But now, let us see how the Greeks named it, and how they deemed of
it. The Greeks called him a poet, which name hath, as the most
excellent, gone through other languages. It cometh of this word
_poiein_, which is, to make: wherein I know not, whether by luck or
wisdom, we Englishmen have met with the Greeks, in calling him a maker:
which name, how high and incomparable a title it is, I had rather were
known by marking the scope of other sciences, than by my partial
allegation.
There is no art delivered to mankind, that hath not the works of nature
for his principal object, without which they could not consist, and
on which they so depend, as they become actors and players, as it were,
of what nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer look upon
the stars, and by that he seeth, setteth down what order nature hath
taken therein. So do the geometrician, and arithmetician, in their
diverse sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in times, tell you
which by nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath
his name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues,
vices, and passions of man; and follow nature (saith he) therein, and
thou shalt not err.
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