motions). Dee also adds to his text a circular table of time, on which are
noted important religious and astronomical dates; it begins with Adam and
concludes with "Regina Elizabeth Reformatrix anni circlis iuxta Epochati Christi
1583" (170). The preceding and only other relatively modern entry refers to
Copernicus. (The whole is drawn on a scale which allows to the world an
existence of something over 6000 years.)

The work is largely an exposition of Dee's astronomical calculations. But as soon

as the necessary mathematics to establish the accuracy of his proposed
alteration are completed, Dee draws Roger Bacon into his argument, to show
that such a reformation as is now in question ought to be regarded as an original
British invention and no foreign importation. Of all who have pleaded for this
reformation, he writes, "None hath done yet more earnestly neither with better
reason and skill (all manner of waies) than hath a Subiect of this Brythish
Scepter Royall: Named (as some thynke) David Dee of Radik: But otherwise, and
most commonly, (upon his name altered at the alteration of his state into Fryerly
Profession) called Roger Bachon. Who at large wrote thereof diverse treatises
and discourses to Pope Clement the fifth: about the yere of Christ 1267. To
whome he wrott and sent also great volumes, exquisitely compiled of all
Sciences and Singularities Philosophicall, and Mathematicall, as they might be
avaylable to the State of Christ his Catholike Church: And of this our matter in
hand I thinke goode to bring to consideration present some parcells extracted by
me out of his boke called Opus Minus, sent by John his boy to the foresaid Pope
Clement."(171) After quoting largely from this and observing that Paulus
Middleburgiensis' work on the Calendar was appropriated without
acknowledgement from Bacon, Dee concludes his book: "Hence it maie very well
be noted (to the cumfort of all English Students and others of thys Kingdome,
lovers of good Learning and veritie Philosophicall, how a prima ad ultimam (I
meane from the yeare of Christ 1267 tyll this present yere) Roger Bachon
directly and indirectly hath byn the greatest means and fartherance of this
present Reformation of all men who have lived since his daies."(172)

If the rhetorical persuasion was Bacon's, his data and calculation Dee takes from
Copernicus, whom he had placed in the circular table of time as "the sixth and
most notable lyne of our Astronomicall Dyall" - declaring that his own
mathematical reasonings "depend chiefly upon the said Copernicus his
Calculations and Phenomenis, excepting his Hypothesis Theoricall; not here to
brought in question."(173) But Dee reveals in passing that his own contribution
is not confined to the exposition of other men's data, for "Diverse other
observations I could sett downe of my owne experience made by very great and
apt Instruments carefully and circumspectly used, A degree 1553, A degree
1554, A degree 1555, in the presence and with the Judgement of expert and
famous Mathematiciens, Mechaniciens and others."(174)

Dee clearly felt he had presented an irrefragable case for the omission of eleven
days from the calendar, and that the matter was now all but settled; he
observes, triumphantly, of the logical argument he has set forth, "So can reason
infallibly surpasse Most Sharp Strife: A thing greatly to be noted as an example
for many manuductions and Anagogies Philosophical, Magicall, and
Theologicall."(175) So confidant does he seem to have been of the adoption of
his proposals that he appended to the tractate (176) an almanac for the
following year based on his revised system of dating, to be issued as soon as the
necessary proclamation authorising the alterations had been made. Verses tell
the story of the reform, as of a thing already accomplished:

"As Caesar and Sosigenes

The Vulgar Kalendar did make,

So Caesar's Pere our true Empres

To Dee the work she did betake."

and form a somewhat rude but joyful paean to

"Elizabeth our Empres hight,

Who in the yere of eighty three,

Thus made the truth to come to light

And Civile yere with heaven agree."

There follows the usual type almanac for the ensuing year, with some concluding
verses which explain to the people why England has added eleven days to the
Calendar instead of only ten as was done on the continent.

Initially Dee's proposals had a favourable reception. Walsingham wrote him

encouraging letters, directed "To my verie loving friende Mr. Doctor Dee" (177);
Burleigh, though somewhat bemused by the mathematics, recommended the
scheme in a memorandum (178): "I am not skilful in the Theoricks to discern the
Points and Minutes, but yet I am inclined to think him in the right here. For I find
he maketh his Root the very Point of the Nativity of Christ in the Meridian of
Bethlehem. And the Romans have made their root from the Time of the Council
of Nice." The committee of mathematicians set up to consider Dee's work
(Thomas Digges, Henry Saville, John Chancellor) reported favourably and the
same effect (179). They agreed that it was better to omit eleven days instead of
ten, but in order to conform with the rest of the world, thing the Gregorian
calendar "may be assented unto without any manifest errors"; they add that Dee
has prepared a calendar for this scheme extending from May to August, in which
each month is shortened by a few days (May to 28, June to 29, July to 28,
August to 28) so that the ten may be discarded "without changing of any feast
or holiday moveable or fixed, or without altering the courses of Trinity Term,"
(Dee nevertheless appended some irritated verses to his revised almanac,
complaining of this enforced compromise (180)) and they recommend the
preparation of an Ephemeris to show the moveable feasts depending on Easter
for 100 or 200 years to come (when an orderly cycle will become apparent),
"and so easily renewed as we see yearly almanacks are if the sinnes of the world
do not hasten a dissolution." But though the scheme was never formally
rejected, nothing further was done to implement it. This final indecision seems to
have resulted from the opposition of the Bishops who persisted in regarding the
proposed change as smacking of papistry. They declared (181) it might breed a
new schism, and offend the reformed churches abroad which had not yet
accepted the Gregorian calendar, and these would say the alteration was made
for "feare of the Popes Curse and Excommunication," and indeed as a general
rule "Mutations and alterations in Commonwealthes are not to bee allowed (as
diverse learned and wise authors doo write) unlesse Necessitee inforce
thereunto." As for Dee, he continued to use his new system, sometimes "double-
dating" his private letters noting the true date in his diary at important festivals
(182) and combined a last attempt to draw public attention to the gross errors of
the old Calendar with what was perhaps an effort to raise a little money, in the
popular almanac he issued in 1591. Though never published (183), Dee's tract
may have circulated privately (184), and the scheme became fairly widely
known. Blundeville describes its appearance on two great globes set forth by Mr.
Sanderson and then by Mr. Molineux, which in the thirteen spaces of their
"Horizons" contained various information; they reproduced both the old and the
new Roman Calendars and "in the 10 and 11 are set down the numbers of the
daies and names of the monethes according to the true Kalendar lately
calculated by a most excellent Mathematicien and mine old acquaintance M. Dee
of Mortlake, as I conclude by the letters J.D. set downe upon the said Horizon"
(185); and in later times Dee's proposals attracted favourable attention (186), so
that their reputation seems to have survived even that of the Preface and the
Paralacticae Commentationes - the two "scientific" works of his by which he was
still remembered in the succeeding century.

XI. Dee's general fortunes and career had perhaps never appeared more full of
promise than in the period of life from about 1570 to 1583. He had promulgated
the "ground-platts" for some Grand Designs, which had, at least, aroused
considerable interest and sometimes enthusiasm. He was busily engaged in
writing scientifica and mathematical works of a more practical cast than perhaps
more usually occupied him (187) and his various recent publications of this kind
had won widespread recognition, so that he enjoyed the reputation of being the
leading British astronomer of the day (188). He was frequently at court, and had
received signal marks of favour and reassurance from the Queen, and had been
employed directly in her affairs on various occasions (189), to such an extent
that as has been noted, Richard Harvey declared in 1583, that Elizabeth
"vouchsafed" Dee the title of her philosopher! Dee had intimate contacts with
many contemporary scholars, such as Holmshed and Camden, who freely used
the resources of his library for their researches (190). Mortlake was now his own
full possession (191) and a frequent resort of Leicester, Sydney, Dyer, Ralegh,
the Gilberts and other learned and influential nobles as well as navigators and
technicians. It was becoming a brilliant centre for intellectual, political and
commercial enterprises of various kinds. Nevertheless, already towards the end
of this period, Dee was embarked upon those same courses that not only
gradually absorbed all his own attentions, but which were to obscure for so long
in the memory of future generations all other of his activities, and damn him for
centuries as "extremely credulous, extravagently vain, and a most deluded
enthusiast."(192)

Chapter IX.

THE SPIRITUAL CONFERENCES

(1581-1589).

I. The True and Faithful Relation and additional M.S. sources - Casaubon's
objects in publishing the T.F.R. in 1659 - to confute atheism and discredit
enthusiasm - his view of Dee as deluded by devils.

II. The conferences mark no abrupt discontinuity in Dee's career - their

conformity with his general interests and speculations - the Angelic realm a
recognised topic in Natural Philosophy - Platonism and intermediate spiritual
entities - sixteenth century pneumatology - belief in prevalence of spirits and
their communion with men - Platonic hierarchy of spirits reflected even in
conventional scale of demons - such a scale encourages view that the less
malevolent and powerful may be safely dealt with or controlled - confusion of
such demons with daemons and fairies - resemblance of Kelley's "angels" to
traditional fairies - Dee's insistence that they can only be servants of God
perhaps influenced by Platonic doctrines of negativity of evil - the usual orthodox
condemnation of all dealings with spirits - but the doctrine that man may come
consciously to associate with angels in this life a familiar feature in contemporary
mystical Platonism - similarity of Kelley's "angelic books" and the Cabalah - the
frequency of crystal gazing - Dee's own view of the conferences as the crown
and seal of all his past intellectual endeavour - scrying as one of the chief parts
of "experimental science" - the union of practical experience and speculative
theology.

III. Particular reasons for Dee's so extensive concentration on the conferences at

this date - his apocalyptic view of history - influence of the cyclical theories of
Trithemius and progressive revelations through time of Joachim of Flora - Dee's
chronology - connection with astrological teachings - the doctrine of trigons
governing historical and religious change - the conjunction of 1583 interpreted as
indicating the birth of a new religion or the end of the world.

IV. Dee's occult investigations before arrival of Kelley - Kelley's life and character
- his melancholic disposition and paranoiac fears - his persecution by devils and
dislike of scrying - probably comes to Dee to gain a knowledge of alchemy.

V. Manner of proceeding at "conferences" - general character of the angelic

communications - vague promises, allegories, numerology, diabolic intrusions -
Dee's constant enthusiasm and confidence - the dictation of the angelic books -
the angels and the colonisation of America.

VI. Laski in England - Dee and Kelley's continental journey - contacts with
scholars abroad - Dee's interview with Rudolf II - his defence of his revelations to
Stephan of Poland - offer of employment from the Czar - treasure seeking - the
Philosopher's Stone and communication with Walsingham on the subject -
extreme poverty - difficulty with ecclesiastical authorities - Pucci joins the
conferences - invitation to Rome - the cross-matching and final breach with
Kelley.

VII. Dee's return to England - Kelley's continental success as alchemist - his

relations with the English government - his disgrace and death.

Chapter IX. (cont)

I. The principal source of our knowledge of Dee's life and activities for some
years following 1582, is his own detailed record or "spiritual diary," consisting
largely of verbatim accounts of what passed at each of his "angelic conferences,"
with a few narrative links. A portion of this was published by Casaubon in 1659
under the title: A True and Faithful Relation of what passed for many years
between Dr. John Dee (a Mathematician of great Fame in Queen Elizabeth and
King James their Reignes) and some Spirits: Tending (had it succeeded) To a
general alteration of most States and Kingdomes in the World....with a Preface
concerning the Reality (as to point of Spirits) of this Relation and showing the
several good Uses that a sober Christian may make of all. This, though
contemptuously described by Cooper as "A large folio volume of the most arrant
nonsense that ever issued from the press," (1) has always, apparently, retained
a reputation as a veritable treasure house of wisdom among occultists (2).
Subsequently, further papers, including the earlier books missing from
Casaubon's printed material came to light in the secret drawer of a piece of
furniture that had once belonged to Dee, and had passed by the middle of the
seventeenth century into the hands of a Mr. Jones, a confectioner in Lombard
Street. He and his wife "made no great matter of these books etc. because they
understood them not, which occasioned their Servant Maid to waste about one
half of them under fyres and other like uses," (3) and only a happy chance
preserved the remainder. There are still sudden gaps in the narrative, which
leave parts of Dee's continental wanderings obscure, but in the main a fairly
complete account of this period can now be constructed.

It is perhaps not without interest and relevance first to examine briefly the
reasons advanced in Casaubon's sixty pages of preface for his publication of
these writings. The uses that the book will serve he summarises at the end (his
preface is unpaginated) under four heads: it will provide an antidote both to
Atheism and to Enthusiasm, and a warning as to the dangers of the uncontrolled
indulgence in private effusions of prayer, productive of overconfidence in God's
special grace and belief in a privileged extension of His concern towards the
intercessor, and will generally prove an excellent moral lesson by its exhibition of
the awful consequences of entertaining "presumptuous unlawfull wishes and
desires." After a careful second reading, Casaubon declares, "I shall not be afraid
to profess that I never gave more credit to any Humane History of former
times"; hence a complete refutation is here offered of all philosophers who "with
the Saducees of old (that is Jewish Epicures) believe no Spirit or Angel or
Resurection." It is also a timely tract for the age, an implied vindication of the
safe moderation of the Church of England, as the only truly secure religious
practice; for this work salutary "as against Atheists at all times, (is) so in these
times especially, whom the Spirit of Errors and Illusions, not in profest
Anabaptists only, even of the worst kind that former ages have known and
abhorred, doth so much prevail." Carefully Casaubon examines the counter-
evidence provided by philosophers and medical writers on the frequency of
illusions, and praises the caution of Lucian and Sextus Empiricus on such
matters, setting forth their arguments against the probability of the occurrence
of genuine apparitions, when imposture is so easy, and delusion so provenly
widespread. But, he concludes, this reasoning cannot establish a general
negative, and though one may gather from the sceptics useful tests that should
undoubtedly be applied in investigating all cases of this kind, in this instance,
Dee's record successfully survives all objections. Casaubon then proceeds to a
general defence of miracles, oracles, and apparitions, maintaining that these
should not be enquired into over nicely, or forcibly interpreted to make them
congruent with some framework of natural causality, which only stubborn
prejudice prevents men very properly laying aside when confronted with
mysteries; for, "Aristotle did not meddle with things that he could give no reason
of; yet he did not deny them (as we have showed), and it is one thing to require
a reason of things merely natural and another of those that happen by a moor
secret Providence."

Dee is thus presented as a deluded figure, but one imposed upon by real spirits.
His good faith throughout is not questioned: "...and again his Humility, Piety,
Patience, (O what pity that such a man should fall into such a delusion)...Let
these things I say be well considered, and I think no man will make any question
but the poor man did deal with all possible simplicity and sincerity to the utmost
of his understanding at that time." But it is not without interest that a
considerable share in his spiritual ruin is attributed, by implication, to his
overmuch reading in Plato (4). Kelly too is not condemned utterly, as other
advocates of the diabolic theory, and most upholders of the fraud explanation,
were led to do; for Casaubon he was "a great Conjuror," but one of the better
sort of Magician who work by command and not by compact - which did not
preserve him only because his naked human intelligence could not successfully
match with the wiles of the Devil. So Dee became, in short, according to this
account, though wholely unwittingly, an instrument to serve the ends of Hell;
and his effigy with globe and compasses is placed on the title page with those of
several other misled or misleading magicians: Kelly (shown reading Trithemius),
Apollonius Tyaneus, Mahomet, Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus.

Casaubon sought much advice from his friends and various ecclesiastical
authorities before venturing to make public such a detailed and intimate record
of diabolic conversations. Their verdicts were largely favourable; the relation
they found convincing, the moral appended by the editor, salutary (5); the
authorities of the commonwealth, however, rightly construing Casaubon's
purposes, regarded it with suspicion (6). The obstacle to publication was
removed, or objections lost sight of, in later confusion, on the death of
Cromwell; and in general it appears that, though some attempt was made by
scientific apologists of Dee, such as Hooke, to lend the book a different
colouring, and others like Ashmole more credulous as to its literal statements
may have viewed it as both a profound and wholly innocent work, the public
were generally content with the interpretation advanced by Casaubon in his
preface (7). That, in believing in the awful monitory efficacy the volume might
have, were its moral properly pointed, Casaubon was not, at least,
underestimating the striking impression the book could make on the
contemporary reader, is testified to by Antony a Wood's entry in his journal-
autobiography respecting it, he read it a few months after publication, and, as a
consequence, he says (referring to himself in the third person): "His thoughts
were strangely distracted, and his mind overwhelm'd with melancholy."(8)

II. It has been usual to see an abrupt discontinuity in the type and manner of
Dee's investigations at this period in his life, i.e., from about 1582, when he
commenced his angelic intercourse. Godwin, dilating on "the incredible
sottishness and blindness which marked his mature years," (9) gives a typical
expression of this view. After speaking of Dee's positive achievements in the
seventies, in particular of the Euclid Preface, he continues "Had Dee gone no
further than this, he would undoubtedly have ranked among the profoundest
scholars, and most eminent geniuses that adorned the reign of the maiden
queen," but being "cursed with ambition," and "having accustomed his mind to
the wildest reveries, and wrought himself up to an extravagant pitch of
enthusiasm," Dee plunged wholly into magic to the ruin of his mind and fortunes
(10). Nevertheless it is clear that Dee had been engaged in speculations, of a
similar nature, for a considerable time before the arrival of Kelly, and without
injury or prejudice to his more mundane activities; though as it became more
apparent that no great national reforms were to be looked for as a result of this
earlier, more public work, he more and more concentrated on the reception of
the apocalyptic prophecies and obscure oracles delivered by the angels; there
were also perhaps other good reasons, arising directly out of his long settled
philosophical opinions as will be shown, why he should have devoted himself to
these pursuits with increasing singlemindedness at this precise period. But it is
also possible to show to a large extent that the substance of the spiritual
"science" to which he now principally turned, was not a reflection of more
personal eccentricities, nor a rejection or neglect of previously acquired
knowledge, but an almost logical extension of the road he had always trodden,
and that even the manner of his investigations - by angelic communication - was
not wholly unusual among his learned contemporaries. His activities do not seem
to have been entirely secret, yet it is difficult to trace any change of attitude
towards him among his acquaintances unless the spirit Madimi's warning against
Burleigh and Walsingham be taken as an indication of some apparent and
increasing eccentricity - "I heard them when they both said, thou wouldst go
mad shortly."(11)

The mysteries of the spiritual regions which Dee attempted to penetrate by

establishing direct contact, were not infrequently regarded in his age, in which
the claim of religion to contain the most perfect and complete expression of the
general scheme, structure, and purpose of the cosmos, was neither denied or
lightly regarded, as forming a legitimate branch of Natural Philosophy. Indeed,
as has been continually noted, especially in regard to magic, few sciences then
had, in the last analysis, a defined borderline which could justify a complete
separation of distinct spheres of the "natural" and the "spiritual." Thus The Arte
of Navigation translated by Dee's friend Richard Eden for the Muscovy Company
in 1561, begins, quite conventionally, its exposition of cosmography by an
account of the three types of creation, Elemental, Spiritual, and mixed, and a
comparison of man to the world for "the whole globe or sphere, thereof is moved
by the voluntarie motion of an intellectual substance or angels," and it proceeds
as a matter of course from a description of the lower spheres of the planets to
descriptions of those of the stars, and to the crystalline heaven, and spheres
inhabited by the souls of the blessed and orders of Angels (12). Again the
analysis of "Nature" in a very ordinary little book, The Wonderfull Workmanship
of the World (13), translated by Thomas Twyne, Dee's acquaintance, provides a
fair specimen of the contemporary overall view in this respect. "Nature" it is
observed, consists of "Suche thinges as doe consiste not of essence onely of
whiche sorte God is, but are compounded with certain accidents adioyned"; and
Natural Philosophy "is busied in the handlying of the mixt, copouded and
materiall thinges" (14); it has two branches (15); the second and inferior
containing most of what has since come to be thought of as the province of
"science." This is concerned with "particular" phenomena, their properties and
effects, is largely analytic or classificatory, answering such questions as "What is
the Nature of a Man, what of an Horse," but does not go deeply into such
problems, in a speculative manner, or relate them to more universal laws and
causes; it is mainly to be gathered "out of the woorkes of the Physitians, or of
others which have written the histories of plants and of lyving things." The more
fundamental portion of the subject is "General" natural philosophy, which has,
ultimately, theology for its basis, and is, indeed, "chiefly to be learned out of
Holy Scriptures," since as every Art is known best by the workman who practises
it, so the structure of the universe is best known to its creator, and is to be
studied by God's revelation of it, the scriptures being the textbook of his
handiwork. Yet General Natural Philosophy is concerned with the heavens and
the four elements, "for that these; in respect of the other parts are as it were the
first beginnings and principles, and causes of their being and compounding."
Thus all subordinate forms of knowledge depend on, and can be derived from,
Divinity; the philosophers lacking scriptures teach only confusion, as Plutarch's
de Placitis Philosophurum demonstrates; and the only two amongst them here
allowed to contribute anything of value to General Natural Philosophy are Plato
and Hermes Trismegistus, for "ther is none among the Philosophers except onely
Plato and Trismegistus, that although they do wonder at the worlde, doeth
declare notwithstanding for what cause it was made, and what is the end of the
Creating or now subsisting Thereof." Christophe de Savigny's diagrammatic
representations of the divisions of all the arts and science exhibits a similar
scheme. Thus "Le vrai et seul sujet de la Physique c'est Nature laquelle est ou"
"corporelle" (its lower portion) or "incorporelle," which last divides into the
science of God (shown as a triangle set in the sun) and of "L'Esprit," which in
turn divides into "Humane" and "Angelic" and the last into the study of "good" or
"evil" angelic powers (16). Similarly Francis Bacon, discussing the hierarchy of
divine, natural, and humane philosophy, writes "Nam theologia naturalis,
philosophia etiam divina recte appellatur. Definitur autum haec, ut sit talis
scientia, seu potius scientiae scintilla qualis de Deo haberi potest, per lumen
naturae et contemplationem rerum creaturam; et ratione objecti, sane divina,
ratione informationis, naturalis censeri potest." But, despite certain restrictions of
its scope in relation to revealed religion, he adds in connection with it "Secus est,
quod ad angelorum et spirituum naturam attinet; que nec inscrutabilis est, nec
interdicta; ad quam etiam, ex affinitate, quam habet cum anima humana, aditus
magna ex parte est patefactus."(17)

Dee's mention of the ars scintilla that Bacon's phrase here may possibly refer to,
and his view of this study in general as the very crown of the sciences will be
noted later. But first the very ordinary nature of some of his assumptions and
aspects of his practices regarding it may perhaps be emphasized. For the
existence and activities of these angelic spirits, or "daemons" the exact status of
many of them is never dogmatically asserted, and a large portion of their
manifestations through Kelly corresponded far more closely to conventional ideas
of lower daemons than of God's more exalted ministers - ample warrant could be
found in the frequent mentions of them in the Platonic dialogues themselves;
passages which Renaissance readers were inclined to consider with much more
seriousness than later ages - indeed these and later Platonic writings are usually
the first "philosophic" authorities cited in contemporary discussions of spirits (18)
and Pomponazzi disparagingly attributes much of Plato's credit to his inculcations
of this "superstition."(19) Thus Socrates claims his actions were sometimes
prompted by a secret spiritual sign (20), a "divine warning" aids him in the
selection of his pupils (21). In the beginning, it is said, not kings but daemons
wisely ruled cities, who correspond now with the "immortal element within
us."(22) Prophecy, the reception of communication from higher powers, is not
only accepted as a fact, but valued and recommended, for "prophecy, as the
knowledge of what is to be, and temperance directing her, will deter the
charlatans and establish the true prophets as our prognosticators."(23)
Xenophon emphasized this side of Socrates' supposed teaching, making him
affirm "in so far as we are powerless of ourselves to foresee the future the gods
lend us their aid revealing the issues by divination to enquirers," while "Those
who intended to control a house or a city he said needed the help of divination.
For the craft of carpenter, smith, farmer or ruler, and the theory of such crafts,
and arithmetic and economics and generalship might be learned and mastered
by the application of human powers, but the deepest secrets of tese matters the
gods reserved to themselves; they were dark to men"; and their aid was
necessary except in regard to such subjects as "What we may know by
reckoning, measuring or weighing."(24) Moreover it was but a step from claiming
external spiritual inspiration in writings and philosophical activity as was
customary with many neo-Platonists, of such a kind for example as Dee, as has
been noticed, also believed himself on occasion to be receiving and from
accepting a belief in the attendance on the individual by a specific spiritual
guardian, a frequently associated doctrine in the thought of many neo-Platonists
- and one which Dee concurs with in his angelic conferences, to the attempting
of direct, conscious and personal intercourse with the beings of the spiritual
realm (25).

