Chapter viii. Of the Number Five, and the Scale thereof. The number five is of no small force, for it consists of the first even, and the first odd, as of a Female, and Male; For an odd number is the Male, and the even the Female. Whence Arithmeticians call that the Father, and this the Mother. Therefore the number five is of no small perfection, or vertue, which proceeds from the mixtion of these numbers: It is also the just midle of the universal number, viz. ten. For if you divide the number ten, there will be nine and one, or eight and two, or seven and three, or six and four, and every collection makes the number ten, and the exact midle alwaies is the number five, and its equidistant; and therefore it is called by the Pythagoreans the number of Wedlock, as also of justice, because it divides the number ten in an even Scale. There be five senses in man, sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling: five powers in the soul, Vegetative, Sensitive, Concupiscible, Irascible, Rationall: five fingers on the hand: five wandering Planets in the heavens, according to which there are five-fold terms in every sign. In Elements there are five kinds of mixt bodies, viz. Stones, Metals, Plants, Plant-Animals, Animals, and so many kinds of Animals, as men, four-footed beasts, creeping, swimming, flying. And there are five kinds by which all things are rnade of God, viz. Essence, the same, another, sense, motion. The Swallow brings forth but five young, which she feeds with equity, beginning with the eldest, and so the rest, according to their age. Also this number hath great power in expiations: For in holy things it drives away Divels. In naturall things, it expels poysons. It is also called the number of fortunateness, and favour, and it is the Seale of the Holy Ghost, and a bond that binds all things, and the number of the cross, yea eminent with the principall wounds of Christ, whereof he vouchsafed to keep the scars in his glorifyed body. The heathen Philosophers did dedicate it as sacred to Mercury,
