their several names and offices he there sets down, and which Dionysius of
Angels, will have several spirits for several countries, men, offices, &c.,
which live about them, and as so many assisting powers cause their
operations, will have in a word, innumerable, as many of them as there be
stars in the skies. [1170]Marcilius Ficinus seems to second this opinion,
out of Plato, or from himself, I know not, (still ruling their inferiors,
as they do those under them again, all subordinate, and the nearest to the
earth rule us, whom we subdivide into good and bad angels, call gods or
devils, as they help or hurt us, and so adore, love or hate) but it is most
likely from Plato, for he relying wholly on Socrates, _quem mori potius
quam mentiri voluisse scribit_, whom he says would rather die than tell a
falsehood, out of Socrates' authority alone, made nine kinds of them: which
opinion belike Socrates took from Pythagoras, and he from Trismegistus, he
from Zoroastes, first God, second idea, 3. Intelligences, 4. Arch-Angels,
5. Angels, 6. Devils, 7. Heroes, 8. Principalities, 9. Princes: of which
some were absolutely good, as gods, some bad, some indifferent _inter deos
et homines_, as heroes and daemons, which ruled men, and were called genii,
or as [1171]Proclus and Jamblichus will, the middle betwixt God and men.
Principalities and princes, which commanded and swayed kings and countries;
and had several places in the spheres perhaps, for as every sphere is
higher, so hath it more excellent inhabitants: which belike is that
Galilaeus a Galileo and Kepler aims at in his nuncio Syderio, when he will
have [1172]Saturnine and Jovial inhabitants: and which Tycho Brahe doth in
some sort touch or insinuate in one of his epistles: but these things
[1173]Zanchius justly explodes, _cap. 3. lib. 4._ P. Martyr, _in 4. Sam.
28._

So that according to these men the number of ethereal spirits must needs be
infinite: for if that be true that some of our mathematicians say: if a
stone could fall from the starry heaven, or eighth sphere, and should pass