But the most definitive, and influential, statement - serving as a text for many
later discussions - on these daemons who had figured in Greek writings since the
time of Hesiod, in the dialogues of Plato, is the passage in the Symposium, in
which Socrates tells of what he has learned from a Mantuan woman called
Diotima, on the nature of love. It is neither mortal nor immortal, but and
everything spiritual is of this kind, and serves as intermediary between gods and
men, interpreting prayers and sacrifices and conveying the responses of the
gods; "Through it are conveyed all divination, and priestcraft concerning
sacrifice, ritual, and incantations, and all soothsaying and sorcery. God with man
does not mingle: but the spiritual is the means of all society and converse of
men with gods, and of God with men, whether waking or asleep. Whosoever has
skill in these affairs is a spiritual man; to have it in other matters as in common
arts and crafts is for the mechanical. Many and multifarious are these spirits and
one of them is love."(26) Thus one finds Apuleius in the Apology, to which Dee
refers his readers in the Preface as a justification by proxy as it were of his own
life, declaring: "I believe Plato when he asserts that there are certain divine
powers holding a position, and possessing a character intermediary between
gods and men, and that all divination, and the miracles of magicians are
controlled by them."(27) Already, after Plato, Xenocrates seems to have adopted
the doctrine in order to construct a familiar neo-Platonic plenum - the hierarchy
extending from God to unformed matter: his descending orders of daemons, it
has been claimed, "n'est autre chose que la serie des etres ou la progression du
divin dans le materiel."(28) Plutarch however provided a standard text for many
in the Renaissance - there were good and immortal spirits, and lower evil ones
which though long-lived, were mortal, and he who doubted their existence was
denying providence, and breaking the chain that united the world to the throne
of God (29).

The doctrine became an intrinsic part of the idea of the "Great Chain of Being,"
necessary to avoid a discontinuity in the series of entities and functions, that
would otherwise occur somewhere between God with the higher angels who
were occupied only in contemplation of the highest, and man. It is advanced in
the middle ages; thus William of Conches claims to derive from Plato the
teaching, which is nonetheless consonant with, and supported by, scripture, that
there are three sorts of daemons. Those between the firmament and the moon
are immortal, invisible, and ethereal animals; those in the upper atmosphere
adjoining the moon, communicate between God and men, and know feelings of
joy and sorrow with and for humanity, and both these kinds or kalodaemones
are good in their nature. The third, the evil order of Kakodaemones, inhabit the
humid atmosphere near the earth; they are rational, immortal, watery, lustful
and graceless (30). Roger Bacon adopts Avicenna's teaching, which provides a
link between this series and the neo-Platonic and Cabalistic doctrines of creation
by a series of successive emanations, for he explains how God being infinite
Unity, created only one angel, who created another and the first heaven, who
created a third angel and the second heaven, and so on (31); again, discussing
magical powers, Bacon declares "without all questions the way is incomparably
more easie to obtain anything that is tryly good for men, of God or good angels,
than of Wicked Spirits,"(32) on which remark Dee made the comment "Si per
spontaneam carnis afflictionem immundus spiritus infunditur: quanto liberius quis
per vitae mundiciem mundi spiritus particeps fieri possit?"(33) Though found in
other contexts, the doctrine indeed became an almost inseparable feature of the
Platonic tradition for a long period, and as late as 1792 Thomas Taylor launches
a bitter attack on the modern "Philosophers," who "exclude the agency of
subordinate intelligences in the government of the world; though this doctrine is
perfectly philosophical, and at the same time consistent with revelation."(34)
One major exception, at least in his views of the legitimacy of the usual practises
associated with this belief, should perhaps be recorded, and that is Cusa, for he
denounced the imagination of the Magi that men could elevate themselves by
contact with intermediary spiritual natures, and declared such practises
diabolical, since prayers were due only to God, while those who sought
knowledge or power in this manner venerated and addressed petitions to other
creatures, such as would only be exacted by evil daemons (35).

The existence then of spirits and their participation to some degree in human
affairs and the physical processes of the world was regarded fairly generally in
Dee's age as an almost necessary belief both on religious grounds and for
reasons drawn from natural philosophy. A century later Thomas Browne could
still write: "It is a riddle to me...how so many learned heads should so far forget
their metaphysicks, and destroy the ladder and scale of creatures, as to question
the existence of spirits"; or again, "For Spirits I am so far from denying their
existence, that I could easily believe, that not only whole countries, but particular
persons, have their tutelary and guardian angels. It is not a new opinion of the
Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato, there is no heresy in it:
and if not manifestly defined in Scripture, yet it is an opinion of a good and
wholesome use in the course and actions of a man's life; and would serve as a
hypothesis to solve many doubts, whereof common philosophy affordeth no
solution."(36) One of the first subjects Pastel - where thought at many points is
curiously similar to Dee's - deals with when attempting to show how "Religionis
christiance placita rationibus philosophicis docertur..." is "de substantijs
separatis, sive daemonibus, Genijsue" (37); conceding that "In nulla re maior fuit
altercatio, maior obscuritas, minor opinionum concordia, quam ea de
daemonibus aut substantijs separatis sermo est obortus inter philosophos..." he
nevertheless undertakes thoroughly to establish the doctrine by a multitude of
diverse arguments - as that developed from Aristotelian teaching that all things
are kept in motion by other entities, for "omnia motus in se indeficiens est," and
bodies do not move of themselves, hence since the stars and planets exhibit
many different forms of motion, each must have a genius to propel and guide it;
others are drawn "ex mundi harmonia et ordine," conceived of as a hierarchised
plenitude; much stress is laid on the daemon of Socrates, and Plato's reference
to genii. Or again, Guaccius opens his conventional handbook Compendium
Maleficarum by declaring that all philosophers have accepted some kinds of
demons as active in the world (38); he adds cautiously "omitto authoritates
Poetarum, quia ut plurimum fictionibus vtuntur," but cites Calcidius, Hermes
Trismegistus, the scriptures, noting "Taletes Milesius philosophus scripsit,
mundum esse plenum daemonibus," and emphasizing particularly the doctrines
of Plato and Augustine - who distinguished (De. Civ. Dei lib 8) three types of
rational spirit. "Primi, aiebat ille, coelestia, secundi aerea, tertij terrestria corpora
informant." In England the well-known letter of Harvey's to Spencer, half
humorous in itself, at least reflects the prevalence of these views: "I will not
dosier you" he writes, "to creddit magicians but even ower best and most
allowed philosophers themselves to go forwarde with the reste, grante there be
innumerable legions of waterishe and earthly sprytes - and who can tell but the
earth itselfe maye be a compacte and condensate bodye of other grosser and
quarrier sortes of them."(39)

Controversy arose then, chiefly not over the existence of spirits, but upon their
precise nature and functions. It was particularly the conception of them of course
that had early been elaborated by Porphyry and Iamblichus (40) - that they
formed orders of limited independent beings - that encouraged the belief that
they could be commanded and controlled by spells and ritual, without diabolic
compact, for they were then not necessarily solely agencies of good or evil,
answerable only to God or the Devil. Such a view many found quite compatible
with religion, nor held the practice it might suggest an automatic infringement of
the church's general prohibition of sorcery. Thus Horanet represents dealings
with spirits as an almost "natural" contest of power between two beings;
declaring that it is generally admitted that "the Coniurers great art and industrie
is not so much in raising up a spirit as in commanding him down again," and
"that if he cannot lay him down quiet, the Artist himself and all his companie, are
in danger to be torn in pieces by him, and that hee is so violent, boystrous and
bigge as that he will ruffle rage and hurle in the ayre worse than angry God
Aeolus ever did, and blow downe steeples, trees, ma-poles and keep a fell coyle
in the world."(41) Even though they might all be classed strictly as good or evil,
and the existence of morally indifferent spiritual entities denied, nevertheless
conventional accounts of a diabolic hierarchy which presented certain grades of
demons, as less powerful, less malicious, more knowledgeable, and closer in
status and sentiments to mankind than others and the similar picture in reverse
applied to the orders of angels, to some extent concealed the original simple
distinction, and was invoked to excuse a variety of theurgic and magical practises
- consciousness of this danger probably underlies James I's downright denial of
any hierarchy maintaining in the diabolical Kingdom; but he is somewhat isolated
in this assertion (42). The standard classification reproduced thereafter by many
more orthodox than he himself might be considered (43) is possibly that which
Trithemius borrowed from Psellus, and sets out in a little work, written in answer
to certain questions of Maximilian on magic, miracles, and spirits, and which
significantly the emperor has demanded "vt quantum fieri potuit, in earum
solutione viam seguerer naturae, propter eos, qui credulitati minus
concedunt."(44) After quoting Plato on the "furor poeticus," to establish their
existence, Trithemius declares: "Multa enim sunt genera daemonum, & certis
inter se gradibus distant, ratione locorum in quae cadentes a principio sunt
detrusi"; though all daemons, as Augustine states and Aristotle confirms, dwell
below the moon. There are six principal orders of them: Igneum, which will not
descend to the lower atmosphere until judgment day, though occasionally they
may be seen in temporary residence "in fornacibus ardentibus"; Aereum "quod in
aere errans nobis propinquo commovatur. Hi possint ad Inferiora descendere, &
assumptus corporibus de crassiore aere quandoque hominibus apparere...";
Terrestrium, "quos prolapsos & coelo in terram pro suis demeritis minime
dubitamus," some live in woods, fields and caverns, "qui nocte aberrare faciant
itinerantes," "reliqui casteris minus furiosi & perturbati demorari cum hominibus
in obscuro delectantur"; Aquaticum who usually appear in the guise of females,
naiads and nymphs belong to this class; Subterraneum, who cause earthquakes
and eruptions, guard hidden treasures, and pretend to be spirits of the dead;
and lastly, Lucifugiam, the worst type of all: "passionibus frigidis agitatum,
malitiosum, inquietum, & perturbatum," who do violence to men by night (45).
Many who nevertheless accepted this or some similar gradation, warned against
all dealings with spirits whatsoever, seeing in its existence but a further trap for
the unwary, who might be misled into necromancy by the relative harmlessness
of certain classes of daemons and the variety of temptations and deceptions they
might employ (46), this is Guaccius' position, who, pointing out that the devils
are fallen angels, allows that many of them have retained much of their original
natures; "sunt igitur daemones pulcherrimi doctissimi, fortissimi, sicut Angeli
coelestos respectu naturae...sunt Mathematici perfecti, optimi Medici; & tandem,
omnes scientias, & artes possidunt."(47) Such hierarchical schemes, however,
serve as a link, permitting the adoption of a variety of transitional positions, since
they are a feature common to both, between a more rigidly orthodox attitude to
such beings and the open affirmation of a neo-Platonic doctrine which viewed
them in a far more amiable light, classing them neither as angels nor devils, but
as morally independent spiritual entities, or perhaps as "daemons" with the
classical connotation merely of "distributors of destiny." Those who followed this
teaching were even ready to ascribe, as did Agrippa, names to such spirits,
conventionally borne only by true diabolic powers. A remarkable instance is the
spirit "Behemoth" in Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois, his name is usually interpreted
"demonic bestiality," but he is here described as "a good aerial spirit." He is a
being of great but limited powers, who neither lies nor misleads, he does not
tempt or try to entrap souls, he has little interest in mankind, but is prepared to
assist them, he is compelled actually and not only in appearance, by the spells of
the Friar (whose soul, despite his dealings with Behemoth, during which he
betrays by no sign that he imagines these to be sinful, ascends to the blessed on
his death). Behemoth has nothing to do with hell, though he is no angel of God,
he is, according to West, in his full discussion of this spirit, "no sin rolted
crosswalled vehicle of negation, but a vast being of dignity and sorrow, lost in
mysterious meditation; emperor it is granted of darkness, but of a darkness
hiding `deepest truths,' a darkness of inscrutable wonders and mysteries, nor
the darkness of pain and error, deprivation and despair."(48) Or again Nashe,
with perhaps a similar ambiguity of terms, writes that there are - and he
expresses no disagreement with this division - three sorts of "devils" whose kinds
have been distinguished by Plato: those who are invisible and aery; those who
are reasonable creatures "passive in mind and eternile in time" (these are they,
Nashe claimes, who fell in with Beelzebub); and lastly, the Demons attendant on
men of genius (49). It is these last that, to some extent, perhaps Dee believed
he was contacting (Agrippa had ascribed to each man three attendant daemons,
as well as a good and evil angel (50), a view "Christianised" by, for example, the
protestant Leloger, who claims that all Christians have not one but many angels
"whom God imployeth to their service." (51)). They are accepted by Naudaeus in
the following century, though he doubts the advisability, owing to danger of
error, of engaging in any but entirely natural operations, who - as has been
shown in the discussion of magic - lays down a scheme, which might well
approximate to Dee's which attributes the guidance of the actions of great men
to a variety of instructing spiritual agencies (52).

But one of the most complete statements of the sixteenth century, upon these
intermediary beings, which attempts to synthesize teachings drawn from ancient
neo-Platonists and later philosophical accounts such as that of Psellus with the
orthodox Christian view of angels and devils, and folklore, and which grants
them an important part in relation to all knowledge - so prevalent are they, so
varied their functions ("ainsi" comments Schmidt, "pour le chantre penetre par
les demons d'esprit prophetique, toute aperception profonde de l'univers bientot
se traduit en un art magique et divinatoie" (53)), is Ronsard's Hymne des
Daemons, which appeared in 1555 (54). Accepting their existence as scientifically
proved, the poem sets out to define their various natures:

"Quand l'Eternel bastit le grand palais du Monde,

Il peupla de poissions les abysmes de l'onde,

D'hommes la terre, et l'air de Daimons, et les cieux

D'Anges, a celle fin qu'il n'y eust point de lieux

Vuides en l'Univers, et selon leurs natures

Qu'ils fussent tous remplis de propres creatures."

The angels are intelligent and passionless, knowing innately past and future. The
Daemons live below the moon in the thick air; their light bodies are compounded
of air and fire, and they can assume a protean variety of shapes, changing,

"En centaures, serpens, oiseaux, hommes, poissons,

Et d'une forme en l'autre, errent en cent facons."

They are intermediary in nature, for

"Ils sont participans de Dieux et des humaines

De Dieu comme immortels, des hommes comme pleins

De toutes passions."

All that is monstrous or prodigious - rains of blood, preternatural fogs, etc. - in

heaven and earth, is caused by them. To men they bring dreams, throw them
into sudden frights, or produce in them vague apprehensions, and they also are
the source of all prophecy and augury. They foretell the future

"...Non qu'au parfait cognues

Toutes choses leur soient, ainsi que d'estre venu,

Mais eux que par long age experimentez sont

Aux affaires du monde."

They like the blood of animals offered in sacrifices, and they can be commanded
even against their will by the magician for

"Ils craignent

Les Charmeurs dont les poincts et la voix les

contraignent

A leur faire service, et les tiennent fermez

Ou dedans les mirouers, ou des anneaux charmez."

Oracles, Nymphs, and Naiads are some of the forms they assume "Les uns
pernicieus, les autres doux et bons" and they are even equated with the
conventional fairies for:

"On dit qu'en Norovegue ils se louent a gages

Et font comme valets des maisons les mesnages"

