Timaeus — Plato
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use of nails for many purposes ; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the extremities of the limbs.
And now that all the parts and members of the mortal 77 animal had come together, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy : They mingled a nature akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kind of animal.
These are the trees and plants and seeds which have been improved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us ; anciently there were only the wild kinds, which are older than the cultivated.
For everything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and the animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of soul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them.
For this nature is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repelling the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is not endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living being, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power of self-motion.
Now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be food for us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various channels through the body as through a garden, that it might be watered as from a running stream. In the first place, they cut two hidden channels or veins down the back where the skin and the flesh join, which answered severally to the right and left side of the body.
These they let down along the backbone, so as to have the marrow of generation between them, where it was most likely to flourish, and in order that the stream coming down from above might flow freely to the other parts, and equalize the irrigation. In the next place, they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing them, they sent them in opposite directions ; those coming from the right side they
Timaeus. TiMAEl'S. spring from man. Seeing that mankind would need food, trees and plants were created. These are animals and have life, being endowed with the lower mortal soul.
Next the gods cut two channels down the back, one on either side of the spine. After this they diverted the veins on the right of the head to the left of the body, and vice versa.
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The illustration of the fish -trap.
Timaeus. TlMAEUS.
The underlying principle of the irrigation of the body is that finer elements can penetrate larger, but not larger elements finer.
So the surface of the trunk was made lik«; a weel of fire and air, containing within itself two Cesser weels (the chest and belly) of air. Alternately the interior of the greater weel which consists of fire flows into the lesser weels, and the lesser weels into it. The outer weel also finds its way in and out of the body, — the fire within sent to the left of the body, and those from the left they diverted towards the right, so that they and the skin might together form a bond which should fasten the head to the body, since the crown of the head was not encircled by sinews ; and also in order that the sensations from both sides might be distributed over the whole body.
And next, they ordered the water-courses of the body in a manner which I will describe, and which will be more easily understood if we begin by admitting that all things which have lesser parts retain the greater, but the greater cannot retain the lesser. Now of all natures fire has the smallest parts, and therefore penetrates through earth and water and air and their compounds, nor can anything hold it.
And a similar principle applies to the human belly ; for when meats and drinks enter it, it holds them, but it cannot hold air and fire, because the particles of which they consist are smaller than its own structure.
These elements, therefore, God employed for the sake of distributing moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving togetner a network of fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance two lesser weels ; further he constructed one of these with two openings, and from the lesser weels he extended cords reaching all round to the extremities of the network.
All the interior of the net he made of fire, but the lesser weels and their cavity, of air. The network he took and spread over the newly-formed animal in the following manner: — He let the lesser weels pass into the mouth; there were two of them, and one he let down by the air-pipes into the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes into the belly.
The former he divided into two branches, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the* nose, so that when the way through the mouth did not act, the streams of the mouth as well were replenished through the nose.
With the other cavity (i. e. of the greater weel) he enveloped the hollow parts of the body, and at one time he made all this to flow into the lesser weels, quite gently, for they are composed of air, and at another time he caused the lesser weels to flow back again ; and the net he made to find a way in and out through the pores of the body, and the rays of fire which are bound fast within followed the passage of the air either way,
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