The Sphere of Johannes de Sacrobosco

PREFACE.

Nor has anyone correctly grounded in philosophy ever thought otherwise. For even the physicians, who are accustomed to seek the causes of things in matter rather than in the sky, nevertheless refer many things to the constitutions of the stars, as the little book that is attributed to Hippocrates, On Air, Waters, and Places, shows. And these things do not differ from Christian doctrine, which, although it teaches us that all things are governed divinely, nevertheless does not abolish the natural actions and significations of things; as is apparent in the nourishing of bodies, to which, although God imparts life and motion, He nonetheless commands that they be cherished and fed with food, drink, and other things established for preserving life. And it is a prudence worthy of a Christian to distinguish which are the common actions of God and nature, and which are the proper actions of God placed above nature. And to speak properly of man, it seems to me, when I think about it, that three types of actions fall upon men. It is most well-known that which proceeds from the nature of man, from sense, and from reason. To this pertain the inclinations which follow the temperaments of the qualities. For we see infinite dissimilarities of talents, which certainly produce dissimilar actions, just as the poet truly signified when he said:

"Each person follows the seeds of his own nature."

For what is so accepted among physicians as that tā ēthē kai tā pathē characters and passions imitate the disposition of the body? And the thing itself speaks: that characters cannot exist in a bilious man, but rather immoderate impulses are excited in him, like winds, great and vehement passions which reason can only with the greatest difficulty govern or bend. But if anyone considers the diverse natures of regions and the diverse talents of peoples, what other cause of this dissimilarity could he show than the nature of the sky?