etc.; a type of being Trithemius also describes as inhabiting the spirit world (55)
while other writers accept the fairies as just another variety of, or even a general
synonym for, devils (56). This view of daemons is perhaps relevant in explaining
a striking feature of Dee's spiritual conferences; for with the possible exception
of a few figures such as Raphael, Aniel, and Uriel, and leaving aside those who
seem nothing more than barely personified collections of powers and qualities
allegorising various special sciences, representing spirits of the seven metals,
etc., most of the visitors Kelly described seem to fall into this class. Again, their
behaviour is unpredictable, perverse, frequently mischievous: they play about
the room, upsetting books, furniture, etc.; they are frequently dressed gaudily in
gay colours like contemporary citizens at festivals, they act in dumb shows past,
present or future events, and their continual wanton high spirits contrast strongly
with Dee's deep solemnity throughout, and Kelly's fearful suspicions of devils; in
the course of the conferences, Madimi, their most frequent visitor and guide,
grows from a small girl (who can seldom be made to pay attention for very long
together to serious matters, though she is as curious about Dee and Kelly as
they about her, and who always has at first to fetch, or consult with, her
relatives if any difficult questions are put - pleading her youth and ignorance)
into an adult woman, her character and attitude to the skryers evolving at the
same time. At practically every point indeed, these spirits of Kelly's could be
paralleled by the beings described by Robert Kirk Minister at Aberfoile, from
information gathered from folklore and persons possessed of second sight, in the
Secret Commonwealth...An Essay of the Nature and Actions of the Subterranean
(and, for the most Part) Invisible People, heretofor going under the Name of
Elves, Faunes and Fairies or the like (57) "The Roman Invention" - as Kirk calls
it, of Good and Bad Daemons, is, he claims, "one ignorant Mistake, sprung only
from this original."(p. 4) These spirits inhabit a world which completely
duplicates ours; thus every person and object has an equivalent (which is not
necessarily directly similar when individually compared) in their world (p. 4).
They have very pliable and subtle bodies "of congealed air."(p. 2) "They are
distributed in Tribes and Orders, and have Children, Nurses, Marriages, Deaths,
and Burialls, in appearance, even as we, (unless they so do for a Mock-show, or
to prognosticate some such Things among us)" (p. 3); "Their Apparell and
Speech is like that of the People and Counterey under which they live" (p. 6);
"Their Men travell much Abroad, either presaging or aping the dismall and
tragical actions of some amongst us" (p. 7); "Their food is served by pleasant
Children, lyke inchanted Puppets" (p. 5). They have "no discernible Religion,
Love or Devotion towards God, the blessed Maker of All," and are liable to
disappear at the mention of his name or that of Jesus (p. 7); "They are said to
have many pleasant toyish Books...other Books they have of involved abstruse
sense, much like the Rosurcian (i.e., Rosicrucian) Style. They have nothing of the
Bible, save collected Parcells for Charms, and Counter Charms" (p. 8); and "The
Tabhaisver, or Seer, that corresponds with this kind of Familiar, can bring them
with a Spell to appear to himselfe or others when he pleases" (p. 9). Now,
whatever Dee's particular view of them, or Kelly's fears as to their ultimate
origin, it is surprisingly true that almost any of these, and other statements made
by Kirk, a hundred years later, in his orderly exposition of the fragments of the
widespread and ancient Scottish superstition he was investigating, could serve as
a text for analysing much of the behaviour of the "spirits" during Dee's many
years of conferences with them.
One feature of Dee's attitude to these beings should be noted, his consistently
affirmed belief that they could only be spirits of good, ministers however humble
of the most high, that communication with them was at the least harmless, if not
largely a religious duty of the true philosopher. On the question of their
innocence he went so far as to pledge his soul and hopes of paradise to the
doubting Kelly, by formal compact. Even when spirits of self-confused
malignancy intruded into the sittings, Dee does not seem to have regarded them
of great significance, and remained confident that they could be easily disposed
of. There were of course, usual tests that might be made for distinguishing good
from evil spiritual visitors. These rested largely on criteria relating to their
appearance, counsel, effects on the observer, and reaction to prayer and the
name of God. Thus Guaccius, for whom devilish and angelic apparitions play a
great part in men's affairs, is careful to provide rules for differentiating these.
Thus, "Bonorum, malorum spiritum apparitio non est difficilis cognitu, nor si in
apparitione post timore succedit guadium, boni spiritus est apparitio; si autem
incursus timor perseverat, spiritus malus est qui videtur." Again, devils seldom
appear in human shape, and if so well be deformed, thus if the apparition is "non
formosa, & bene formata, sed terra deformi aut vili, ut puta canis, serpentis,
auis, draconis, aranei, busonis, vel similium, vel nigri, aetiopis, diabolus est; si
vero forma humana bona Angeli, vel beati, vel Dei, tunc consideranda est
operatio, si ex genere suo est improba, at blasphemiae, superstitionis, mendacij,
homicidij, luxuriae &c vel dolosa ex modo operationis ut si primo congressu
laetitiam adferat asimo, & tranquilitatem, postea horrorem & turbationem vel
desolatione, vel etiam magno cum foetore, strepitu, vel clade abeat, diabolus
est."(58) Dee may have applied such tests during his conferences, but if so he
made no explicit note of them, nor any other indications that would imply any
general doubt on his part as to the benevolence and innocence of the spirits he
dealt with. It is as though he regarded the purity of his own intentions as a
complete safeguard against evil or delusion. In this he perhaps consciously
reflects Apuleius Apology, who in answer to charges of sorcery and magic, never
seems to deny the fact of his practises, only the interpretation that was put on
them; his justification is always that he could have no dealings with evil, or ever
thought to be associated with wicked spirits, since "We of the family of Plato
known nought save what is bright and joyous, majestic and heavenly and of the
world above us. Nay in its zeal to reach the heights of wisdom, the Platonic
School has explored regions higher than heaven itself, and stood triumphant on
the outer circumference of this our universe."(59) Dee's apparent lack of
consciousness, or at least the slight recognition he exhibits here and elsewhere,
of the dangers of evil as a force existing in the universe, outside the individual
soul, is perhaps in some measure a result of the familiar neo-Platonic teaching in
regard to the problem, which implied a rejection of the view of two positive poles
of Good and Evil, equally existing, from which derived qualitatively opposed
corresponding hierarchies of spiritual powers to the medial, indifferent realm of
matter and the world, which was their battlefield, the no-mans land in which
man's existence was passed; and which instead recognised only a single
descending gradation of existence, corresponding morally to increasing
limitations, restrictions purely negative in kind, of the fully realised unified Good,
which was also equivalent to Essence and Existence. Thus Plotinus writes of the
intelligible world: "There is no paradigm of evil there. For evil here happens from
indigence, privation, and defect. And evil is the passion of matter frustrated of
form, and of that which is assimilated to matter" (60); the doctrine found its way
into Augustine's Christian teaching; one of the causes of his early errors, and of
his entertaining the possibility of the truth of Manichean doctrines, arose
"because as yet I knew not that evil was nothing but a privation of good, up to
the point at which a thing ceases altogether to be" (61). In the sixteenth
century, such a view was by no means confined to a few profoundly speculating
philosophers. It is set forth, for instance, in Mornay's The Trueness of the
Christian Religion, which Philip Sydney translated, where we are told Plato,
Plotin, and other great Philosophers of all Sects, are of the opinion that Evill is
not a thinge of itselfe nor can bee imagined but in the absence of all goodness,
as a deprivation of the good, which ought to be naturally in everything. That evill
is a kynd of not being, and hath no abyding but in the good, whereof it is a
default or diminishing."(62) If malignant, or irresponsible "spirits" were admitted
from such a standpoint they would have to be looked upon as beings of a low
and limited kind, of very restricted powers and probably mortal in nature, as in
fact Plutarch and many others following him had descrived them (63). The point
at which conflict with orthodox Christian dogma would seem most readily to arise
here, is upon the reality of Hell: in this respect it is interesting that Dee's
description of the last judgment made at this period contains no mention of it
directly, does not speak of damnation or the future pains of the wicked, but only
refers to "the second death" that awaits condemned souls; at the second coming
he envisages the Elect "Passing per Aquam et ignem in refrigerium, to possess
the renewed and sanctified earth eternally; they and their posteritie who shall
not dye but be translated from life to life"; while the reprobate pass "into
everlasting death."(64) For Avicenna, adapting a Platonic ontology to the
framework of Mahommedan religious teachings of personal survival and rewards
and punishments, the soul after death approximating to the condition of pure
intelligences, its eternal happiness lay in an Act of Knowing, the faculty for which
was developed during its earthly existence, while Hell the fate of the wicked, was
represented only as the privation of the knowledge of the intelligibles (65), and
there had not been lacking Christian theologians who had doubted, denied or
paid little attention to Hell in its material or local figuration, claiming it rather to
be a state of mind, resulting from separation from communion with God (66).
The existence of some kinds of evil spirits would not, of course, be altogether
incompatible with such views, but if Dee's opinions were largely similar to these,
then his various rejections of Kelly's offers to summon up devils, and his reproof
of him for confessed attempted dealings with them, should probably be
interpreted as reflecting his condemnation of the intention displayed by the
agent in such an occupation, rather than his fear of the immediate dangers, or
even his belief in the possibility of success, in these prohibited practises, while
this would also be an attitude thoroughly concordant with those Paracelsian
doctrines in which Dee was steeped (67).

Nevertheless it should be noted that though the doctrine of the hierarchy, or of

the omnipresence, of various kinds of spirits and angels, considered either as
mediators between God and man, guides and assistants of mortals, or as
independent natural creatures, was relatively frequent in the sixteenth century,
approval for the practises such beliefs might suggest, of the type on which Dee
engaged, is far more rare. Though all the elements for composing a case in
justification of such conduct as Dee's might be gathered from conventional
teachings in natural philosophy and religion, it is not usual to find such activities
openly spoken of without distrust and suspicion, even when not absolutely
prohibited. Thus various contemporary works on sorcery reproduce the decisions
of Paris University of 1398 "super quibusdam superstitionibus noviter exertis,"
(68) which emphatically condemn a number of beliefs involved in Dee's spiritual
practises, or related to them. The ninth states "Quod Deus, per artes magicas, &
maleficia inducatur compellere daemones suis incantationibus obedire, error est."
The tenth "Quod boni Angeli includantur in lapidibus, & conserrent imagines, vel
vestimenta, aut alia faciant que in istis artibus continentur. Error & blasphemia."
The twenty first condemned the belief that images of gold or bronze could be
consecrated by this art, and at certain times (according to the stars) and then
possess "Virtutes mirabiles" as "Error in fide, & Philosophia, & astronomia vera."
The twenty-third "Quod aliqui daemones boni sint, alij omnia scientes: alij nec
damnati, nec saluati, error," and the twenty-fifth, condemned the belief that
daemons were Kings of the North, East, South and West. Again the Aristotelian
physician Libavius in a work which severely criticises some passages of Dee's
Monas, attacks the Cabalists and Paracelsians, with whom he classes Dee, for
encouraging operations with spirits, whose natures their writings leave
suspiciously vague. Angels, he declares, have no power of themselves to affect
matter: "Angeli autem non ludunt in rebus siquidem ex Dei praescripte agunt, &
mente. Quid restat praeter diabolum? Licebat hic Paracelso & Cabalistis
confugere ad adiunctos genios, varios spiritus, Salmandros, Saganos, Sciaolas, &
nescio quae portenta, quae si praua sunt omnia diabolorum classes continentur,
si bona, angelorum."(69) Dee would probably have descrived his "conferences"
as "Theurgy"; which he regarded as legitimate, but Leloyer prohibits this as
strongly as any other branch of necromancy, seeing in "Theurgy" only a practise
in which devils "se presentent sous lenom de Dieu, Anges, sainctes, ames &
Heros" (70) and indeed in seeking to obtain Dee's reverence and worship of
Dee's "Angels" resemble in some sort a class of malicious daemons Trithemius
had warned against - "Horum demones quidam exemple terrae magis affixi, &
qui circa homines nimis inquieti, quos veteres appellere bacuceos...nihil magis
aestimatione divinitatis a mortalibus quaerunt."(71) The extreme piety Dee
evidenced throughout was regarded generally as no protection, if genuine to the
operator who embarked upon such courses, but is usually referred to as merely a
favourite disguise of the necromancer, and would not have excused him in the
eyes of many of his contemporaries. Thus Bodin declares one of the principal
devilish impostures - as practiced willfully by Wier and Trithemius - was "soubs le
voile des choses sainctes & sacres, faire passer toutes les impietye qu'o peut
imaginer. Fernel dit avoir veu vn sorcier, lequel en disant des oraisons & mots
sacrez auec des mots barbares, faisoit voir en vn mirouer ce qu'il vouloit."(72)
"The sum of the orthodox contention, as presented by James and Bodin," West
observes, "is that a man, be he artful or simple, can have wilful traffic with
spirits, but only with evil ones and only by some degree of alliance and to his
ultimate damnation."(73)

Nevertheless a certain tradition of doctrine can be found in which Dee's practises

have a legitimate place. Probably Trithemius' statement of it was one which he
would have cited in self-justification. A constant theme of Trithemius is that
"bonae valuatatis consummatio bonos homines spiritibus pares facit
angelicis...Similitudine vero amicitiae familiaritas introducitur." He stresses that
evil men becoming like devils are admitted into their society, and will appear to
command them since they then have similar wills to their diabolic associates, and
he explains how men may do miracles if they approach the angels in purity:
"Quanto enim mens nostra in fide Jesu christi confirmata per dilectionem purior
euaserit, tanto sanctis angelis effecta similior, eoru familiaritatem maiorem
assequet....Reuelant enim sancti angeli hominibus puris & in dei amore
seruentibus arcana caeteris abscondita, & multa faciunt eis manditio creatoris
manifesta. Nam prope est dominus invocantibus eum in ventate...vuis enim
gratiam cum Christo vxitus est, angelorum crebra visitatione reficitur: & saepius
cu necessitas expostulat, eoru ministerio signis & virtutibus illustratur."(74) This
doctrine should probably be viewed as a particular extension of the familiar
position of Renaissance neo-Platonists, set forth by Ficino, Pico and others (75)
that affirmed man's capacity for approximating, by the efforts of his will, to
higher or lower grades of beings; and an echo off it, as developed by Trithemius
is still to be heard in Browne's declaration "I do think that many mysteries
ascribed to our own inventions have been the courteous revelations of spirits; for
those noble essences in heaven, bear a friendly regard unto their fellow natures
on earth."(76)

The more important communications Dee received through the angels and other
spirits were also not unexpected in character. They consisted largely of the
laborious dictation to him of "books" in apparently incomprehensible jargon or
seemingly meaningless sequences of numbers. The first professed to be in the
Angelic language, end to contain the secret names of things imposed by God in
the beginning. Dee showed himself as well satisfied to receive these works; that
such names existed, and formed the master key to nature, was in accordance
with the teachings of Reuchlin in De Verbo Mirifico (77) and other Cabalists;
Agrippa, the authority most frequently cited by Dee in his notes to the
"conferences," had spoken in the Occult Philosophy of these divine names,
imposed neither by men nor angels, but sanctified by God himself to be,
according to their "numbers," and the immutable shapes of their characters, holy
vehicles of all divine power (78); much of his first book he had devoted to
showing the power of words, that the essence of each thing was concealed in its
proper name (79); and had described how direct angelic assistance could be
procured in the search, by means of charms (80), a subject more fully dealt with
in Book 3 where methods of deducing the names of angels themselves from the
Scriptures are described (81); and in de Nobilitate et Prae excellentia Foeminei
Sexus he had gathered a number of texts for the proof of the truth and
importance of this doctrine (82); "As his name is, so is he; Nobal is his name,
and folly is with him" (Isaiah XXV, 25); and Christ is "made so much better than
the angels as he hath obtained a more excellent name than they" (Heb. I. 4).
This is familiar Cabalistic doctrine, that has been previously examined, in which
"The various divine names are not arbitrary combinations of sounds, they
conceal a miraculous power in their letters. So too do the names of the Angels.
By uniting these names, and combining these letters in various ways men may
achieve the power to influence the course of nature and to bring about
Miracles."(83) Dee's chief point of difference from other Cabalists in this pursuit
lay rather in the manner in which, following Agrippa's magical instructions, he set
about securing the knowledge of these names, hoping thereby for a personal
and peculiar revelation to be made to him by God, and what Kelly provided him
with in this kind was sufficiently superficially similar to what was to be found in
contemporary learned works on ancient languages to lend an air of genuineness
and credibility to the communications (84).

There were various standard "mechanical" or ritual means of assistance open to

Dee to employ in his endeavour to establish communication with spirits. It is not
impossible that he may have employed mirrors (85) at some time, but for the
most part he made use of a crystal globe following a procedure of considerable
antiquity (86): a skryer acted as intermediary and Dee recorded his visions, and
conversed through him with such spirits as appeared in, or entered the room
through the crystal. Such a crystal was a familiar property in the laboratories of
the day (87), and was sometimes put to similar uses to those Dee made of it. At
least one record of similar "conferences" held in England, somewhat before Dee's
investigations (it is dated 1567) is known (88). This, Gabriel Harvey describes on
the M.S., as "The visions of Sir Thomas Smith himself as is credibly supposed,"
which indicates that another prominent mathematician of the day was at least
suspected of pursuing the same courses as Dee engaged upon, while the
probable identification of the H.G. who conducts the conversations with
Humphrey Gilbert, and J.D. the skryer with John Davis, adds two further
scientifically well reputed names to the list of such investigators. Other
contemporary Englishmen are known to have made similar experiments (89). But
though descriptions of the procedure usually make a great point of the
preliminary prayer to God and the general piety requisite (90), crystal gazing is a
practise almost universally condemned by such published works on magic of the
time as attempt to define its legitimate boundaries (91). Even Trithemius only
makes mention of devils appearing through crystals (92), and never of angels so
doing, though the visitors may not be of a particularly malevolent variety. Those
that do, and they correspond in some respects with Kelly's "spirits," according to
Trithemius are chiefly of the "terrestrial" variety: "Hoc autem daemonam genus
raro est maleficis familiare propter inconstantiam affectionum & levitatem, qua
territare multas gaudent patius quam vnius malierculae subesse imperio.
Commorantur tamen interdum vt pollicentur vesanis, in vitro vel in crystallo siue
in specule, & carminibus concitati, responsa dant mulieribus, & si quis venturas
eis male dixisset in via, praenunciant."(93) (The crystal indeed, despite its use by
more highly motivated persons, seems to have become by this time part of the
standard equipment of the conjuror (94).) Nevertheless Dee's occult activities
would seem to bear the same relation to the "science" as they do to accepted
theology of the time (it is indeed hardly proper to attempt too rigid a separation
of these in regard to general theory); that is, they emerge and develop from
these, rather than arising as anything wholly distinct or contradictory to them; it
has been well observed that "Though occultism is not orthodox, it is seldom
heretical; it vociferates rather than challenges the basic principles of the religion
that gave it birth."(95)

Such activities were probably found to be largely barren of results. It is

noteworthy that Agrippa's "magical period" occurred in his extreme youth - his
Occult Philosophy was written when he was only twenty-four, he had been
twenty-three when he composed his commentary on Reuchlin - thereafter he
passed onto other pursuits, and, from his letters, progressively more empirical
investigations into natural philosophy. Dee embarked on the spiritual conferences
late in life; and after years of vain labour with his skryers, when the lack of hope
for any successful issue to the process must have become increasingly apparent,
he seems to have clung to his faith in the "Angels," and in the future revelations
they would make sometime to him, with something akin to desperation, rather
than admit to the wasting of such a large portion of the little time now left to
him in which to acquire wisdom on earth. Initially these courses appeared to him
as the climax to all his studies; previous learning had been but a preparation to
the reception of this divine knowledge. J.R. Bailey, writing of Dee's life at
Manchester, comments (96): "At the time of his being made Warden he had long
forsaken the exact sciences, having exhausted their study; and had devoted
himself to the blighting influence of occult investigations, mingling with them in
credulous simplicity what remained in him of the Christian faith." The significant
phrase here is "having exhausted their study," for this indeed seems to be what
Dee felt of himself at the time; there are passages in these "Spiritual Diaries" on
the hopelessness of satisfying the mind with uncertain mundane knowledge,
which strikingly recall Agrippa's de Vanitate; what he has learned in the past is
looked upon as only of value in so far as it assists the comprehension of what
will now be taught by the angels. In the De Heptarchia Mystica (97), a book he
compiled from what was revealed to him in these conferences, he has inserted a
moving prayer to God from "they simple servant John Dee," recounting all his
labours in search of "some convenient portion of true knowledge and
understanding of thy Lawes and Ordinances, established in the Natures and
properties of thy Creatures," and now beseeching some direct assistance and
enlightenment. A similar prayer explaining his venturing at this time to attempt
to lay hold on truth by these occult means, opens the first surviving book of
Conferences (98); he sets out his past labours in the cause of science and goes
on: "But (to be brief) after all my foresaid endeavour, I could find no other way,
to such true wisdom atteyning but by thy extraordinary guift and by no vulgar
Schoole Doctrine or humane invention." He has been encouraged to enter these
courses by the examples of Enoch, Moses, Abraham and others, and by
"considering the Shewstone wch the High Priests did use, by thy owne ordering,
wherein they had light to judgements in their great doubts." Dee's state of mind
emerges clearly in another passage (99) in which, after Kelly threatened to
abandon skrying, declaring he would "not thus loose his tyme but...study to
learne some knowledge whereby he might live...and that he dwelleth here as in
a prison," Dee sets out his reasonings with him, which persuaded Kelly to
remain: "And where he complained of want, I said my want is greater than his:
for I was in debt almost 300 pounds, had a greater charge than he; and yet for
all my 40 yeares course of Study, many hundred pounds spending, many
hundred myles travelling, many an incredible byte and forcing of my wit in Study
using to Learn or Bowit out some good thing etc. yet for all this I would be very
well pleased to be deferred yet longer (a yeare or more) [i.e., from the angelic
revelations which had not up to then been very promising in character] and to
goe up and downe England clothed in a blanket, to beg my bread, so that I
might at the end be assured to attaine to godly wisdome, whereby to do God
some service for his glory. And to be plaine, that I was resolved, either willingly
to leave this world presently, that so, I might in Spirit, enjoy the bottomless
fountains of all Wisdome, or else to pass forth my daies on earth with God's
favour and assurance of enjoying here his merciful mighty blessings, to
understand his mysteries, mete for the performing of some actions, such, as
might set forth his glory, so as it might be evident and confessed that such
things were done, Dextera Domini." The religious and mystical implications that
informed Roger Bacon's whole view of the nature of the sciences and particularly
of the ends of experimental investigations have been brought out fully by the
studies of Carton (100). Dee adopted an almost identical attitude as comes out
clearly in his treatment of "Archemaistrie" or "Experimentall Science" in the
Preface (101) which he calls "The chief and finall power of Naturall and
Mathematicall Artes," for "Wordes, and Argumentes, are no sensible certifying:
nor the full and finall frute of Sciences practisable," where he cites the writings
of Bacon (and of Cusa) "the floure of whose worthy fame, can never dye nor
wither," on this subject. Archemaistrie includes, but has far wider connotations
than, what has come to be meant by "experimentation." It is the end, not the
beginning, of knowledge; the final practise which at once certifies, and, in what
it produces, justifies all previous learning; the experiences it leads to are as
much those of the soul as of the senses; for in its action men come directly into
contact with the "reality" of the universe, the being, and truth, of which seems to
mean in this science little less than some aspect of God himself; it deals with
such things that Dee has to implore the reader not to be incredulous of them,
since they are "so unheard of, so mervaylous and of such importance." Thus
under "experimental science" so interpreted, Dee classes the little magical work
of the semi-mythical Artephius, of which Cardan has left a description (102),
(whose title was used by Francis Bacon as synonymous with Theologia Naturalis)
which consists of a number of experiments to be made in natural philosophy
which, rightly regarded, reveal theological truths. Dee also mentions in an
obscure phrase an activity which it seems probable may refer to scrying, though
if so, it is the earliest indication (1570) we possess of Dee's interest in this
precise practise. He writes of Archemaistrie then, and a subordinate branch,
Science Alnirangiat: "Under this, commeth Ars Sintrillio by Artephius, briefly
written. But the chief Science of the Archemaster, (in this world) as yet knowen,
is an other (as it were) OPTICAL Science: Whereof, the name shall be told (God
willying) when I shall have some, (more just) occasion, thereof, to discourse."

III. One reason why Dee should have plunged so wholely into this pursuit, just at
this period of time, and perhaps also why he should have been ready at the
command of the angels to leave England by night with Kelly and his family,
secretly and suddenly, without even apparently attempting to obtain official
licence for his departure, to follow the brilliant fortunes predicted for Laski, and
to prophecy before the Emperor, can perhaps be conjectured with some
probability, and connected with the view he had long held of the age in which he
lived. The apocalyptic note in his declaration of the imminent future of Britain,
the relation of this with the great purposes of God at work in the world, his belief
in the coming Imperial status of Elizabeth, accompanied perhaps even in the
close future with universal dominion, has already been noted. His vast and
sanguine plans for the conversation and annexation of "Atlantis" were perhaps
not unrelated to the general vision. He may well have believed that the striking
astronomical events witnessed in the decade of the seventies were divine
preliminary signs and tokens of this approaching destiny; for the General and
Rare Memorials is dated according to the year since the appearance of the new
star. Indeed there are some surprising points of similarity in the situation to be
observed with the ancient sybilline prophecies of the portents preceding the
universal dominion of a final ruler, who is to be a woman, which ushers in the
Golden Age, and (according to early interpretations), the coming of the Messiah,
and the end of all things; prophecies which indeed a later associate of Dee's,
Francesco Pucci, in his angelic conferences, had specifically interpreted as
referring to Elizabeth (103).

