Timaeus — Plato

3/6 Analysis 84, 85. Tiniaais. longer renewed from the muscles and sinews, and instead of being Analysis. oily and smooth and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, then the fleshy parts fall away and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh gets back again into the circulation of the blood, and makes the previously mentioned disorders still greater.

There are other and worse diseases which are prior to these ; as when the bone through the density of the flesh does not receive sufficient air, and becomes stagnant and gangrened, and crumbling away passes into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh returns again into the blood. Worst of all and most fatal is the disease of the marrow, by which the whole course of the body is reversed.

There is a third class of diseases which are produced, some by wind and some by phlegm and some by bile. When the lung, which is the steward of the air, is obstructed by rheums, and in one part no air, and in another too much, enters in, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, and other parts are distorted by the excess of air ; and in this manner painful diseases are produced.

The most painful are caused by wind generated within the body, which gets about the great sinews of the shoulders — these are termed tetanus. The cure of them is difficult, and in most cases they are relieved only by fever. White 85 phlegm, which is dangerous if kept in, by reason of the air bubbles, is not equally dangerous if able to escape through the pores, although it variegates the body, generating divers kinds of leprosies.

If, when mingled with black bile, it disturbs the courses of the head in sleep, there is not so much danger; but if it assails those who are awake, then the attack is far more dangerous, and is called epilepsy or the sacred disease. Acid and salt phlegm is the source of catarrh.

Inflammations originate in bile, which is sometimes relieved by boils and swellings, but when detained, and above all when mingled with pure blood, generates many inflammatory disorders, disturbing the position of the fibres which are scattered about in the blood in order to maintain the balance of rare and dense which is necessary to its regular circulation.

If the bile, which is only stale blood, or liquefied flesh, comes in little by little, it is congealed by the fibres and produces internal cold and shuddering. But when it enters with more of a flood it overcomes the fibres by its heat and reaches the spinal marrow, and burning up the

Analysis 85-87. 377 cables of the soul sets her free from the body. When on the Ttmofus. other hand the body, though wasted, still holds out, then the bile analysis. 86 is expelled, like an exile from a factious state, causing diarrhoeas and dysenteries and similar disorders.

The body which is diseased from the effects of fire is in a continual fever ; when air is the agent, the fever is quotidian ; when water, the fever intermits a day; when earth, which is the most sluggish element, the fever intermits three days and is with difficulty shaken off. Of mental disorders there are two sorts, one madness, the other ignorance, and they may l)c justly attributed to disease.

Excessive pleasures or pains are among the greatest diseases, and deprive men of their senses. When the seed about the spinal marrow is too abundant, the body has too great pleasures and pains ; and during a great part of his life he who is the subject of them is more or less mad.

He is often thought bad, but this is a mistake ; for the truth is that the intemperance of lust is due to \ the fluidity of the marrow produced by the loose consistency of | the bones. And this is true of vice in general, which is commonly regarded as disgraceful, whereas it is really involuntary and arises from a bad habit of the body and evil education.

In like manner the soul is often made vicious by the influence of bodily pain ; the briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander over the body and find no exit, but are compressed within, and mingle 87 their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are carried to the three places of the soul, creating infinite varieties of trouble and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, of forgetfulness and stupidity.

When men are in this evil plight of body, and evil forms of government and evil discourses are superadded, and there is no education to save them, they are corrupted through two causes ; but of neither of them are they really the authors. For the planters arc to blame rather than the plants, the educators and not the educated. Still, we should endeavour to attain virtue and avoid vice ; but this is part of another subject.

Enough of disease — I have now to speak of the means by which the mind and body are to be preserved, a higher theme than the other. The good is tlie beautiful, and the beautiful is the symmetrical, and there is no greater or fairer symmetry than that of body and soul, as the contrary is the greatest of deformities. A leg or an arm too long or too short is at once ugly and unservlce-

3/8 Analysis 87-90. rimaetis. able, and the same is true if body and soul are disproportionate. Analysis. For a Strong and impassioned soul may ' fret the pigmy body to %2> decay,' and so produce convulsions and other evils. The violence of controversy, or the earnestness of enquiry, will often generate inflammations and rheums which are not understood, or assigned to their true cause by the professors of medicine.

And in like manner the body may be too much for the soul, darkening the reason, and quickening the animal desires. The only security is to preserve the balance of the two, and to this end the mathematician or philosopher must practise gymnastics, and the gymnast must cultivate music. The parts of the body too must be treated in the same way — they should receive their appropriate exercise.

For the body is set in motion when it is heated and cooled by the elements which enter in, or is dried up and moistened by external things ; and, if given up to these processes when at rest, it is liable to destruction. But the natural mation, as in the world, so also in the human frame, produces harmony and divides hostile powers.

The best exercise is the spontaneous 89 motion of the body, as in gymnastics, because most akin to the motion of mind ; not so good is the motion of which the source is in another, as in sailing or riding; least good when the body is at rest and the motion is in parts only, which is a species of motion imparted by physic. This should only be resorted to by men of sense in extreme cases ; lesser diseases are not to be irritated by medicine.

For every disease is akin to the living being and has an appointed term, just as life has, which depends on the form of the triangles, and cannot be protracted when they are worn out. And he who, instead of accepting his destiny, endeavours to prolong his life by medicine, is likely to multiply and magnify his diseases. Regimen and not medicine is the true cure, when a man has time at his disposal.

Enough of the nature of man and of the body, and of training and education. The subject is a great one and cannot be adequately treated as an appendage to another. To sum up all in a word : there are three kinds of soul located within us, and any one of them, if remaining inactive, becomes very weak; if exercised, very strong. Wherefore we should duly train and exercise 90 all three kinds. The divine soul God lodged in the head, to raise us, like plnnts