But before examining the details of the importance of 1582-1583 in this respect,
the general view of history Dee tended to adopt should be noted. Trithemius in
de Septem Secundeis had divided world history into cycles of 354 years, each
governed by one of the seven chief angels, associated with one of the planets,
and therefore forming a period whose general characteristics could be foretold.
The scheme was fairly well known, and Cornelius Gemma sets it out at length,
and though finding it superstitious makes similar suggestions of his own (104).
According to Trithemius' schedule, a new age had commenced in 1525, governed
by Gabriel and the female "planet," the Moon (105). This was, however,
according to Trithemius, only the penultimate cycle in the world's history, the
final one, which would witness the establishment of a universal empire was not
due to commence, under Michael, until 1879. That Dee inclined to some such
cyclical theory is indicated by a note to the early spiritual conferences (1582) he
held, through Barnabas Saul, with Annael (according to Talmudic tradition, the
"answering Angel," who made God's secrets known to men); he notes that
Annael is - thus showing a discrepancy between his own views and Trithemius'
system, in which Gabriel held the function at that time - "the chief Governor
General of this Great Period, as I have noted in my booke of Famous and rich
Discoveries."(106) (A further discrepancy is that on Trithemius' reckoning, 1576
would not be Anno Mundi 5540 as Dee dates it, but 6783).

Another figure that should be mentioned, as his teachings may probably bear on
Dee's assumption of the legitimacy in this period of seeking a personal revelation
from God by direct contact with his spiritual ministers, and also the view of the
"universal church" embracing all sects, that recurs in the "spiritual diaries" and
perhaps accounts for the willingness with which Dee entered into catholic
practices on the Continent, or any other forms of worship or communion
prevailing in the place where he found himself at this time, is Joachim of Flora,
whose prophecies Dee had cited in the Preface (107) as "good profe," of the
wonders that could be done by the understanding of "Numbers Formall."
Joachim's scriptural exegesis had been essentially prophetic in its object, rather
than moral or dogmatic; the details of the similarities between his methods and
his general teachings and Dee's thoughts and the probable extent of his
influence, will be set forth in the subsequent study of the Preface. Here it may be
remarked that he viewed history as a progressive religious revelation taking
place in three stages, and the third of these, which was rapidly approaching, was
the age of the Spirit, in which man would know God without mediation of earthly
institution or intellectually received dogma, and every man would become a
priest and conscious vessel of the holy spirit. Now "the premisses of Joachim and
his conception that the spiritual man of the third age would know the truth
without veil, and receive directly from the spirit all the charismatic gifts
necessary to perfection, implied the abolition of the church as an organisation for
the guidance of the soul, as well as of the sacraments as channels of
grace."(108) But until this period commenced, the authority of the church was
recognised provisionally, but it was not to be regarded as the final form of
revelation or as the only way to salvation, prescribed for ever, "usque ad
consummationen saeculi." Joachimism was therefore early connected with the
rise of mystic groups, practising prophetical exegesis, expecting the dawn of the
new era, and claiming the individual as the source of all religious authority,
which last position Dee, secure in his angelical direction, also seems to have
maintained, from his readiness to lay aside orthodoxly prescribed dogma, or
moral conventions, at the dictates of the spirits. And this general view may be
associated here with that propounded by another similarly minded person to Dee
and probable influence upon him, that of the Cabalist Postel, who in De Orbis
terrae Concordia, had set forth the principles of the developing scheme of world
history and proclaimed the coming establishment of the universal church and the
single government of the world, associated with this, which should occur in the
seventeenth century. The third section of the work was devoted to proving "Qod
commune totus orbis tam jure humano quam divino habeat," and he anticipated
a general conversion to take place by the influence of "natural reason" and
further revelations.

As to the date of such great changes there would seem at first sight to be ample
time left on Dee's reckoning for them to happen in the indefinite future. He had
given the year of the world in G.R.M. as 5540; the circular table of time given in
the Calendar treatise allows, before a full circle back to Adam is reached, the
conventional amount of 6000 years. His dating of current events on this scheme
shows a difference of only 2 years from the figure of the G.R.M. computation;
thus, though Elizabeth is comparatively fairly close to Adam on his diagram,
there was nevertheless still a space of over four hundred years for the world to
run through before it was wound up. However, there were particular reasons
which made the years 1582-1583 of particular significance, for many, in the
general historical scheme. The correlation of the rise of the great religions of the
world with celestial changes was a not uncommon astrological doctrine.
Albumazar had given influential expression to it, and, as has been shown, Roger
Bacon had taken over and adopted his teachings, seeking the clue to the fates
and characters of religions and empires in their governing planets - that of
Christianity being Mercury. Pomponazzi in de Incantationibus had used the
theory as a basis for his natural interpretation of magic, seeking in the stars the
true explanations of the temporary efficacy of prayers, incantations, and symbols
- such as the cross - belonging to the dominant religion in any period. The
Copernican Gemma suggested the course of the great religions of the world
might be related to the variations in the eccentric passage of the earth around
the sun (109). That it led to such notions is one of the major reasons Calvin
advances for his denunciations of astrology, for the astrologers, he says,
"undertake to render a reason wherefore Mahomet and Ays Alcoran hat a greater
dominion than Christe and his gospels: to wit, because the aspect of the starres
is more favourable to the one than to the other. What an abhomination is that?
The Gospell is God's Scepter by the which he rayneth over us." etc. (110)

The usual basis for the cycles, though their time values were variously given, had
been employed and set forth by Alkindi (111). The smallest cycle was of 20 years
between the conjunctions of two major planets, which governed momentous
events, largely internal to a country, changes in rule, rebellions, political crises,
etc. A second was known as a Triplicity, or Trigon, representing three signs of
the ecliptic or 120 degrees, and lasted 240 years (the time between the
occurrence of a major conjunction within a trigon, and a similar conjunction in
the preceding one), and governed great world revolutions, and transference of
hegemony. The third and greatest cycle was of four complete trigons (the entire
Zodiac), each of which represented one of the four elements, and which
commenced with the fiery trigon, and the recurrence of which, including the
effects of the other two, also implied the appearance of a new religion that
would thereafter dominate the world in the ensuing great period. It lasted 960
years. (Its value has also been differently given as about 800 years, which would
allow two complete world cycles to have been fulfilled since the birth of Christ by
Dee's time (112).) This scheme fitted well with the rise of Mahommedanism;
Mahomet's own birth in 567 had been forecast by the conjunction of Jupiter and
Saturn in Scorpio, and the first year of the Mahommedan era - the official
proclamation of the religion - had been fixed as 622, when a major conjunction
had taken place in the fourth or watery trigon, marking the close of an era, and
the beginning of the fiery trigon. This cycle of 960 years should then be
completed in 1582. Tycho Brahe in his interpretation of the new star based his
prognostications on this same scheme. In April 1583, he announced, the watery
trigon would close with a conjunction of the outer planets at the end of the
watery sign Pisces. A new period commencing with the fiery trigon would open.
The new star moreover belonged to the sign Aries, with which the fiery trigon
begins, and hence was confirmation of the great political and religious changes
that he confidently, though without precision of detail, predicted (113). This
same fact was made much of constantly, by Cyprianus Leovitius, among many
others, who, as has been seen, collaborated with Dee in the volume of 1558 in
which Dee's first printed work of any length appeared (the Aphorisms). He
discussed its consequences in two works published abroad in 1564, and reprinted
in London in 1573 (114). In the first he set forth the doctrines of trigons and
followed their succession through history; he remarks "Ceterum Jesus Christus
recuperator Salutis nostre natus est ex Maria virgine in Bethlehem Judae, ut sacri
vates praedixerant, circa finem Trigoni Aquei et principium Trigoni Ignes. Annis
enim 6 nativitatem eius praecessit coitio magna superiorum planetarim in fine
Piscium, et principio Arietis."(115) In the second he gives a prediction from 1564
to the year of the conjunction to take place in 1583, at the end of Pisces and
commencement of Aries (which he regards as a repetition of that occurring near
the time of Christ's birth) when he confidently expects the end of the world, and
ends his work with a summons to general repentance. To the objection that
there has since Christ been one or other similar occurrence, without catastrophe
following, he replies (116): "Sed sub carolo Magno fini mundi esse non potuit,
quia tum nondum quinque millia annorum completa fuerunt. Jam vero,
durantibus minimum operationibus huius coniunctionis magnae, numerus ad sex
mille annos inclinabit, qui cum prophetia saara consentit, affirmante quod
mundus sex mille annos stare debeat, cui summae annorum ipse filius Dei aliquid
detrahit." The time of the next major conjunction is eighty years further ahead,
and could hardly be regarded as the event presaging the close of history, for by
this date, 1663, the allotted span of the world must have run out; 6000 years
would on this scheme have been exceeded "quod cu prophetia manifeste
pugnat."

Again a similar system is to be found expounded by Postel in a work he issued

with Cornelius Gemma (117) on the new star of 1572: "Ex philosophiae naturalis
mysticaeq; Theologiae penetralibus deprompto Judicia." In it, his chronology is
closer to Dee's dating of the star than many other reckonings of the day. Postel,
who had long been confidently looking for the appearance of a universal French
Empire, much as Dee had been anticipating the establishment of an English one
(118), observes that the star belongs to the constellation of Cassiopeia which, he
claimed, governed the first empire in the world, that of the Aethiopians, who had
been skilled in pious ceremonial magic as they possessed all Adam's writings on
the subject (119). Hence it indicates the appearance of a similar final religious
empire. History is ruled, he claims, by cycles commencing at approximate (he
allows a variation of some years or decades either way) intervals of 790 years,
according to great conjunctions that take place then. The world is at present in
the seventh, which is only thirteen years from its end in 1572 when nature
makes this new star (120). (This reckoning, applied strictly, would mean that
1585 is Anno Mundi 5530, which is close enough perhaps to Dee's reckoning in
G.R.M. to suggest that he was working upon some similar system). To show that
other calculations approximately concur with his own, Postel points out that the
year of the world according to the Jews is 5573, and that the Zohar puts its end
(by which Christians mean the Second Coming) at A.M. 5566, he himself works
out the values of the time, time and a half of Revelations according to his own
system: "Quam aummum si colligas, quinquies mille, quingenti quinquaginta anhi
prodeunt a condito mundo ad nostra usque tempora, cum CHRISTUS INTRA nos
habitare coeperit...Intro nos autem aportet venire ut Actrium tertio videtur ad
tempora Restitutionis omniu ut serio & non solis verbis Evangelici vivi reperiantur
prius quam ad ultimam iudicium veniat visibili corpore, etiam Angelis tunc
formidabilis" (121) (a period to commence on Dee's reckoning therefore, if he
inclined to entertain a similar calculation, about 1586).
1583 thus became for astrologers a date of considerable significance, nor had
preliminary signs of approaching change been wanting, the new star of 1572, the
great comet five years later, two others that followed (122), and the earthquake
in 1580, which Dee's acquaintance Thomas Twyne, translator of semi-religious
works, announced as indicating the beginning of the last judgment (123) and
perhaps the partial eclipse of the sun in Cancer on June 20, 1582, were viewed
as preliminaries to the great conjunction, and the widespread concern evoked is
evident from the works produced with a design to alleviate it, such as that of
Heth (124). That some few, like Richard Harvey, made themselves ridiculous by
predictions of immediate catastrophe, rapidly falsified by the event, was not
enough to shake the faith of more cautious but equally convinced astrologers,
who were content to detect in slighter signs the fact that a new era had been
inaugurated in the world. We have no direct pronouncement of Dee's on this
matter. That he should have held similar views to such men as Leovitius or Brahe
is not in itself improbable, but it is largely an inference from his actions - his
throwing aside of all his former manner of life to adventure with Kelly in 1583,
and the frequent impression given by the spiritual diaries, that his conferences
mark the beginnings of a new form of religion which shall complete the old, in an
age of which he is precursor, and in which all men shall live in the manner of
himself and Kelly, in personal communion with the spiritual ministers of God.

IV. Dee had always been fascinated by the mysteries he now directly attempted
to explore, regarding them as an essential part of philosophy (125), and there
had not been wanting those who had attempted to exploit his interests (126).
Some time before the arrival of Kelly, Dee had apparently established a pattern
of procedure in regard to skrying, and clearly expected results of a certain kind.
When Kelly appeared on the scene he had at first little to do but fit in with Dee's
prearranged scheme, and if it be judged that he was in some measure an
imposter, Dee was nonetheless at the time ready to welcome such deception and
accept the first plausible person professing such powers as he felt he had need
of, who presented himself. The diary entry reads for May 25, 1581 - and it is our
first clear statement of Dee's activities in this kind (though there are indications
that he had been considering them since 1569 (127)), as well as being almost
the only occasion Dee found any power of clairvoyance in himself - "I had sight
in offered me and I saw." By the end of the year he was employing a former
licensed preacher, Barnabas Saul, as a skryer, using "my stone in a frame which
was given me of a friend," and was told by an Angel on Dec. 22 that he should
learn many things in the future "by him that is assigned to the stone." Barnabas
Saul became involved in a criminal charge, and when Dee attempted to regain
his services after his indictment at Westminster, he, very prudently, "confessed
that he neither heard or saw any spirituall creature more."(128) Two days later a
friend of Dee's, Clerkson, arrived at Mortlake with Kelly, then passing under the
name of Talbot, who at once exhibited his "powers," for the Diary notes, he "told
me before my wife and Mr. Clerkson that a spirituall creature told him that
Barnabas had censured both Mr. Clerkson and me." An assertion that was later
proved true, as Saul had become one of Dee's many slanderers. To him, in
private, Dee then "confessed myself long tyme to have byn desirous to have help
in my philosophical studies through the company and information of the blessed
angels of God," and on March 10, Edward "Talbot" began to act as Dee's skryer
(129).

The early life and exploits of Kelly have been effectively concealed or rendered
uncertain by the rapid accretion of rumours or wantonly fabricated anecdotes -
so frequently the consequence of a later notoriety, when more and more
colourful information is demanded to supplement unsatisfactory and meagre data
respecting youth passed in comparative obscurity. There have been innumerable
accounts of Kelly (130). By the seventeenth century he was already an almost
legendary figure submerging in a growing body of myth (131). He was born, it
seems, at Worcester in 1555, but he has been variously reported as having
served as an apothecary's apprentice, as having stood in the pillory for forging
title deeds, and as having lost his ears for coining (132), before he is pictured as
arriving at Mortlake with the mysterious phial of red powder and indecipherable
book he had discovered in the ruins of Glastonbury.

Kelly was not entirely unschooled - though he made frequent complaints that the
time spent on skrying with Dee was preventing him from learning any liberal
arts, languages, or useful trade by which he might earn an honest livelihood.
Wood, as has been noted, suggests that he had even served for a time as
Thomas Allen's secretary. He had sufficient knowledge of Latin to red alchemical
works, and for the Angels to hold intercourse with Dee through him, in that
language - but such conversations were not very elaborate in style, and the
Angels displayed a noticeable preference for delivering set speeches rather than
engaging in dialoguq when the use of Latin was, for any reason - as by Laski's
presence - found necessary; though it must be admitted that they increase in
fluency through the years. It is of interest too, that the angels sometimes
expressed themselves in Greek fragments, a language of which Dee certainly
believed his skryer to be totally ignorant, since anything that he wished to
conceal from Kelly - in his diaries or records of conferences - he wrote in Greek
characters (133). Kelly, it is clear, was of that melancholy disposition which
Agrippa had specified as being most adapted to these pursuits, since sufferers
from an excess of this humour were wont to be seized when still awake, with a
prophetic madness, their melancholy drawing down celestial spirits into their
bodies, who then through them delivered miraculous oracles, and predictions
and divine messages (134). His readings when he was calm seem often to have
been of a darkly tinged, "enthusiastically" religious nature. We catch a glimpse of
him deriving spiritual comfort from "a little prayer Booke (in english meter),"
entitled "Seaven Sobs of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne." But at other times he was
mightily troubled by devils (135). They constantly tempted him to doubt and
heresy - and finding such thoughts intruding almost involuntarily into his mind,
he imagined himself the greatest blasphemer living. In Sept. 1584 he suffered
from a tempter "who denies any Christ to be" and asserted "that as the heart
received comfort of all the Members of the Body," so did God from the Members
of the world (136). He underwent several conversions while he was with Dee,
after which he would be calmer, and useless as a skryer for some time. Thus
Dee entered on June 8, 1584, after Kelly had repudiated various diabolically
inspired errors,

Conversio E.K. and Deum, abdicatus ) Nihil apparuit

) hodie

Omnibus Diabolicus experimentis )

(137). Not until ten days later (June 18) were they able to resume successful
Angelic communion. Hell was a topic almost constantly in Kelly's thoughts. On
one occasion at least, he was granted a visible glimpse of its terrors (138),
though this seems only to have rendered more agonised, and done nothing to
prevent, his future indulgences of "sinful" thoughts and practices. He suffered
continually from imaginary persecutions, frequently warned Dee of secret
enemies, especially among his friends at court, and he complained that he was
railed at in the streets when he went out (139). Ezekiel-like, if there were
anything for which he had a particular aversion, the angels were sure to discover
it and command him to do it. Worse still, when he had miserably brought himself
to obey their orders, at some subsequent time, as though having forgotten what
they had previously directed, or, at best, denouncing the earlier message as a
delusion, the angels upbraided him and visited him remorselessly with further
misfortune, or prophesied their approach, for having done these same things
(140). He came, small wonder, to distrust all that the spirits said, since they
were so ready to contradict themselves. Thus, after many "angelic" assurances
over a long period, of the good fortune that awaited them if they followed Laski,
Kelly announced at the last moment that he would not go, as a spiritual creature
on his shoulder had just told him he would certainly be hanged if he made the
journey (141). However, it is probable that Kelly had an interest in exploiting
such discrepancies, for by such conflicting commands he managed to shift all the
ultimate responsibility for their actions onto Dee's shoulders. Kelly's belief that
the spirits were in any case devils - and he seems to have been unconcerned at
any difference there might have been between actions with alledged angels and
recognisably evil spirits, remaining convinced that either he had incurred
damnation - probably explains his frequent offers to Dee to summon up
acknowledged devils (142), offers always rejected by Dee. Kelly on many
occasions was only led to continue the actions after long persuasions, or after
Dee had gone through a ritual of "pawning" hs soul to him that their visitants
were of God. But he seems never wholly to have been convinced. From his self-
tortured mind poured, often for many hours daily, a medly of jargon, oracular
utterances, sermons, and direct prophecies, interspersed with a number of large
scale "visions," elaborately realised and strikingly described, that would be
impressive on any standards, and were miraculous on Dee's (143).

Kelly's later fame is of course largely the result of his alchemical exploits. It is
probable that a considerable motive leading him to seek out Dee's society
originally, was desire for instructions in the Art, to gain which he exploited Dee's
own interest in the spiritual powers he could display. His growing impatience
with skrying, on the continent, exactly reflects his increasing attention to
alchemy in the same period. It has been often said that he arrived at Mortlake
already in possession of a powder, discovered at Glastonbury, that would effect
transmutation (144). Even so, these same reports usually indicate that he was
then still ignorant as to how to employ it. Certainly it was not untill some years
later that Dee and Kelly discovered the right manner of its employment, and Dee
records Kelly's manufacture of gold with the red powder. Contrary to what has
been a usual supposition, that Kelly was the prime mover in all their alchemical
investigations, is Dee's own statement on the matter: "At which tyme (1585) and
tyll which time I was chief governour of our philosophicall proceedings."(145)

V. With Kelly, Dee began a series of more successful investigations than he had
achieved with Barnabas Saul. The Shewstone of crystal was placed on a tablet of
wax, as were the legs of the table on which it stood; these tablets (146) and the
table of practice being engraved with the pentacle and seven secret names of
God. Dee transcribed what Kelly witnessed in it, for despite his own one ocular
experience, that has been noted, he seems never thereafter to have been
blessed with direct vision during the conferences (147) (the one subsequent
occasion suggests a careful engineering by Kelly (148)) though on two occasions
he "heard" (149) and once he "felt."(150)

Through the stone the angels entered the room and at first made Dee large
promises of universal knowledge, civil power and wealth (151), though on a
number of occasions these smacked so strongly of ungodly temptations, that
Dee utterly rejected them and their accompanying advice (152). He observed
also, at last with some perplexity, that the spirits proved unable or unwilling to
warn him of accidents that befell him in his day to day life (153), and if pressed
for further information on topics that interested him, evaded his enquiries (154).
On rare occasions, however, some specific minor miracle was vouchsafed (155),
or a definite prophecy made which could be taken to coincide with some later
event 9156), as proofs of the angels' true powers.

Dee was at this time hard pressed financially. He had previously, as has been
noted, applied unsuccessfully to Burleigh for a licence to discover hidden
treasure. It was not long before he asked the spirits for assistance in such a
scheme. One of them, Prince Bornogo, had declared "Behold the Bowels of the
Earth are at my opening"; "whereupon," writes Dee, "I requested him to helpe
me with some portion of Treasures hid, to pay my debts withall and to buy
things necessary."(157) But on this occasion, Dee was merely reproved for being
a worldling, and informed that earth's treasures were being saved for antichrist.
Shortly afterwards however, a mysterious "Macedonian" arrived at Mortlake, and
held consultation with Dee about a joint enterprise for the excavation of
treasures (158). Kelly perhaps scenting unwelcome rivalry, promptly had a vision
- even Dee saw a black shadow - showing this man with a Greek word "written in
great letters....about his hat," which signified "macularus" or "condemnatus";
Dee then broke off negotiations with him (159). Thereafter, the spirits,
communicating through Kelly, proved more liberal in their promises, and Dee
was informed that he would be guided to the right spots by "Il."(160) Dee
protested at this time that he had no licence from his Prince to dig, but it would
seem that any efforts he may then have made were not wholly frowned upon by
the authorities, for when on May 8, 1582, Kelly returned with earth from eleven
parts of the country for testing, Dee gave thanks to the spirits for help received
"of late of the Governour and Assistants for the Myne Royall" (161); and a note
of two years later refers to "my part in Devonshire mines: and of the Danish
treasures which were taken out of the earth," (162) which last would seem to
indicate that his ventures were not wholly unsuccessful. It is possible that Dee's
original and independent plans for treasure seeking involved some such device
as the divining rod described by Agricola; but the methods employed with Kelly
were far more sinister and appear in some cases at least to have involved the
binding of, though perhaps not the direct dealing with, evil spirits - but this is a
later development to be discussed in connection with Dee's Continental journey -
yet even these practises do not seem unusual in the tie and were often
conducted with a great show of piety (163).

In general, apart from the angelic books, the communications of the spirits were
fragmentary and somewhat rambling in character. Occasionally they represented
in show some specific science - as the seven youths who appeared with seven
balls of different metals, symbolising Dee's future discovery of the Philosopher's
Stone, of the seven princes, each characterised plainly as a stage in
transmutation, who informed Dee of their particular powers at length, though
their practical directions were unprecise and unhelpful (164). More usually they
dilated conventionally or incomprehensibly on the mysteries of various numbers
and letters. They reflect of course to some extent Dee's known views; he is
assured, on the a priori, that "secrets there are none, but that are buried in the
shaddow of man's souls," and the spirits continually stress the importance of
mathematics in the Universe. They affirm "There is nothing but Quantity
(Believe, the World is of Necessity: this necessity is governed by supernaturall
Widome)"; "For all things are limitted with a full mensuration, and unsearchable
foresight: Yea I say already unto ye end," and "All things shall be brought into a
uniformal order" (165) and spirits appeared bearing measuring rods which gave
them power over all things by the knowledge of the divine proportions revealed
by their use (166). But of the information usually retailed by them, the following
portion of a rhapsody of Michael's upon 7, is representative: "Marcke this
Mysterie. Seaven comprehendeth the Secrets of Heaven and earth. Seaven
knitteth mans Soul and Body together (3 in Soule and 4 in Body). In 7 thou shalt
find the Unit. In 7 thou shalt find the Trinity. In 7 thou shalt finde the Sonne and
the proportions of the Holy Ghost. O God, O God, O God. Thy Name (O God) be
praysed ever from they 7 Thrones, from the 7 Trumpets and from thy 7 Angels:
Amen, Amen, Amen."(167) Sometimes letters received similar attentions,
sometimes a "game" of obscure cross references was played in which Dee seems
to have provided all the intelligence and labour. Thus the spirit announces his
name and refers Dee to Marcus Hermitas' de lege spirituale. Dee after some
search finds there, in answer to this clue, the Sigillum Almeth and the name
Ilemese. "He (El) then asked me wch letter of this name I liked best, and I said
L. because it contained the names representing God" etc. (168)

There were a number of obvious imperfections in the communications. In

addition to their frequent vagueness, Dee was troubled by the fact that the
Angelic Mathematic was rendered even more obscure, by the spirits' use of
technical terms in a very different sense from that permitted by their earthly
definitions, and the spirits' obstinate refusals to provide adequate explanations of
these (169). Too often, the spirits themselves exhibited a perplexing levity, and
an unwillingness to engage upon serious conversation (170). Worst of all, there
were occasional "diabolical" intrusions into the stone - though Dee, as has been
stated, in contrast to the horror they produced in Kelly, was inclined to dismiss
them rather lightly, and treat such interruptions as being of no great moment.
Once some spirits appeared ringed with fire, and, as they spoke, "All Serpents
Dragons, Toads and all very ugly and hideous shapes of beasts" appeared and
assaulted Kelly, at the same time fawning upon the spirit councellor Galvah
(171). Sometimes malign spirits are detected and disposed of fairly easily. At
Lubeck appeared "one very brave like a preacher"; Kelly was at once suspicious
and said: "I take him to be an Evil one." The spirit proceeded to mock at the
very idea that angels would ever descend into the stone, though at the same
time declaring himself to be "good." The record continues: " . Ergo thou art a
lyar for thou saydst, No good angell would or might come here into this stone.
Thus will God be glorified against wicked Satan and his Ministers. His fetch was
very subtle: as, to bring in doubt all the actions performed in this stone. What
canst thou answer?

"E.K.: He sayeth no thing: Neither can he say anything. He seemeth to be a very

foolish Devil.
" : Mendacem opportet esse memorem. Now be packing hence."(172) But at
other times Dee and Kelly were more seriously deceived. Thus, after they had
laboured to make a table with painted figures, to bear the stone during the
conferences, according to directions received from the spirits, the Angels made
the horrifying revelation that "A Wicked power did intrude himselfe, not only into
yor Society, but also into the Workmanship of God's Mysteries. Sathan dare
presume to speake of the Almighty. These Characters are devilish: and a secret
bond of the divill."(173)

But Dee's enthusiasm throughout was remarkable and unquenchable. He

declared to the spirits after a session of some hours: "I have byn long at this
tyme in my dealing with you. I trust I do not offend you therewith. But for my
parte, I could finde in my hart to contynue whole days and nyghts in this manner
of doing: even tyll my body shold be ready to sink down for weariness before I
wold give over."(174) He excused or overlooked all imperfections. When the
Angels spoke in faulty Latin he corrected them, but accepted the explanation
that Kelly had mangled their words in his ignorant delivery (175). When
"Michael" did not understand the Hebrew Dee quoted, Dee translated it into
Latin, and blamed his own deficiencies for the failure in communication; "I am
not good in the Hebrue Tongue; but you know my meaning."(176) Frequently in
difficult points, Dee is invited first to express his own opinion, which the angels
then merely confirm (177). While he brought at first all his learning to bear on
the subject, honouring any of the angelic statements that would permit of this
with cross references to works in his library, expanding, or explanatory of, the
remark - Reuchlin and Agrippa are among the authors he most frequently drew
upon (178) - later this practise diminished and finally seems to have ceased, Dee
finding, perhaps, that the communications he received could not profitably be
related to any previously revealed system of knowledge, and submissively
forbearing to confront the angels with all too frequently opposed human
authorities, such as Trithemius, that he had hitherto accepted (179). Not Dee,
but Kelly alone, ever entertained doubts as to the nature of the spirits. Dee had
frequently to reassure him, and indeed pledged his soul as to their truth. For
when the first intimations were received that the spirits desired their "cross
matching," Dee wrote "Hereupon we were in great amazement and grief of
minde, that so hard, and (as it yet seemed to me) so impure a Doctrine, was
pounded and enjoyned unto us, of them whom I alwayes (from the beginning
hitherto) did judge and esteem undoubtedly to be good Angells: And had unto
E.K. offered my soul as a pawn to discharge E.K. his crediting of them, as the
good and faithful ministers of Almighty God."(180) But in general Dee's credulity,
if it is so to be called, was only in proportion to the spirits' promises to him
(181); and he seems to have regarded it only as a test of his faith when they
proved so niggardly in small material matters, certainly never doubting that they
had power to perform what they declared, in spite of the adverse indications that
continually occurred (182).

The chief subject of the conferences was, however, the angelic books. Dee
already possessed one mysterious work he called Soyga, which he was unable to
read, nor ever succeeded in deciphering, and this book, which "Michael" always
referred to as "Adam's Treatuse from Paradise," was the subject of his first
enquiries to the spirits after Kelly joined him (183). Kelly is traditionally reputed
to have brought another magical work in cipher with him, in addition to the "red
powder," on first coming to Mortlake. Subsequently he made various journeys,
returning with other "writings" he had found: a scroll and a book he discovered
"by spiritual direction," in the company of John Husey, at "Huets Cross,
Northwick," which Dee managed partially to decipher (184). But the books the
angels delivered through Kelly, Dee does not seem ever to have succeeded in
interpreting. The first was the Book of Enoch (185); of 49 tables, each of which
in Ashmole's words "consisteth of 49 lines or rows, and ever Row of 49 words or
letters. The first 40 of this Page [the first] have a worde in every little Square,
wch could not well be contained in the little cells of a Square Table in this Book.
Therefore they are writ thus at large as you see. But the 9 last Rows of this Page
had but one letter apiece and are accordingly set down at the end hereof."(186)
Casaubon says of it in his preface to the printed conferences: "By what I have
seen it doth appear to me a very superstitious, foolish, fabulous writing, or to
conclude all in one word Cabalistical, such as the Divel might own very well, and
in all probability was the author." The angels described it somewhat differently.
By means of it, Dee is told, he "will have as many powers subject to him" as
there are parts of the book, in which

"Every Element hath 49 manners of understanding

Therein is comprehended so many Languages

They are all spoken at once, and severally by themselves, by distinction, may be
spoken.

Untill though come to the Citty thou canst not behold the beauty thereof."(187)
Some years later when the book was still being dictated, the spirit Ave told of
eight powers with which it will endow its possessor. Among these are "all
humane knowledge"; "The knowledge of all elemental creatures amongst you";
the power of "moving from place to place (as into this Country or that Country at
pleasure)"; "the knowledge of all crafts mechanical"; and "Transmutatio formalis
sed non essentialis."(188) Uriel declared of it: "Out of this shal be restored the
holy Bookes which have perished even from the beginning, and from the first
that lived. And herein shal be deciphered perfect truth from imperfect falsehood.
True religion from false damnable Errors. With all Arts which are proper to the
use of man, the first sanctified perfection: which when it has spread awhile,
Then cometh the End."(180)

It was the laborious, and lengthy, reception of this and similar works, which
gradually drew Dee away from all his other activities and interests, absorbing all
his time, and totally subduing his critical faculties in the process, since the least
objection he dared to raise immediately precipitated all the wrath of the spirits
upon him. Thus, since every square table contained (at least) 2401 letters
dictated one at a time, Dee, after several days' work, ventured a mild
remonstrance: "If every side," he said, "conteyne 49 rowes, and every row will
require so much tyme to be received as this hath done: it may seem that very
long tyme will be required to this doctrine's receiving: But if it be God's good
liking we would faine have some abridgement or compendious manner whereby
we might sooner be in the worke of God's service." But immediately at this "The
Chaire and the Table [that Kelly saw in the Stone] are snatched away, and
seeme to fly toward Heaven. And nothing appeared in the stone at all. but was
all transparent cleare." (In the margin, Dee writes here "Note and take heede
from hence forward.")(190) Only after many prayers and apologies did the spirits
consent to return. worst of all, Dee was ordered to learn this jargon, or rather,
what is better called, apart from the first page of words, this disorderly
succession of numbers and letters, so that he could speak it "without book." A
few days later he was reproached for not having performed this task; he tried to
excuse himself: "You perceive that I have divers affaires, wch at this present doe
withdraw me from peculiar diligence using to these Characters and their nowe
learning by heart. And therefore I trust I shall not offend if I bestow all the
convenient leisure that I shall get about the learning hereof."(191) But his plea
was brushed aside by the offended spirits, and eventually it was only by a sad
neglect of all else in his life that Dee found he could continue to enjoy their
favour; a favour by which he set so much store that on days when nothing
appeared in the shewstone he was reduced to pitiful straits, seeking to discover
some often quite imaginary offence in himself which by penance and repentance
he might purge, and become again worthy of the angelic visitations (192). Other
books were dictated during the Continental journeys, to the number of about
twenty-six; many are totally unintelligible, nor do they seem to be closely enough
related to any usual Cabalistic or numerological system to be even partially
"interpreted" on any ordinary methods. Some are made up of prayers, charms
and incantations that may be employed on various occasions; others were in
similar tabular form to the book of Enoch, and for some of these, instructions
were also given as to how angelic names might be extracted from them, by
permutations and systematic selection of their characters (193).

The sittings were not absolutely private to Dee and Kelly. Early permission
(March 26, 1583) was given for Adrian Gilbert to join them. This was clearly
connected with Dee's projected colonisation of America, which the spirits had
promised to assist: "Then this Adrian Gilbert," exclaimed Dee, "shall carry the
Name of Jesus among the Infidels, to the great glory of God, and the recovery of
those miserable people from the mouth of Hell into which for many a hundred
years past and yet continually they doe fall" (194); but proceeding, "may we
require descriptions of the countries for his better instruction etc.?" Dee got no
satisfaction. It would appear indeed from a record of a few days later, that
Gilbert was the Angels' choice for this venture rather than Dee's own, for Dee
remarks "there might be some doubt in common extrenall Judgment of his
aptness to the performance of the voyage with the appurtenances," and commits
himself to the guidance of the spirits on the matter, but they merely replied "See
thou counsaile him and be his Father." At the same time, Dee enquired about the
patent they had applied for in respect of the enterprise, "and as for the privilege
for Mr. Adrian Gilbert his voyage, I think not well of it that Royalties should not
be granted," but he only received the answer: "God respecteth not Princes
particular, so much as the state of his whole people, For in Princes mouthes [all
the underlinings are, of course, Dee's additions] is there poyson as well as
proverbs. And in one heart more sinn than a whole world can containe."(195)
The conclusion of this incident, insofar as the spirits were concerned, which
commercially and geographically was to have such important consequences in its
practical developments, came some months later; when the angels washed their
hands of it, in the following dialogue: " As concerning Adrian Gilbert what
pleaseth you to say of him and his intended voyage?

Madimi...He is not in the true faith

How hat it been said then that he should be the setter forth of God, his faith and
religion among the Infidels?

Madimi That is a mystery."(196)

VI. On May I, 1583, Dee entered in his diary that one Albertus Laski had arrived
in England. Camden wrote on the occasion "E Polonia Russiae vioina hac aestate
venit in Angliam, ut Reginam inviseret, Albertus Alasco Palatinus Siradiensis, vir
eruditus, corporis lineamentis, barba promississima, vestitus decoro &
pervenusto, qui perbenigne ab ipsa, nobilibusque magno honore & lautitiis & ab
Academia Oxoniensi eruditis oblectationibus, atque variis spectacultia exceptus,
post quatuor menses aere alieno oppressus, clam recessit."(197) He was, wrote
Burleigh to Hatton, "a personage of great estimation...few in the Empire of the
greatest exceed him in sovereignty and power"; but though the queen hesitated
to receive him "until," wrote Hatton in his reply, "she be more fully informed
both, of his quality and occasion of access" for "she seemeth to doubt that he
departeth from his Prince [Stephan of Poland] as a man in displeasure," since he
had, in a letter to her, called her "the refuge of the disconsolate and the
afflicted," (198) and though also the purposes of his visit remained obscure, he
was generally during his stay in England feted like a reigning monarch. Bruno
disputed before him at Oxford, and Dee, with money, transmitted to him through
Leicester from Elizabeth for this purpose, entertained him at Mortlake. On May
13, he notes in his "Diary": "I becam acquaynted with Albertus Laski at 7 1/2 at
night in the Erle of Leicester his chamber in the court at Greenwhich." He visited
Dee on May 18, June 15 (with Sydney "on purpose to do me honour" Dee notes
in the Diary) and June 19; on at least one occasion, passing the night under
Dee's roof. He was admitted to the spiritual conferences, when his guardian
genius Jubanlec appeared to Kelly. After one of his first visits he left three
questions for Dee to put to the angels for him. These were: "I: De vita Stephani
Regis Poloniae quid dici possit. 2: An Successor eius erit Albertus Laski, an ex
domo Austryaeia. 3: An Albertus Laski Palatinu Seradiensis habebit regnum
Modaviae." To which he apparently received favourable answers (199). Thomas
Allen had rejected Laski's invitation to accompany him on his return to Poland,
but Dee at Kelly's earnest persuasion, and urged with increasing peremptoriness
by the spirits, eventually consented; Kelly, perhaps, rightly surmising, that a
more favourable field for his projected career as a Philosopher and an Alchemist,
would open for him in the Empire than was possible in England, where his
position was that of a protege of Dee's, considerably overshadowed by the
already established member of their partnership, and where he was known in
other respects, if at all; perhaps merely - as tradition has always maintained - by
a somewhat suspicious or even criminal record (200). On the Continent Dee and
Kelly lived as equals; and Kelly's unscrupulousness ultimately brought his
independent rewards, that Dee would not have stooped to win, or wittingly have
assisted Kelly in obtaining.

On September 21, 1583, Kelly and Dee embarked from England by night, for
Holland (201). One of Dee's last acts before leaving was to compile a catalogue
of the immense library he was leaving behind him (202). Dee remained on the
Continent until 1589, and it should perhaps be mentioned that there is little
evidence to support the tradition that he acted as an official spy for Elizabeth
during this period (203). He does not indeed appear even to have waited to
obtain royal licence before his departure, nor does he seem to have maintained
any close relations with his friends in England, until rumours of his success in
making gold aroused the interest of the court and government at home, who
thereupon, and in very amicable fashion, reopened communication with him. In
England, Laski had appeared a person of immense and inexhaustible wealth, but
his prodigality there had already strained his resources (204), and abroad his
fortunes not prospering in accordance with angels' prophecies, though Dee
remained as faithful to Laski as Kelly would permit (205), they were driven to
seek other patrons. The Angels offered a variety of excuses for this necessity. On
June 11, 1584, Kelly had a vision of wax images being made, for magical
purposes directed against Laski, and was told "this is the cause that Lasky is
poor," but that nonetheless "he shall reign and be King of Poland."(206) Later it
was announced that Laski had been rejected on account of his sins, and
inadequate repentance, for this he should be chastised and reduced to poverty:
"For he doubted of thy faith and laughed God to Skorn."(207) Dee and Kelly then
found a succession of other supports in the Emperor Rudolph, the Count
Rosenberg, and Stephan, the reigning King of Poland, whom Laski was to have
supplanted.

The history of Dee and Kelly's continental adventures has been told too often to
be dwelt on here, except in some of its more important aspects. It is of interest
that Dee, despite his absorption in occult investigations, and prophetic visions, to
some extent seems to have maintained relations with Continental scholars of
repute in other fields, though his nomadic life probably limited the extent of
these, as for instance with Peucer, who had bitterly attacked such practises as
those in which Dee was now mainly engaged, with the mathematician and
astronomer Hagecius, and with Tycho Brahe, who speaks of Dee several times in
his letters (208). Dee and Kelly journeyed through Brill, Emden, Bremen, Lubeck,
Stetin, Posen and Cracow, and came at last on Aug. 9, 1584, to Prague which
they found a congenial city under the melancholic Rudolph II, himself an
alchemist, astrologer and reputed magician (209). Dee seems to have
transferred to him the hopes of finding an emperor who should fulfil a divine
destiny, that he had formerly cherished as regards Maximilian (as the preface to
and the 20th theorem of the Monas indicate), and which had led him to
propound the scheme for Elizabeth's aggrandisement. On Aug. 16 Madimi
prophesied "with this emperor shall be thy aboad," and commanded Dee to write
to him. This Dee did the following day, reminding Rudolph "Ambiverunt me
(Juvenem) Illustrissimi Imperatores duo: Victoriosissimus ille Carolus Quintus, et
ejusdem Frater Ferdinandus, vestrae Caesareae Majestatis Magnificentissimus
Avus. Hic, Posonii, Hungariae: ille vero Bruxellae Brabantiae. Hic, An 1563. Ille
autem Anno 1549." He sent with his letter a copy of the Monas (210).

Rudolph received him on the third of September (211). He said he had heard of
Dee's fame from the Spanish Ambassador, "and commended the book Monas but
said that it was too hard for his Majestie's capacity"; and what had Dee "to say
to him Quod esset pro sua utilitate." Dee secured privacy, and alone with the
Emperor, proceeded to exhort him, boldly and unexpectedly in the style of an
Old Testament prophet - though it is perhaps more probable that he imagined he
was rivalling the conduct of Synesius (212). "The Angel of the Lord hath
appeared to me, and rebuketh you for your sins. If you will hear me, and believe
me you shall Triumph: if you will not hear me, the Lord, the God that made
heaven and Earth, (under whom you breathe and have your spirit) putteth his
foot against your breast, and will throw you headlong from your seat. Moreover
the Lord hath made this covenant with me (by oath) that he will do and perform.
If you will forsake your wickedness and turn unto him, your seat shall be the
greatest that ever was," and "the Devil shal become your prisoner." (All this was
delivered with much ceremonious deference however.) Rudolph attempted to
conclude the interview as courteously as he might: "The Emperour said he did
believe me, and said that he thought I loved him unfaignedly, and said, that I
should not need so earnest protestations: and would not willingly have had me
to kneel so often as I did." But when Dee then began to speak of his Angelic
conferences, Rudolph requested him to defer this until another occasion, saying
"he would henceforward take me to his recommendation and care, and some
such words (of favour promised) which I heard not well he spake so low." On
12th Sept., Dee was informed that henceforward all communication with Rudolph
must be made through an intermediary - Dr. Kurtz, and despite a letter to the
emperor written at the command of the spirits, claiming he had discovered the
Philosopher's Stone (Sept. 28), and another to the Spanish Ambassador (Dec.
31, after a short stay in Cracow), declaring how far he had progressed in
incredible mysteries, which he was prepared to reveal to Rudolph, Dee was
never successful in obtaining a second audience.

The following year Dee and Kelly, who found themselves in great want in
Prague, proceeded for a third time to Cracow. Through Laski they obtained
interviews with the King on April 17 and May 23. A preliminary discussion
occurred (213), of interest as showing by direct testimony the manner in which
Dee regarded "scrying." Stephan raised the objection against the divine
assistance Dee claimed to receive, that prophecies had now ceased in the world,
adding "Tamen si nihil in istis, contra Dei sit honorem, eo libentius sunt
audienda: Et ego quidem haud dubito quin Deus nunc possit multis modis
secreta quaedam hominibus detegere, ad haec usque tempora inauditis et
inusitatis." Dee replied in an argument set out under three heads. First, he
admitted that the race of prophets who were to prepare the way for Christ was
indeed extinct, but in the Christian era itself a new kind had arisen - he cited the
composition of the Apocalypse as evidence. Secondly, there was nothing in his
own spiritual "actions" against the honour of God, on the contrary, they
belonged to a special type of revelation which from now on would continue to be
made increasingly to men, until all the world was of one faith; "Jam hac aetate
nostra cum maxime sumus circa negotium fidei discordes, maxime videntur esse
necessariae non Prophetiae solum sed etiam Revelationes valde expressae de
Mysteriis Divinis." Thirdly, to convince Stephan Dee was prepared to exhibit 24
works in the Greek, Latin, Angelic and English tonges, communicated by the
spirits.

On May 27th a "conference" was held in the presence of the King; the spirits,
however, speaking in Latin, did nothing but rebuke Stephan for his sins. They
vented many threats against him, telling him he was sunk in iniquities and that
the hearts of his people were withdrawn from him. The almost foolhardy courage
needed to conduct such an action displays the extent of Dee's confidence in his
spiritual advisers. These, however, showed themselves unaware of the dangers
into which they had led him on this occasion, unless, as would seem more
plausible, ed has been mistakenly printed for ab, for just before the concluding
"Blessing," a spiritual voice enjoined, addressing itself to Dee for the first time:
"Adduc familiam tuam cum celeritate" (and Dee notes against this message in
the margin "Anglicoe hoc dixit!")(214) However, the following day further angelic
instructions were received in which Kelly's ambitions are clearly apparent. Dee
was informed, "Thus saith the Lord, though must answer Stephan according to
the hardness of heart," but "This done, be not afraid to open they mouth unto
him as thou didst unto Rudolph in writing, Behold (O King) I can make the
Philosophers Stone, for so they call it. Bear thou therefore the Charge; and give
me a name within thy Court that I may have access unto thee: and yearly
maintenance for us both." Both in the case of Rudolph and Stephan, the angels
promised that should his offer be accepted they would then make good Dee's
word, and reveal the secret of the Philosopher's Stone to him, which he was of
course not yet possessed of, and though on both occasions he eventually obeyed
their orders, his delays and objections indicate that it cost Dee a severe mental
struggle before he would lend himself even to this temporary deceit, that the
spirits commanded. Perhaps as a consequence of this new claim, Dee secured a
private interview with the King on June 4th, but what passed then, or any
subsequent developments in their relations is unknown, for here a large gap
occurs in the record, and the next entry is dated August 1st, at which time Dee
and Kelly were again in Prague.

Despite Dee's energetic attempts to secure the patronage of Rudolph or

Stephan, he nevertheless refused at this time a liberal offer of a high position at
the Court of Russia, the Czar, through the merchant Thomas Simkinson,
promising a yearly salary of 2000L, and the "Lord Protector" an additional 1000
roubles from his own purse (215). It may be plausibly conjectured that Dee's
refusal was prompted by his spirit counsellors, for since Kelly was not apparently
included in this invitation, nor, seemingly, prepared as yet for a complete break
with Dee, they were unlikely to have encouraged an acceptance of the offer.

Full-scale operations now seem to have been begun for the discovery of buried
treasure, and, possibly under the influence of the enthusiastic Count Rosenberg
of Trebona, in whom they had found a generous and loyal patron, who gave
them much financial assistance, and several times offered them a needed refuge
in his domains, numerous persons seem to have been partially initiated into their
mysteries. For an account exists of four occasions, and there were very possibly
more, on which a considerable company seems to have been present for a
formal "sceance," at which spirits were called up, and other phenomena
produced, in an attempt to obtain guidance as to the location of hidden hoards
of gold (on Oct. 16, 1585, Thurs., 17 Sept., 1586, Fri., Sept. 18, 1586, Wed., 22
Sept., 1586). The extent of Dee's participation is by no means clear; these
operations are not mentioned in the continuous record he kept of their
conferences, but there are large gaps in it in the portion covering these years,
which leave his movements and activities obscure. This supplementary source
manuscript does not seem to be in Dee's hand, however, but is possibly in Kelly's
(216). On the first occasion those present gathered in a circle, the shewstone
was employed, the narrator of this account then recited incantations from a large
book, which was suddenly knocked out of his hand by an unseen power.
Levitational phenomena then occurred, stones dropped into the holy water, and
glass balls were seen to be transported from the room, and were later located in
a wood some miles away. The party proceeded to dig here for the treasure they
supposed this indicated, but came on nothing but a well. The meeting on
September 8th is typical of the way in which at these experiments a strong hint
of diabolism appears, contrasting with the platitudinous purely spoken angels
with whom Dee found himself generally dealing. "At ii at night we begun action
againe, and before we were well seated in the Circle, undoubtedly they were
with us, for from the Fuming pan wch stood upon the Table there came 6:
severall great Flashes of Fire one after another, and a pretty long space betwixt
each Flash, and betwixt every flash a Blaze as blew as Steele and such a strong
and damnable Stinck of Brimstone yssued from thence as was ready to choack
us all."(217)

Alchemy, Dee and Kelly continued to practise assiduously. The Angels obligingly
supplied them with the formula for the Philosopher's Stone (218), but as the
constituents were described only by such names as Audicol, Deasod, Lulo of red
Loxtan and Rlodnir, and the spirits would supply no help in the further
identifications of these, it proved of little practical value. Dee, as has been noted
before, seems to have been the instructor, a view for which such diary entries as
Feb. 8, 1588 - "Mr. E.k....sent for me to his laboratory...to see how he distilled
sericon, according as in tyme past and of late he had of me out of Riplay" - seem
to offer confirmation. Nevertheless, and perhaps it is hardly surprising, it was, in
the event, Kelly and not Dee who finally discovered the true receipt for the
manufacture of gold; though it was not until some months before they separated
that Kelly consented to reveal it to Dee (219). However, long before he was
made aware of the means, Dee was fully convinced that gold was successfully
being made at last (220). He wrote earnestly to Walsingham in May 1586,
promising "if you send unto me Master Thomas Digges in her Majestie's behalf,
his faithfulness to her Majesty and my well liking of the Man, shall bring forth soe
pieces of Good Service. But her Majesty had been better to have spent or given
away in Alms, a million of gold, than to have lost some opportunities past."(221)

A spur to such investigations was, of course, the multitudinous reports of striking

contemporary successes, such as that of Augustus of Saxony, and though many
accounts of Kelly's own transmutations are of late fabrication (222), yet his
triumph was to be attested by unimpeachable observers, who could never
thereafter be convinced that they had been deluded (223), and Gassendi was to
cite Kelly's own feats - after a sceptical preliminary remark on how fraud might
be credited not only by the simple but by eyewitnesses - as an outstanding
example of well-accredited transmutations (224). Despite an unlimited supply of
gold, they were frequently in extreme poverty - there is a pathetic petition drawn
up by Jane Dee, who was not herself admitted to the conferences, but which she
requested her husband to put to the spirits, beseeching some present relief "in
this necessity, we are in, of sufficient and needful provision for meat and drink
for us and our Family" (225); while despite his knowledge of the secret, Dee was
always eager to meet with other people who could tell him of it, and gave a
generous welcome to such claimants (226). However, Anthony a Wood's
wondrous statement about Arthur, when a child in Prague: "It was usual with
him to play at Quates with the slates of gold made by projection in the garret of
his father's lodgings" (227), was "confirmed" by Arthur Dee's personal testimony
(228)! Dee's chief interest however, remained the spiritual conferences, and it
was hence only after their breach, that Kelly was able to devote himself to
following his fortunes as a successful alchemist.

Throughout his time on the Continent, Dee had attempted to maintain great
friendliness with the ecclesiastical authorities, so much so that he has even been
denounced for becoming a Roman Catholic in this period (229). His vision of the
great destiny his "actions" were to usher in for the "Emperor," which would
inaugurate the age when "all men should be of one religion" for which his
"conferences" were preparatory, seemingly was quite sufficient to overrule in his
mind any objections he might have felt to these courses; rendering of less
significance to him the present temporary shells of religion and ceremonies of
worship. Thus he writes, April 19, 1585, "I took Ghostly Council of Doctor
Hannibal the great Divine, that had now set out some of his Commentaries upon
Pymander Hermestis Trismegisti"; and, on the following day, "I received
Communion at the Bernadines where that Doctor is a Professor."(230) The spirits
too encouraged Dee in these observances. Thus on Aug. 6, 1585 Uriel began his
communication by denouncing individual interpretation of the Bible, for
"whosoever doth understand the Scriptures must seek to understand them by
Ordinance and spiritual tradition." Uriel declared reason must be laid aside in
favour of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which is delivered through "a visible
church," he denounced Luther and Calvin for "wilfully obstinately erring," and
concluded that anything not conforming strictly to what was "taught by His
Apostles, nourished by the Holy Ghost, delivered into the world, and by Peter
brought to Rome; by him, there taught, by his Successors, held, and maintained,
is contrary to God and his Truth" (saying of the Pope "an evil man he may be
and fall from his vocation; But he can never be Antichrist") (231).

Nevertheless, it was at the instance of the Papal Nuncio that a decree of

banishment went out against Dee and Kelly, ordering them to leave the empire
within six days (May 29, 1586); though this was revoked in August, by the
influence of Rosenberg (232) (and in Sept. 1586 they settled in Trebona under
his protection). A dangerous "agent provocateur," Francis Pucci (233) was also
set upon them (though it is possible that he himself was largely an unwitting tool
in this affair, his sincerity has been defended, and certainly, returning to Rome
himself in 1592, he was seized by the Inquisition and burnt for heresy) and
eventually was admitted to their conferences. When he had been with them
some time, this man began to persuade them, by his interpretations of various
obscure communications, that the spirits commanded them to go to Rome.
Rosenberg had, however, warned Dee that letters from the Pope had arrived
requesting that he and Kelly be sent prisoner to Rome. So Dee now replied, "well
(quod we)...it is not meant (by that Speech) that we should corporally go to
Rome; and so brake of that his reasoning."(234) The next day Pucci arrived with
an elaborately drawn safe conduct from the Nuncio, for Dee if he would go and
confer with the Pope "de suis Revelationibus," containing promises that he
should be well received and treated with all charity on the way (235). But Dee
noticed that the document was not signed, nor despite his efforts to obtain this,
could he ever secure its signature. Nonetheless, he kept it thereafter, secretly, in
a leather bag, for what it was worth. Pucci then changed his tactics and, hoping
to lure Dee into indiscretions, began to speak of "this Monster of Rome whom
my chief desire is, and long hath been, that he may be overthrown," but Dee
merely recorded in the margin of his account of this, "Pucci infidelitur
manifestissima facta."(236) Dee proved equally reserved when shortly afterwards
there came a letter "ex Corde in Christi frater Philip Episcopus Placentiae
Nuncium," asking him to submit his angelic conversations for approval by the
Lateran Council of the Church, in order that they and himself might receive due
recognition and honour (237).

These testimonies to their importance were also indications of danger, and Kelly
who had long wearied of this unprofitable - and now perilous - business of
scrying, and at the same time apparently feeling himself a sufficient master of
the alchemical technique, to pursue his fortunes independently of Dee, sought to
bring about a dissolution of their partnership. He first stubbornly refused to scry,
then reluctantly agreed to make one more attempt as a result of Dee's earnest
persuasions, but only to receive the angelic injunction that his way of life unfitted
him for that holy service. Dee thereupon, apparently also at Kelly's suggestion,
employed his son Arthur, then aged eight, as his scryer, but though according to
traditional theory even better results should have been thus procured than with
the adult Kelly (238), Arthur, whom Dee decided should "thrice in the day be put
to the Exercise" after reciting prayers Dee composed for him, was able to see
only enough to offer some slight evidence, supporting indifferently scepticism or
credulity, according to the temper and initial inclinations of the witness (239).
Kelly for some reason returned after Arthur's failure; perhaps not wishing the
continued unskillfullness of the child to bring the whole course of past practise
into suspicion, for although he desired a separation of careers, and urged also
the diabolic nature of the spirits, he does not seem to have wished Dee ever to
suspect fraud, since Dee's golden accounts of him in England would remain - as
in fact they were - of considerable importance for him. On his return to scrying
however, he sought a more effective way of engineering the desired breach.
Thereafter at the shewstone, the spirits dwelt constantly on the single theme
that Dee and Kelly should live holding all things in common between them, and
the whole miserable business of what Dee called their "cross matching" was
rapidly set in motion; Kelly being apparently determined that if he were driven by
the spirits to commit what he knew to be a sin of the first magnitude, proof that
these were evil counsellors would be so clear as to justify his breaking off
conferences with them entirely on unimpeachable grounds of conscience.
However, as in all his actions of this kind, much of what occurred seems to have
come about despite himself, all his conscious reflections at the time causing him
great, and finally unbearable, pain of mind (240).

Kelly when he first interrupted Arthur's unsatisfactory scrying, declared he had

had a vision in which he "saw a great number going in and out of this Chapel at
the little hole in the glass windo. I saw Madimi, Il and many others that had
dealed with us heretofore, but showed themselves in very filthy order, and Uriel
appeared and justified all to be of God and good."(241) When it was gradually
made plain what was meant to be signified by this and other shows, Dee would
at first have none of it, as being "expressly against the Commandments of God:
neither can I by any means consent to like of that doctrine." The spirits cajoled,
tempted and threatened. Madimi declared "Behold you are become free: Do that
which most pleaseth you." "Ben" told Dee he would be "led prisoner to Rome" if
he did not comply. At last when Raphael had appeared to inform them that they
had been chosen from all men to walk with God, to understand his mysteries, to
execute and proclaim his justice, and spread his praises throughout the nations
and peoples of the earth, Dee was won over. "I greatly rejoyced in spirit and was
utterly resolved to obey this new Doctrine, to us, peculiarly of all peoples of the
world enjoyned"; for, he reflected, "A privilege granted...doth not abrogate a
law, but doth notifie the force of the law in itself otherwise."(242) Dee drew up
various covenants with God to be signed by the four persons concerned (himself,
Kelly, and their respective wives) in which the signatories pledged themselves to
follow "this most new and strange Doctrine (amongst Christians)," which was
recognised as "above our humane reason" and therefore, strange as it was,
"notwithstanding we will bind captivate and tread underfoot all our humane
timorous doubtings." The triumphant spirit voice that encouraged this fits well
with the "diabolic" hypothesis of Casaubon: "Follow you that which you call
unrighteousness even with gladness: for I can make you whiter than snow. Your
uniting and knitting together is the end and consummation of the beginning of
my harvest."

The whole pathetic story, with the exception of a few painful lines toward the
end of the manuscript which Dee later partly blotted out, but which may still be
read, is printed by Casaubon in the True and Faithful Relation (243). Dee found
himself in a cleft stick. He had pledged his soul as to the "angels" truth, there
was now no mistaking the unequivocal but seemingly monstrous nature of their
commands, but any show of hesitation on Dee's or others' parts about accepting
this particular revelation threw Kelly into a violent frenzy, when he would
threaten to abandon skrying altogether, claiming his cause about the diabolic
origin of the spirits to be proved. Thus Jane Dee and his own wife raised a
shocked outcry when they were first informed of what was afoot, and Kelly took
the opportunity to insist that if it were lawful for the women to harbour doubts of
the spirits, then it was permissible to him to indulge his own, and vowed "I will
from this day forth meddle no more herein." The "doctrine" was at last fulfilled;
almost immediately afterwards there is a gap in Dee's record extending over
nineteen years. But it seems that Kelly, his conscience unable to sustain the
weight of sin imposed upon it by continued association and conformity with such
a besottedly deluded follower of the promptings of the devil as Dee, departed
shortly after.

VII. In Dec. 1588 Dee himself turned homewards, "being favourably called home
by her Majestie, from Trebon Castle in Bohemia," leaving with Kelly his "great
glass so highly and long esteemed of our Queen and the emperor Rudolph the
second, de quo in praefatione Euclidis fit mentio."(244) He travelled like a prince
and was received like one at Staden, Hamburg, and at Bremen, where Dr.
Christopher Pezelius celebrated him in verses which were printed and distributed
to the citizens and students who had gathered to witness Dee's departure from
there. He travelled with his family in three coaches, drawn by twelve horses, with
a saddle horse accompanying each, as well as four "Swart-Ruiters," with three
wagon loads of effects. He was escorted by twenty-four soldiers, and "six
harquebusiers and musquetiers" (he justifies this by accounts of attempted
waylayings of his party, for "eighteen enemies horsemen well appointed from
Lingen and Wilshusen had laine five dayes attending thereabouts to have set
upon me and myne"). The charges for this return journey to London, Dee
estimated as 796L (245).

The subsequent history of Kelly is well known. No longer crippled by the intense
mystic purposefulness of Dee, he gave himself out as merely an expert
alchemist, and prospered greatly for a time. He travelled to Prague in great state
(246) and Rosenberg and Rudolph financed his costly transmutations (247). This
was the period of his alchemical writings, and his arrogant self confidence at this
time is well illustrated by the opening injunction of the most famous of these:

"All you that faine philosophers would be

Goe, burn your bookes; and come and learn of me."(248)

His reputation in England after Dee's arrival there was great, and Elizabeth
despatched agents to persuade him to return and employ his talents for the
benefit of his country (249). But Kelly was now an "eques auratus," he held,
according to Dee, "A barony in the kingdom of Bohemia," (250) he was a privy
counsellor of Rudolph, and the Chief Regent over the lands and affairs of
Rosenberg. He had been granted landed estates to an annual value of 15,000L;
he was, also, virtually a prisoner. He wrote, however, to Burleigh, that he would
make his escape if he were redressed for the injuries he would suffer by so
doing, and Elizabeth would promise "to call me home to like honour [as he
enjoyed in the empire], Assuring me of so much Lands of inheritance by yere to
serve her, as I shall leave behynde me in Bohemia for her."(251) Dyer was sent
to Prague, though without authority to make such pledges, to induce Kelly to
return, but Kelly, pleading how impossible it was for him to get away in person,
merely undertook to instruct Dyer in the secrets of Alchemy, that he might reveal
them to Elizabeth and undertake successful transmutation himself at home
(252). Dyer saw pewter flaggons almost daily turned into silver, and his reports
excited the authorities in England considerably, and Burleigh wrote pleading
letters to "good Sir Edward Kelley" that he send some of his "powder," if he
might not come in person; urging him "to send for a token to her Majesty such a
portin of it, in a secret box, as might serve, for a reasonable sum, to defray her
charges that Summer for her navy."(253)

Rudolph's suspicions however were aroused by Kelly's constant associations with

an English diplomat who claimed to be on a purely personal visit. Moreover, Kelly
had not made him any large quantities of gold. When Kelly pleaded his shortage
of "red powder," Rudolph, knowing full well that Kelly could make all the gold he
wished if he chose, for his earlier unparalleled extravagance of life (254) as well
as the host of witnesses to his feats seemed certain indication of his powers,
dismissed the excuse as mere obduracy and unwillingness, smacking of lese
Majeste, and treason, and put Kelly severely to the torture. Dyer was released
from arrest only when Elizabeth made strong representations to Rudolph on his
behalf, but Kelly's unwillingness to effect transmutation on a large scale - his
abilities seem never to have been in question - brought him more than two years
harsh confinement at Purglitz (255). At last he was brought to agree to fulfill his
promises to Rudolph, and at once was restored to all the precarious splendour,
wealth, and royal favour he had previously enjoyed. His glory, and spell of
closely guarded luxury, was brief. In 1595 when it was seen that he intended still
to prevaricate and delay the disclosure of his great secret, he was thrown back
into prison until he should decide to become more communicative. He died the
same year; it is traditionally supposed as a result of injuries sustained in a fall,
during a last desperate attempt to escape.

Chapter X.
THE LAST YEARS
(1589-1608)

I. Dee returns to England - impoverished circumstances - issues an Almanac

1591 - caution in prognostication - the Compendious Rehearsall written as appeal
to Elizabeth - her past promises to him - his pillaged library and wrecked
laboratories - desire to recommence active research at St. Cross.

II. Appointed Warden of Manchester Collegiate Church - the past vicissitudes and
disordered state of this institution - Dee's straitened circumstances there - lack of
influence or patrons - extreme puritanism of Manchester and its uncongeniality
to him - disputes with fellows of the College - renewed rumours of his conjuring -
cautious piety when involved in case of witchcraft (n.48) - public letter to
Archbishop of Canterbury to defend his life and studies and affirm his religious
orthodoxy.

III. Abortive projects for composition - general neglect - unsuccessful appeals to

James I and parliament for protection against slander - returns to Mortlake -
renews angelic conferences - death - library and MSS dispersed (n.72, 73).

IV. Organic connection of Dee's varied activities as related aspects of his

syncretist neo-Platonism - the elements of recognised and permanent value in
his achievements arose neither spontaneously in isolation nor by chance - only a
detailed examination of his work considered in toto and in its philosophical
context can reveal something of the true origins and historical significance of
these, and may, more generally, since Dee is a representative figure, contribute
to the understanding of Renaissance adumbrations of, and contributions to, the
development of modern science.

I. Dee came home to find his house at Mortlake had, during his absence, been
partially sacked and burned by the mob; his library had been pillaged and his
extensively equipped laboratories wrecked. Restoration was costly, and the more
difficult, as Dee found he could command no regular or certain income
whatsoever. However, for a time when it was thought that he was in possession
of the philosopher's stone, or on the verge of discovering it, he enjoyed
something of his former state and favour (1). Notable figures of court and city,
from friendship or curiosity, began once more to flock about him and he resumed
his correspondence with such scholars as Camden, then a master at
Westminster, where Arthur had been sent, and Stowe (2). He continued to
propagate his occult philosophy and revelations, though perhaps with an
increased discretion (3). Kelly's angelic communications he never seems to have
doubted, and a daughter born to him in 1590 he named Madimia, after the most
frequent of his former spiritual visitors. Nor does he seem to have abandoned
experiments in scrying (4), though the only full records of conferences after his
return belong to a period only just before his death, and his household, if not
himself, was still troubled by malignant spirits (5). Despite poverty he built a
gallery in Mortlake Church soon after his return (6), in thankfulness perhaps for a
safe homecoming. Thereafter, probably to allay suspicions of his conduct in this
respect on the Continent, he seems to have become somewhat meddlingly strict
and punctilious in conventional religious matters (7). He became afflicted with
the stone (8), and despite gifts and occasional assistance from many persons,
including George Carey and Lady Cobham, and the promises of assistance by
Elizabeth, which were generally kept, though not always very promptly (9), he
was forced ever more deeply into debt, by heavy borrowings which he had no
very immediate or palpable prospect of repaying. It was probably to raise a little
money and gain a temporary relief from this situation that he put out a popular
almanac and prognostication for the year 1591 (10) - his first printed work since
1577.

This was A triple Almanack for the yeare of our Lorde God 1591 by J.D., bearing
the hopeful device, "Nil tam occultum quod non revelabitur"; it was followed by
"A Prognostication for the same year," headed by the declaration "Deum nescire
est nihil intelligere." The Almanac was "triple" since it included, along with the
"common accompt which in this our realm is used," the "Roman Calendar
according to the late correction of Gregorie," and "The true computation, and
reduction of the moneths to their first and aincient seats." Probably for Dee the
most important aspect of this work was its publicising of his Calendar
Reformation, which he here discusses in the dedication "To his very friende P.L."
and which has been previously noticed (11). The prognostication is also,
however, not without slight interest. In much, and on indifferent topics, it is very
similar to any other popular astrological forecast of this type - advice, based on
the conformation of the planets, and zodiacal aspects, is supplied on the best
times to fell timber, collect firewood, sow seeds, take baths, etc., and such
recommendations tendered as, that "It is good to purge the Moone being in the
watri trigon viz, in Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces." However, under this guise Dee
takes the opportunity to convey much wholesome practical advice, for which
there was no need to invoke the authority of the stars. Thus it is plainly for
sound natural reasons that Dee strictly prohibits to his readers the practice of
blood letting on any subject over seventy or under fourteen years of age. Again,
his distrust of the more particularised aspects of judicial astrology emerges from
the circumspection with which he here indulges in it. That he should predict the
weather was a conventional necessity in such a work, but on this topic he is
cautious to the point of vacuity, only venturing to affirm that the year will be
"indifferent fruitfull," that neither great storms nor great droughts will probably
occur, but that it is possible that "the summer will prove somewhat remisse in
heat" (12); and although he describes fully the eclipse of the moon occurring
that year, he drops the subject at this point altogether, with the words: "which
what it may presage I leave it to others to discusse."

During the years with Kelly, Dee's activities as an author had been confined to
transcribing the angelic discoveries. From the time of this Almanac until his death
he also wrote very little, for he was engaged in desperate attempts to raise
money, while from 1593 the conditions of his life at Manchester further deprived
him of adequate opportunities for composition. The chief interruptions of this
prevailing literary silence were to be biographical documents drawn up as
financial appeals or apologies against charges of sorcery. However, he wrote in
addition to his almanac in 1591, a lost treatise entitled de homini Corpore,
Spiritu, et Anima; sive Microcosmicum totius Philosophiae Naturalis Compendium
lib. 1. and there survives from the following years some dedicatory verses
supplied by him to authors of books on subjects in which he was interested (13).

Dee's poverty however, resulted in his composition in 1592 of a document of

primary biographical importance: The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee his
dutifull declaracion and proof of the course and race of his studious lyfe, for the
space of halfe an hundred yeares, now (by God's favour and helpe) fully spent,
and of the very great injuries, damages, and indignities which for these last nyne
yeares he hath in England sustained, (contrary to her majesties very graciuos will
and express commandment)....(14). Dee had secured a visit by two royal
commissioners in November - Sir John Wolley and Sir Thomas Gorges - to
investigate the state of his affairs, since his penury had by this time become
obvious to all and very pitiable. He received them in his library, one table of
which bore copies of his own writings, printed or in manuscript, and another
testimonials, letters and promises he had received from great personages in the
past, and while they examined these, Dee read this document out to them,
which was thereafter presented to the Queen.

He records here the various offers of places that have been made to him but
never implemented since Elizabeth's accession, who, at that time, had willed that
"after Dr. Mallet, I should have had the Mastership of St. Katharines, wherein Dr.
Willson politickly prevented me"; there had been the Deanery of Gloucester, for
which a caveat had been entered for him Dec. 8th, 1584, "but the same deanery
was afterwards bestowed as one Mr. Man, who was sent into Spaine in her
Majesties service," (15) the half promise of the Provostship of Eton, the grant of
the advowsons of five rectories made to him through Dr. Aubrey in April 1592, to
annual value of L14.11.2d. but of which "there never came a penny unto me of
them," and the promise of the rectory of St. Cross, when a bishopric could be
found for the incumbent Dr. Benet, yet who, although many had since fallen
vacant, had not been promoted. Dee notes that he receives no money for the
two livings long held, of Upton and Long Ledham, for though these had been
granted to him in perpetuity in 1583 he had at that time been so busied, at
Elizabeth's request, on the reformation of the calendar, that he had neglected to
secure the necessary affixing of the great seal. He has lived since his return by
borrowings from friends, or on bonds and sureties and constant pawnings of
plate and furniture "after the same manner went my wives jewells of gold, rings,
bracelets, chaines, and other our rarities, under the thraldome of the usurer's
gripes: till non plus was written upon the boxes at home." The sum total of his
debts accumulated in the past three years he estimates at L833. His manner of
living, he having been "unjustly, unchristianly, and unnaturally so long forced
and driven to such very disgraceful shiftes and full of indignity," has become
exceedingly precarious and this, despite "many gifts and helps for our
housekeeping sent to me by good friends; as vessells of wine, whole braunes,
sheepes, wheat, pepper, nutmegg, ginger, sugar, etc. and other things for the
apparell of me, my wife, and our children," so that now he has no further
resources, and "my onely house is left to be sold outright, and that for halfe the
money it cost me, wherewith to pay some of my debts and not all."(16)

He describes at length the loss he has sustained in the wreck of his library, which
had contained 4000 volumes and "the fourth part of which were the written
bookes....of which some were the autographia of excellent and seldome heard-of
authors." The value of the collection he estimates at well over L2000; which he
justifies in part by producing four remaining manuscripts, one in Greek, two in
French, and one in High Dutch, which had "cost me and my friends for me
L533." There had also been "a great case and frame of boxes," containing
ancient Irish deeds and other records, and similar collections of Welsh and
Norman records, and a collection of seals; the contents had been inscribed in
chalk on the various cases, "which on the poore boxes remaineth; better to be
seen now than the evidences, which before had remained to be seene so many
hundred yeares; but now by undue meanes imbeziled away every one of them."
All this collection - "to my library...a very necessary appendix" - he had willed to
the Tower; the royal heralds had frequently taken notes from them in the past,
"other of the Clerks of the Records in the Tower satt whole dayes in my house in
Mortlake, in gathering rarities to their liking out of them; some antiquaries
likewise had view of them."(17)

He further lists numerous scientific instruments that were destroyed or carried

off in the pillage: a quadrant of five foot semi-diameter, made by Richard
Chancellor, with which he and Chancellor had many observations from 1554
onwards, and on which L20 had been spent in improvements in marking "the
divisions in divers exact manners thereon designed," had been "most barbarously
spoyled and with hammers smitt in peeces." A ten foot cross staff also made by
Richard Chancellor, with similar exact divisions, and mounted in a frame for easy
handling had disappeared, as had also two globes of Mercator's ("recorded on
which were my divers reformations, both geographicall and celestiall," together
with Dee's observations of comets). Others of Mercator's instruments, and
various compasses, with a lodestone which had been broken up and even its
pieces disposed of for more than L20, had suffered the same fate, as had "an
excellent watch-clock made by one Dibbley a noteable workman, long since
dead, by which clock the tyme might sensibly be measured in the seconds of an
houre, that is not to faile the 360th part of an houre. The use of this clock was
very great, more than vulgar."(18) His three laboratories serving for Pyrotechnia,
which he calls "an appendix practical" to his library, and of which the equipment
had cost him above L200, had likewise been wrecked; the total of the damages
he has sustained since leaving England he estimates at L1,510 (19).

Though Dee does not ask for redress for these losses, he does beseech some
present relief "whereby I may prevent that I and myne shall not be registered in
chronicles or annalls to the posterity of true studients for a warning not to follow
my steps." This relief he is confident of receiving, he says, "seeing the blinded
lady Fortune doth not governe in this commonwealth, but justitia and prudentia,
and that in better order, than in Tullies Republica or bookes of Offices they are
laied forth to be followed and performed."(20) He sets out his past services to
Elizabeth and the course of his studies (21) and finally adduces seven reasons
why she should now assist him; the first being: "By this meanes her Majestie
shall highly please the eternall and almighty God, in executing for him and in him
the verity of his merciful promises, generally made to all his sincere
worshippers."(22)

The gift Dee particularly pleads for is the living of St. Cross, of which he had
received a provisional grant more than twenty years previously, through the
good offices of Blanche Parry and Lady Skudamore (23). Some of the reasons he
advances for this choice are of considerable interest (24); revealing at once
Dee's exceeding secretiveness about his activities, his dream of himself as the
centre and director of what is almost a little academy, his apparent intention of
plunging back into wider studies than he had been able to pursue in association
with Kelly, while the mention of a press indicates that, given personal protection
from intruders in the preparatory stages of his researches, he was prepared to
give the world the benefit of his conclusions. He wishes for St. Cross, he writes,
"Because I would faine retyre my self for some yeares ensuing, from the
multitudes and haunt of my common friends, and other, who visit me." The
value of the living will maintain him in a decent manner of life; fuel coal, and
bricks and other necessaries for the laboratory are cheaper there; he will be
nearer the glasshouses of Suffolk, which will assist "my exercises in perspective
and other works philosophicall," and he could oversee the instrument making in
person, ensuring its better performance, and "with better order taking for
secreting some rarities therein from vulgar sophisters' eyes or tongues." The
premises are large enough for lodging "severall mechanicall servants," and to
hold a printing press from which he will issue Greek and Latin works from MS
"and some of my owne,"(25) and will be convenient for entertaining learned
men, and that "in far better manner, than I could in Mortlacensi Hospitali
Philosophorum peregrinantium in tymes past"; thus he will be "better able to
allure and win unto me rare and excellent men from all parts of Christendome
(and perhaps some out of farder regions)" - adding rather curiously "especially
when they shall by me understand, that with me now and in such a solitary and
commodious place, they may dwell in freedome, security, and quietnes, under
her Majesties unviolable protection by her sacred vow and promise to God
warranted, and under her Majesties great seal, to me and my assistants and
servantes, during my life, and a year and a day after, to all and every one of
them authentically and royall confirmed." His final and chief reason is on this
same theme - the convenient closeness to the coast he will there enjoy - "for to
have the more commodious place for the secret arrival of special men to come
unto me (from overseas) there at St. Crosses: some of which men would be
loath to be seene or heard of publickly in court or city." Dee was sixty-five when
he advanced these proposals, from the scheme they divulge however he seems
to have been envisaging the commencement of a new era of industrious study
and discovery in his career.

II. These plans were not to be realized; for though Dee records that "her
Majestie greately pittied my case," sent him a hundred marks, "and said that St.
Crosses I should have," and in the meantime receive L200 p.a. from the
revenues of the bishopric of Oxford (26), nothing further was done, and it was
only after long delays, and further supplications which secured various unfulfilled
promises (27) that Dee was appointed (28) to the Wardenship of Christs College
in Manchester (29). This was a purely ecclesiastical establishment and not a
centre of secular learning; there were also many arduous duties and obligations
resting on the Warden at that time, as the college had seen many vicissitudes
and its finances were thoroughly disordered and its lands largely alienated.
Founded in the fifteenth century for pious purposes by Thomas Lord de la Warre,
it had been dissolved by act of Parliament in the first year of Edward VI's reign,
and the college house demised to the Earl of Derby. Reconstituted by Mary, soon
after Elizabeth's accession it had its independent status largely removed, and the
deaconal powers of the warden were annexed to the regional episcopal
authority. The lands and revenues were brought under the Crown, and its
activities placed under the supervision of the Archbishop of York. It was
designed, said Strype, as "a noble and useful foundation for learning and
propagation of religion in these Northern parts."(30) At one time "It
maintained....godly preachers. Young men were instructed in it for the duties of
the ministry; and to add to the dignity of the establishment, it was ordered
that...the small tithes accruing to the Manchester Church, should be reserved by
the Warden and fellows for the maintenance of hospitality and the relief of the
poor."(31) But an era of corruption set in. Strype gives an account of the pitiful
state of the college in 1570 (32) when court favourites had obtained letters from
the Queen "to make some disadvantageous lease of the best revenues of it," and
they threatened the Warden, Birch, with expulsion if he did not make such leases
of his lands, so that the college revenues were in danger of being quite
swallowed up. Birch, after an unsuccessful attempt to preserve the college, in
which he was aided by Archbishop Parker, by presenting its lands en bloc to St.
Johns College, Cambridge, had resigned in 1570. The new Warden, Thomas
Herle continued the spliation vigorously until he was expelled, with various of the
fellows after an inquiry instituted by Dean Nowell in 1578, when the college was
refounded with fresh statutes (and renamed Christ's College in Manchester).
According to these (33) the college was "to consist of one warden, priest, by
degrees bachelor of divinity" (34) appointed under the great seal; "four fellows,
priests, bachelors of arts" (vacancies to be filled by election by the Warden and
fellows), "two chaplains or vicars," "four laymen and four children skilled in music
to sing, say prayers, read chapters and continue other divine exercises in the
said collegiate church." The Warden's income was not great and was to prove
insufficient to maintain Dee's large household: in addition to the house or house
rent that he was to receive, "We do limit and appoint unto the Warden every day
that he shall be present and resident four shillings," and this was to be forfeited
for every day's absence in excess of the eighty days statutorily permitted leave
"for his recreation and visiting his friends," a clause which if enforced must have
certainly affected Dee who for long periods found it impossible to reside amidst
the turmoil and disorder he found prevailing in the college. Dee's predecessor,
William Chatterton, who succeeded Herle in 1579 and was under the patronage
of Leicester, seems to have been financially better circumstanced than Dee, and
lived more comfortably in Manchester. He attempted to reorganise the college
affairs and commenced numerous lawsuits, which Dee inherited, for the recovery
of college lands that had been leased out at iniquitously low rents, resting his
case on the ground that the college should be regarded as being in dissolution
from the first year of Edward VI, until its refoundation by Elizabeth in 1578.
However, it was said of him, that, when he was translated to the see of Lincoln
in 1595 to make room for Dee, "at his departure he proved another Herle,
making away what he could."(35)

Dee arrived in Manchester 15th February, 1596, and was installed as Warden on
the 20th February (36). Except in its great distance from the court and his
"common friends," the position corresponded in no respect whatsoever with the
advantages he had anticipated from St. Cross; Elizabeth's promise that
something better near at hand should be found for him was never implemented
and he held the Wardenship until his death (37) though his residence in the town
was irregular (the diaries reveal him as in London from 1598-1600 and he does
not seem ever to have left Mortlake after 1605). At Mortlake his position even in
his distress had allowed him to be in some respects a patron as well as associate
of other scholars (38); in Manchester Dee practically starved in the complete
neglect into which he had fallen, and his correspondence with Camden on the
investigations he made of the Roman remains at Castlefield and an inscription,
relating to the Frisian Cohorts once stationed there that he discovered, is one of
the very few links he maintained with his former acquaintances and associates
(39). A vivid picture of the evils of his new life is contained in the letter to Dyer
of 20th September, 1597, accompanying and preceding his extension of General
and Rare Memorials written in snatches of time from his "College cumbers,"
which as been previously discussed (40). He complains bitterly of "the most
intricate, cumbersome and (in manner) lamentable affaires and estate of this
defaced and disordered College of Manchester." The Wardenship "hath browght
me likewise into great debt (41) by reason of the pore Revenue of my stipend (of
only iii a day for me and all mine and that in these times of very great dearth
here....)" His household he has reduced to a minimum, "being now but eighteen
persons most needfull: I, my wife, and our children being the one half of them";
and this family has only been saved from starvation by gifts of food from friends,
that have arrived from Hull, Wales, and "from Dantzig some barrells of Rye":
they subsist on "so hard and thinne a dyat (as) never in all my life, did I, nay,
was I, forced, so long to use: Neyther did ever any household servants of myne
have so slender allowance at their table." The College affairs have "altered, yea,
barred and stayed my whole course of life, and bereaved me of my so many
yeares continued joyes: taken in my most esteemed studies and exercises."
Worst of all, he writes, is the fact that "I knowe no one (as yet) of her Maties
most honourable privy Councaile (42) who willingly and comfortably will listen
unto my pitifull complaint and declaration: How this Colledge of Manchester is
almost become No Colledge in any respect, for I can verifie my worde too
manifestly."

There were many reasons why Manchester proved particularly uncongenial to

Dee: he was engaged in lawsuits externally (43) and in continual internal
quarrels with the fellows (44) and the diaries reveal his time as fully occupied
with general administrative duties, and such tasks as taking surveys of the
boundaries of the college lands. A probable cause of further friction between Dee
and his colleagues - and it may well have been one of the principle ones - was
the extreme puritanism of the college, which had long been the centre for the
denunciation, detection and persecution of catholics in the county. The prisons of
Manchester were filled with recusants, apprehended frequently at the instance of
officials of the college, the fellows of which busied themselves in tormenting the
prisoners by mingled exhortations and threats: the heads of three recusants had
decorated the steeple of the college church in 1584 (45). Chatterton, Dee's
predecessor, had encouraged this tendency in the college. He himself, as Bishop
of Lincoln, was later in trouble with the authorities for favouring extreme
protestant sects - but it was entirely foreign to Dee's spirit, and his eclectically
tolerant religious outlook; while his known associates (46) and public record of
his activities (particularly since memories were still strong of John Bradford, a
Manchester man, associated with the college's activities under Edward VI, largely
responsible for reconciling Lancashire to protestantism. He had been a close
friend of Philpott's, whome Foxe had represented Dee as interrogating, and was
burned by Bonner while Dee was serving as his chaplain) are unlikely to have
assisted in procuring Dee a very cordial reception. The fellows in his day were
turbulently puritanical and rashly outspoken, continually at loggerheads with
parishioners and ecclesiastical authorities, and it is not surprising that details of
religious ceremonial figured in Dee's constant disputes with them (47).

Dee's position was not rendered easier by the renewed charges of conjuring that
were again being raised against him, nor the publicity he received when he
figured prominently, while at Manchester, as a consultant in a case of witchcraft.
Wisely on this occasion he refused to meddle with the diabolic aspects of the
case, and merely gave orthodox spiritual counsel. His diary shows that he lent a
number of books on the subject to a Mr. Hopton, who was the magistrate in
charge of the case, including, to his credit, Wierus' much slandered de Praestigiis
which minimised the powers of witches and attributed so called cases of diabolic
possession to organic nervous disorders (48). Moreover, Dee himself had never
wholly abandoned the practice of scrying, though he never found an assistant so
fluent and satisfactory as Kelly had proved (49) and it is doubtful whether such
an occupation could be kept entirely secret. Renewed rumours had led him in
1595, just before he was presented with his wardenship to print a public letter,
to the archbiship of Canterbury, which had perhaps only served to give further
currency to the slanders. It is one of those works which Ashmole spoke of later
with italicised eloquences: "His great ability in astrologie and the more secret
parts of learning (to which he had a strong propensity and unwearied Fancy)
drew from the Envious and Vulgar many rash, lewd and lying Scandalls upon his
most honest and justifiable Philosophicall Studies; and many times forced him
out of the bitternesse in his Soule (which was even Crucified with the malice of
impudent Tongues) most seriously and fervently to Apologise."(50)

It is almost the last writing of any length we possess from Dee's pen. He entitled
it (51) A Letter containing a most briefe Discourse Apologeticall, with a plaine
Demonstration, and fluent Protestation, for the lawfull, sincere, very faithfull and
Christian Course, of the Philosophicall Studies and exercises, of a certaine
studious Gentleman: An Ancient seruant to her most excellent Maiesty Royall.
The title page shows Dee kneeling on a hassock, inscribed with the words "Spes
Humilitas Patientia," looking up to God (who emerges as an eye, ear and sword-
wielding arm, from the clouds) with a lamb before him, and confronted by a wolf
and the winged many-headed monster Slander; beneath all is set the text (Prov.
XIX.v.9) "Falsus Testis non erit impunitus: & qui loquitur mendacia, peribit."

The letter is a confession of his faith written to satisfy the "godly and impartiall
Christian hearer" (52) "that I have wonderfully labored to finde, follow, use and
point the true straight and most narrow path, leading all true devout zealous
faithfull and constant Christian students ex valle hoc miseriae, et miseria istius
vallis: et tenebrarum Regno: et tenebris istius Regni, ad montem Sanctum Syon,
et ad coelestia tabernacula. All thankes are most due therefore unto the
Almighty. Seeing it so pleased him (even from my youth, by his divine favour,
grace and helpe) to insinuate into my hart, an insatiable zeale and desire to
know his truth; and in him, and by him incessantly to seeke and listen after the
same; by the true philosophicall method and harmony: proceeding and
ascending (as it were) gradatim, from things visible, to consider thinges invisible:
from thinges bodily, to conceive of thinges spirituall; from things transitories, and
momentarie to meditate of things permanent: by things mortall (visible and
invisible) to have some perceiverance of immortality, and to conclude most
briefly: by the most mervailous frame of the Whole World, philosophically viewed
and circumspectly wayed, numbred, and measured" to come to knowledge and
love of its creator. Dee, then, to check (53) "the rash lewde, fond and most
untrue fables and reports of me....which commonly after their first hatching, and
divelish devising, immediately with great speede, are generally all the Realme
overspread," takes his oath "on the perill of my soules damnation" that "from my
youth hitherto, I have used, and still use, good, lawfull honest, christian, and
divinely prescrived meanes, to attain to the knowledge of those truthes, which
are meet and necessary for me to know," as a dutiful servant to the queen, and
"as a very comfortable fellow-member of the body politique governed under the
scepter Royal of our earthly Supreme head (Queen Elizabeth) and as a lively
sympathicall, and true symmetricall fellow member, of that holy and mysticall
body, Catholicklie extended and placed (wheresoever) on the earth," which is
directly illuminated and guided by God, the "head of that body being only our
Redeemer, Christ." He gives a list of his writings in evidence for the archbishop
"to whose censure and judgement I submit all my studies and exercises: yea, all
my bookes, past, present and hereafter to be written, by me." (Nonetheless he
omits to make any mention of his records of his angelical conferences, and the
large numbers of books he had compiled from their dictations.)

III. Dee's days of composition were over, though he has been credited with an
account - the first ever made - of the previous Wardens, and a description of the
church (54); conditions at Manchester, which also interrupted his other
investigations such as alchemical experiment - though he seems never to have
lost hope of discovering the philosopher's stone (55) - supply an obvious reason
for this. However, he notes in this letter an obvious reason for this. However, he
notes in this letter that he had written one work since the Compendious
Rehearsal appeared, and was intending another, but at that time in 1595 he was
still hopefully expectant of "the performance of her Sacred majesties most
gracious and bountifull disposition, resolution, and very royall beginning, to
restore and give unto me (her ancient faithfull servant) some due maintenance:
to leade the rest of my old daies, in some quiet and comfort: with habilitie to
retaine some speedy, faire and orthographicall writers about me; and the same
skilfull in Latine and Greeke (at the least): as well for mine owne bookes, and
workes faire and correctly to be written...(as) of other ancient authors their good
and rare workes, in Greeke or Latine: which by Gods providence, have been
preserved from the spoile made of my library."(56) One of these works dated
1592 he hopes "may, one day, hereafter (by God's helpe) be published, in some
maner very strange," this was entitled Certaine considerations and conferrings
together, of these three sentences, (aunciently accounted as Oracles) Mosce te
ipsum: Homo Homini Deus: Homo Homini Lupus. Of the other he writes "I have
just cause, lately given me to write and publish a Treatise, with Title, 50. [i.e.,
his fiftieth work] De Horizonte Aeternitatis: to make evident, that one Andreas
Libavius, in a booke of his, printed the last yeare, hath unduly considered a
phrase of my Monas Hieroglyphica: to his misliking: by his own unskilfulness in
such matter: and not understanding my apt application thereof, in one of the
very principal places, of the whole book." This work, which he intends to
dedicate to Elizabeth, will have three parts "The first entitled, De Horizonte: liber
Mathematicus et Physicus. The Second, De Aeternitate: liber Theologious,
Metaphysicus et Mathematious. The Third, De Horizonte Aeternitatis: liber
Theologicus, Mathematicus, et Hierotechnicus."(57) This was probably never
written, nor do any other works of his survive after this date, except the treatise
on sea power for Dyer, and his last intentions of composition are perhaps the
"Diary's" brief note of Monday 7 July, 1600. "The morning as I lay in my bed it
cam into my fantasy to write a boke, De differentiis quibusdam corporum et
Spiritum."

The publication of this letter does not seem to have assisted materially in
restoring Dee's declining credit. Through these his last years, Dee appears to
have encountered in Manchester mainly hostility and opposition, and further
abroad, neglect, contempt or suspicion and little acknowledgement of his past
fame. His years on the continent had irreparably broken the current of his life, he
had returned ruined financially, and out of touch with public authorities and
those of influence in court, commercial and scientific circles. His complaint to
Dyer that he is now insufficiently acquainted with any member of the privy
council to rely on a sympathetic hearing, is an indication of this state of affairs
(58). A new generation had grown up since Dee's most useful and generally
acknowledged work had been done. Not merely was his fame obscured by dark
rumours of magical practises, but many of the subjects he had openly engaged
on were perhaps already coming to be regarded less seriously by the generality
of reputable scholars. The period in which the Cabalah, for instance, from its first
proclamation by Christian philosophers as an unexplored field full of golden
promise, was able to command a fairly general respect, and at least a temporary
suspension of judgment as to its merits, was perhaps comparatively brief: for
though as a body of metaphysical doctrine it, and its fundamental assumptions,
were closely concordant with reputable, less esoteric neo-Platonic teaching, its
more flamboyant claims, which had originally excited so much attention, as an
instrument for the discovery of new factual knowledge, and of demonstrating,
unambigiously, philosophical truths and religious dogma, rapidly showed
themselves as illusory, as its methods revealed themselves as capable of
sustaining with equal definiteness and authority whatever whims and fantasies
the individual scholar cared to undertake to derive from their application. The
number of those who would class Dee with the meddling superstitious Cabalists,
"the giddie cockbraynes," denounced by Henry Howard as fools or worse (59),
was probably increasing. We find in this period, for instance, John Chamberlain
despatching some books to a friend ("For lacke of better matter I send you three
or four toyes to pass away the time"), including one of Dee's - probably the
published letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that has just been described -
and commenting: "The letter of Squire's conspiracie is well written, but the other
of Dr. Dee is a ridiculous fable of an old imposturing jugler."(60) Stories
continued to accrue about his name, despite his prudence in the Hartley affair -
Chamberlain some years later in a string of gossip, provides the following,
probably typical, specimen: "The young Lady North is brought to bed of a sonne,
and the common report is that Dr. Dee hath delivered the Lady Sandes of a devill
or of some other strange possession."(61)

There is little of significance to record concerning Dee's last years. The Diaries
show, that, perhaps finding conditions in Manchester intolerable, he retired to
Mortlake for two years, 1598-1600, probably with the consequent forfeiture of
his stipend; but he later returned there and notes a reconciliation with the
fellows in 1600. On the accession of James, Dee again visited London, and made
a last effort to obtain redress for his many grievances. On June 5th, 1604, he
presented a petition to the king demanding a public trial "to be cleared of that
horrible and damnable and to him most grievous and dammageable sclaunder,
generally and for these many yeares last past, in this kingdome raysed, and
continued, by report, and Print against him," "namely that he is or hath bin a
conjuror or caller or invocator of divels." He pleads "to have your Hignesse said
Suppliant to be tryed in the premisses who offereth himselfe willingly to the
punishment of Death; (yea eyther to be stoned to death; or to be buried quicke;
or to be burned unmercifully). If by any due, true and just meanes, the said
name of conjurer, or caller or invocator of Divels or damned Spirites can be
proued to have beene or to be duely or justly reported of him or attributed unto
him." He ends with the hope that James, after Dee's name has been cleared
"will, soone after, more willingly have Princely regard of redressing of your
Highnesse said suppliant his farder griefes, and hinderances; no longer of him
possibly to be endured: so long hath his utter undoing by little and little, beene
most unjustly compassed."(62) Dee followed this up with a printed handbill of a
petition to Parliament on June 8th in doggerel verse, calling for "an Act Generall
against Slander" complaining of his

"Halfe hundred yeeres, which hath had wrong,

By false light tonges and divelish hate"

and that, though

"In sundry sortes this sclaunder great

(Of Conjuror) I have sore blamde,

But wilful, rash, and spitefull heat,

Doth nothing cease to be enflamde."

Dee's proceedings were probably not unconnected with the new Witchcraft act,
which aroused a certain amount of public interest and was passed on June 9th,
1604. But James had little favour to spare for astrologers (63) and none for
suspected magicians - his attitude to Wierus, for instance, whose moderate and
tolerant medical work on the subject Dee had lent to the authorities during the
Hartley case - was, that, "Wierus a German Phisitian, sets out a publick apologie
for all these craftes folkes (i.e., witches) whereby, procuring for their impuritie,
he planely bewrayes himselfe to have bene one of that profession."(64) Dee
received no satisfaction and returned to Manchester, where in 1605 his wife Jane
died of the plague after nursing her children through the disease (65). Our last
glimpses of his life are contained in the concluding pages of Casaubon's printed
True and Faithful Relation, when Dee had finally come home to Mortlake, and
living in such penury that according to Wood he was compelled to sell his books
one at a time to buy his dinners (66) had once more given himself up to the
visions of the shewstone.

This record begins (67) "At Mrs. Goodman her house 1607 March 20"; the style
of the spirits communications has much changed; Dee is addressed now by
Raphael, abruptly and it seems almost contemptuously at the beginning of every
speech merely as "Thou, John Dee." He is told "Thou dost live now in want and
to be beholding unto those who do not love thee, neither in heart do wish thee
well." When he seeks the spirits' advice on how to obtain the favour of the Privy
Council he is informed that Salisbury is his secret enemy, and that the devil has
hardened the king's heart, so "thou art no better account made of unto him
[than] to be such an one that doth deal with Devils, and by `Sorcerers' as you
commonly term them, Witchcraft." When Dee, probably to gain a little money,
promised to assist a Mr. Ecclestone in the detection of the person who had
robbed his house, by these means (four astrological schemes were also erected
by him for this purpose), the spirits prevaricated and were discouragingly
unhelpful. "Thou dost take an hard matter...I would from God advise thee John
Dee to enter as few of these matters as may be" (67A); and the case was similar
when articles were missed from his own house - perhaps pawned by Arthur to
meet household expenses - "I would gladly understand" Dee asked, "who hath
my Silver double-gilt bell-Salt, and other things here of late conveyed from mee";
Raphael "It is past help to have it again...for thy son had it, although he would
not either will confess it." But vague hopes were held out to him of the
philosopher's stone, and though he was now so infirm as to be in almost every
respect dependent upon the continual ministrations of his daughter Katherine,
under the spirits' directions he was made to plan another journey to the
continent though the destination and purpose were never precisely revealed to
him. Dee, however, died in December 1608, before he could realise this project,
Smith declaring "when hee lay sick of his last sickness, his maiden daughter
Katherine conveyed away his bookes, unknown to him about a fortnight before
he dyed, wch when he could understand, it broke his heart."(68)

Aubrey found no tombstone covering Dee's body; "there was on him a marble
but without any inscription, which marble is removed," but from Aubrey's
account it seems that sixty-five years later the villagers could still point out
confidently the unmarked spot where he was buried in the chancel of Mortlake
Church between Mr. Holt and Mr. Miles (69). Local memories of him appear to
have been kindly, for Aubrey on a visit talked of John Dee with Goodwife Paldo,
who had served him as a girl, and who gave an amiable account of how he was
still spoken of in the district, "He was," she said, "a great peacemaker among his
neighbours, insomuch that long after his death, when any of them fell at
variance, they would say they wanted a peacemaker such as Doctor Dee
was."(70)

Among the public at large, more extensively informed of his character and
career, than by brief personal memories, estimates of him were more varied and
ambiguous. Thus Smith writes - though since he is referring to Dee's grave in
Mortlake Church, which seems to have born no inscription, the situation he
envisages is quite imaginary, and introduced as a mere rhetorical flourish to give
point to the comment - "cujus nomen, apud omnes posteros mansurum, alii ob
summam in Mathematicis peritiam cum honore legent; alii ex intuitu humanae
infirmitatis, et ex nimiae credulitatis excusatione miserabuntur; alii vero ab
impium novae religionis in mundum invehendae, zelum studiumque odio, horrori
et execrationi habebunt."(71) The subsequent fortunes of his name have been
related in a previous chapter, but it may be repeated that already in the half
century after Dee's death it figured in a multitude of different contexts. His son
fostered the legends of his alchemical achievements, scientists occasionally still
referred to his work on the new star, technicians, popular writers on
mathematics, and educationalists continued to speak with gratitude and respect
of his edition of Euclid, and the annotations and preface he had appended to it,
the last of which was to be twice reprinted; his manuscript on the calendar was
cited with approval when the prospect of reform recurred periodically as a matter
of astronomical and public interest in England; some of his proposals in General
and Rare Memorials, it seems probable excited the interest and approval of Sir
Harry Vane; connoisseurs of the occult such as Ashmole and Digby assiduously
collected his manuscripts in this kind (72), and very early the Rosicrucians busied
themselves in annexing Dee's memory to embellish their own sect, and in
employing the Monas as a shewstone to reflect the contents of their own
imaginations.

IV. Dee's last years form a pitiful record of neglect, disappointments and grinding
poverty - it is probably because the estate was encumbered with a complex
accumulation of debts that it was not, as it seems, finally wound up until 1624 -
at which date the remains of his library manuscript collections and other papers,
were dispersed (73) - yet his whole life, in many respects was but a succession
of ill successes, and imperfect achievements though all heralded initially by
brilliant promise and accompanied by unsparing and unremitting personnel
industry and diligence in research. It is a strange reflection that Dee may have
anticipated this course of his fortune by a study of his own horoscope - of which
the conventional interpretations would have been, for once, relatively
unequivocal and apt - indeed early in life he had marked with heavy
memorandum signs (in the margin is written " et applicationibus") a group of
particular astrological aphorisms at the back of his Ptolemy, selecting especially
one which reads - and at Dee's nativity Jupiter was in the ninth degree of cancer,
practically on the cusp of the eighth house, that is, almost the furthest possible
removed situation from the ascendant - "Si iuppiter fuerit in cancro remotus ab
ascendete: nec ipeditus ab aliquo erit quide natus rationalibus et in scientia valde
peritus diliget tamen solitaria vita: nec habebit laudem de scientia sua."(74)
Nonetheless, despite personal failure, and the fragmentary nature of so many of
his endeavours as they emerge from surviving traces - his career is of some
historical significance. The range of activities, which allowed him to be regarded
in so many different fashions after his death, may perhaps be looked upon as
merely another instance of that undiscriminating dilettantism with which many
Renaissance scholars have sometimes been charged. But Dee, accepting
grandiose ideals of the possibility of the minds' attaining to universal knowledge,
seems to have looked on all his activities and interests, however superficially
dissimilar, as essentially related, and in often rather unexpected ways, as making
important contributions to each other. He believed, and indeed this is detectable
in his work, and a main justification for such a survey as the present, that his
researches were made from a fundamentally unified set of premisses, and that
they were only more particular aspects, or applications, of a coherent
philosophical theory. This might be called a neo-Platonic mathematicism, in
which the scientific, metaphysical and mystical or "superstitious" elements are
inextricably mingled, for it would be a false simplifications arbitrarily to grant
priority to any set of these - to maintain, for instance, that he was led to profess
a Platonic idealism merely in search of a general justification for the
mathematical studies to which he had an innate personal aptitude, and which
were insufficiently valued or encouraged by an older well-established school of
philosophy, or to claim on the other hand that his mathematical studies were
merely a collateral consequence of his devotion to doctrines to which he was on
other grounds temperamentally attracted, and which incidentally prescribed
mathematical studies as a path to magical, divine and "occult" truths. Dee's life
and writings illustrate exceptionally well both the dangers and potentialities of
these doctrines in his day, as well as the organic association that the varied and
disparate features they capaciously embraced seemed to possess for thinkers of
the late Renaissance. His edition of Euclid and the preface he attached to it was
a contribution of great importance to intellectual progress, to mathematical
studies, and to the philosophy of the exact sciences in England; such a claim for
the Preface, as a generalisation, is indeed by now a fairly well-established
commonplace (a detailed exploration of its sources, contents and influence is
designed to form the subject of a subsequent complementary work to this
present survey). Nevertheless, though the positive value of this single
achievement, for example, is very obvious, a full comprehension in historical
terms of its origin and the conditions, personal and pertaining more widely to the
culture of its age, which made possible its generation, appearance and
fruitfulness, involves the examination and display of many beliefs and doctrines
perhaps quite ephemeral in themselves and which have appeared to be the
judgment of later epochs only fantastic, absurd, thoroughly baseless,
unnecessary, even intellectually perverse - speculations (75), but which
nonetheless in their day provided, psychological, philosophical, or even material
assistance in the development and persistence of teachings, and modes of
thought, and investigation, of which the increasingly apparent utility in a later
period provided a simple justification, and warrantage for survival. Dee's
personality, interests, fields of study and career offer a not untypical - and
therefore valuable - example of the maintaining contemporary conditions of
which such lasting achievements - to a later age appearing deceptively self-
sufficient, self-explanatory, and needing no apology, their contents an
unquestioned reason for their production - as the 1570 Euclid, must be regarded
as particular results, organically emerging from an extremely complex intellectual
context, and one very foreign in character to those through which such works
have survived, and continued to be recognised as valuable. The details of Dee's
life and researches or those of others of his time, offer them an illuminating view
of the environment and constituent elements, the formative circumstances and
the embryonic stages, of what subsequently emerged triumphantly as important,
conditioning features of later thought, as scientific truths, or as accepted
platitudes regarded as perhaps almost self-evident. For as Cassirer commented
on the general sixteenth century intellectual scene - and he has just spoken both
of Carden's emphasis on "daemons" and Kepler's polemic against those such as
Fracosboro who belittled the logical worth of mathematics - "Durch den dichten
Schleier hindurch, mit dem Phantasie und Aberglauben sie umhullen treten hier
dennoch die Umrisse und Formes eines neuen Blides der ausserren Wirklichkeit
heraus. Die intellectuelle Arbeit der Zeit fuhrt nur selten zu sichern und
fruchtbaren Ergebnissen, and die die spatere direkt anzuknupfen vermochte:
aber sie deutet gleichsam in sumbolischer Form und Sprache suf allgemeine
gedankliche Prozesse voraus, die sich in Aufbau der Wissenschaft wiederholen
werden."(76)

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FREQUENTLY USED IN TEXT OR NOTES

Aphorisms, the : Dee's Propaideumata Aforistika, 1558.

B.M. Lib. : British Museum.

C.R. : Dee's Compendious Rehersall

(in Chetham Misc. I. 1851).

Diary, the : The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee

Ed. Halliwell 1842.

F.R.D. : Dee's Famous and Rich Discoveries (M.S.)

G.A. : Robert Recorde's Grounde of Artes (1543) etc.

G.R.M. : Dee's General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the perfect art of
Navigation 1576.

H.L.B. : Huntington Library Bulletin.

H.L.Q. : Huntington Library Quarterly.

J.H.I. : Journal of the History of Ideas.

Monas, the : Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica 1563.

N.Q. : Notes and Queries.

Preface, the : Dee's preface to the English Euclid 1570.

R.C.P. Lib. : Library of the Royal College of Physicians.

T.F.R. : A True and Faithful Relation of what passed...

between Dr. Dee....and some spirits.

Ed. M. Casaubon 1659.

T.I.S. : Cudworth's True Intellectual System of the Universe.

(1743 ed.)

Index

A Discoverie of Sundrie Errors

Acontius

Admonitio adversus Astrologiam

Agrippa

Ainsworth

Al Jabir

Albumazar

algebra

Alkindi

An Astrological Discourse

Angel

Aphorisms

Archangelo de Burgo Nova

Archimedes

Aristophanes

Aristotle

Ars Demonstrativa
Arthur

Ashmole

astrology

astronomy

Aubrey

Augustine

Averroes

Avicenna

Bacon

Balantius

Ballard

Behemoth

Bentham

Billingsley

Blackwoods

Bodin

Boethius

Bonner

Borrett

Boyle

Brahe

Bruno
Brunschvicg

Burleigh

Bussy D'Ambois

Butler

Cambridge

Camden

Campbell

Cardan

Carleton

Casaubon

Chalcidius

Chamber

Chapman

Charbonnel

Cheke

Cheradamus

Chetham

Cicero

Commandine

Compendious Rehearsall

Copernicus

Cosmographical Glasse
Coxe

Cratylus

Crescas

Crowley

Cruikshank

Cudworth

Cunningham

Cusa

Cusanus

D'Israeli

Daemonologie

de Caelo

de Anima

De Vanitate

De Verbo Mirifico

De la Demonomanie

De Heptarchia Mystica

De Givry

De Arte Cyclognomica

Descartes

Dickens

Digges
Dircks

Dreyers

Dyer

Elizabeth

Ellis

Ennead

Erasmus

Euclid

Faerie Queene

Fagin

Faust

Fawkes

Feild

Fell Smith

Ficino

Florentines

Fludd

Foxe

Frobisher

Galileo

Gemma

geometry
Gilbert

Glastonbury

Godwin

Granger

Greene

Gylby

Halliwell

Harvey

Hearne

Heraclitus

Herbert

Hermogenes

Heydon

Hitchcock

Hooke

Ibn Gebirol

James

John of Glastonbury

Johnson

Junctinus

Kelly

Khumroth
Kocher

Lactantius

Laski

Leloger

Leybourne

Library Royall

Louvain

Lull

Lyson

Mackay

Madimi

Madoc

magic

Manchester

Marlowe

Marquess of Worcester

Mary

mathematics

Melancto

Mercator

Mercury

Mersenne
Monad

Monas

Morley

Morrison

Mortlake

Museé des Sorciers

Nash

Nashe

Naudaeus

Naude

navigation

Newton

Nipho

Northumberland

Norton

occult

Occult Philosophy

Offusius

Ordinall

Orpheus

Oxford

Pantheus
Paracelsus

Perry

Peucer

Philosopher's Stone

Pickering

Pico

Picus Mirandules

Plato

Pletho

Plotinus

Pompanazzi

Porphyry

Porta

Postel

Preface

Prospero

Protagoras

Ptolemy

Pythagorus

quadrivium

Ralegh

Raleigh
Ralph

Ramism

Ramist

Ramus

Recorde

Regiomontanus

Reuchlin

Rheims College

Ripley

Roby

Rosicrucian

Royal Society

Rudolf

Rudolph

Scaliger

Sceppelius

Schonerus

Schopenhauer

Science

Selden

Sibley

Sidrophel
Smith

Socrates

Speculum Unitatis

Spenser

Spinoza

Spiritual Diaries

Steganographia

Stephan

Steucho

Sydney

Taylor

Theaetetus

Thomism

Three Worlds

Timaeus

Tonstall

Treatise against Judiciall Astrology

Trismegistus

Trithemius

True and Faithful Relation

Tudor Geography

Tymme
Urso

Vitruvius

Walpole

Wedel

Whitehead

Worsop

Zieglerus