Timaeus (77-81)

Tim.

And when all the limbs and parts of the mortal living creature had been naturally joined together, it was so that of necessity its life consisted in fire and air; and because of this it wasted away when dissolved by these elements or left empty thereby; wherefore the Gods contrived succour for the creature. Blending it with other shapes and senses they engendered a substance akin to that of man, so as to form another living creature: such are the cultivated trees and plants and seeds which have been trained by husbandry and are now domesticated amongst us; but formerly the wild kinds only existed, these being older than the cultivated kinds. For everything, in fact, which partakes of life may justly and with perfect truth be termed a living creature. Certainly that creature which we are now describing partakes of the third kind of soul, which is seated, as we affirm, between the midriff and the navel,[*] and which shares not at all in opinion and reasoning and mind but in sensation, pleasant and painful, together with desires. For inasmuch as it continues wholly passive and does not turn within itself around itself, repelling motion from without and using its own native motion, it is not endowed by its original constitution with a natural capacity for discerning or reflecting upon any of its own experiences. Wherefore it lives indeed and is not other than a living creature, but it remains stationary and rooted down owing to its being deprived of the power of self-movement. And when our Superiors had generated all these kinds as nutriment for us inferior beings, they channelled out our body itself, like as if they were cutting channels in gardens, to the end that it might be irrigated as it were by an inflowing stream. And firstly, beneath the junction of the skin and flesh they cut for hidden channels two veins[*] along the back, seeing that the body was in fact double, with right side and left; and these they drew down along by the spine, keeping between them the spermatic marrow, in order that this might thrive as much as possible, and that the stream of moisture from there, being in a downward course, might flow easily to the other parts and cause the irrigation to be uniform. After this they clave the veins round the head and interlaced them, and drew them opposite ways, bending those from the right of the head to the left and those from the left to the right, in order that they, together with the skin, might serve as a bond between the head and the body, seeing that the head was not encircled by sinews at the crown; and in order, also, that the sense-impressions derived from the parts on either side might be manifest to the whole body.

Tim.

Thereupon they arranged the irrigation on some such plan as this—a plan which we shall perceive more easily when we have first agreed upon the following postulates. All bodies composed of smaller particles shut in the larger, but those composed of larger particles cannot shut in the smaller; and fire, because of all the elements it has the smallest particles,[*] passes through water and earth and air and all things composed thereof, and nothing can shut it in. We must conceive that the same law holds good of the action of our belly. Whenever foods and drinks flow into it it shuts them in, but air and fire, being of smaller particles than its own structure, it cannot shut in. These elements, therefore, God employed to provide irrigation from the belly to the veins, weaving out of air and fire a veil of mesh-work like unto a fish-weel, having two innerweels at its entrance; and one of these inner-weels He wove over again so as to make it bifurcated; and from the inner-weels He stretched as it were ropes all over it in a circle up to the extremities of the veil. Now the inward parts of the veil He constructed wholly of fire, but the inner-weels and the envelope of air; and taking this He placed it round about the living creature that was molded in the following manner. The part consisting of the inner-weels He let down into the mouth; and since this part was twofold, He let down one inner-weel by way of the windpipe into the lungs, and the other into the belly alongside the windpipe. And cleaving the former of these weels in two He gave to both sections a common outlet by way of the channels of the nose, so that when the first conduit by way of the mouth failed to act, its streams as well should be plenished from this. The rest of the enveloping mesh-work He made to grow round all the hollow part of our body; and He caused all this at one time to flow gently into the inner-weels, seeing they were of air, and at another time the weels to flow back into it. And inasmuch as the body was porous, He caused the veil to pass in through it and out again; and the inner rays of fire that were enclosed within it He made to follow the air as it moved in either direction; whence it comes that, so long as the mortal living creature preserves its structure, this process goes on unceasingly. And to this kind of process the Giver of Titles[*] gave, as we say, the names of inspiration and expiration. And the whole of this mechanism and its effects have been created in order to secure nourishment and life for our body, by means of moistening and cooling.

Tim.

For as the respiration goes in and out the inward fire attached thereto follows it; and whenever in its constant oscillations this fire enters in through the belly

and lays hold on the meats and drinks, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small particles it disperses them through the outlets by which it passes and draws them off to the veins, like water drawn into channels from a spring; and thus it causes the streams of the veins to flow through the body as through a pipe. Once again let us consider the process of respiration, and the causes in virtue of which it has come to be such as it now is. This, then, is the way of it. Inasmuch as no void exists[*] into which any of the moving bodies could enter, while the breath from us moves outwards, what follows is plain to everyone— namely, that the breath does not enter a void but pushes the adjacent body from its seat; and the body thus displaced drives out in turn the next; and by this law of necessity every such body is driven round towards the seat from which the breath went out and enters therein, filling it up and following the breath; and all this takes place as one simultaneous process, like a revolving wheel, because that no void exists. Wherefore the region of the chest and that of the lungs when they let out the breath become filled again by the air surrounding the body, which filters in through the porous flesh and circulates round. And again, when the air is repelled and passes out through the body it pushes the inspired air round and in by way of the passages of the mouth and of the nostrils. The originating cause of these processes we must assume to be this. Every living creature has its inward parts round the blood and the veins extremely hot, as it were a fount of fire residing within it; and this region we have, in fact, likened to the envelope of the fish-weel, saying that all that was extended at its middle was woven of fire, whereas all the other and outward parts were of air. Now we must agree that heat, by Nature’s law, goes out into its own region to its kindred substance; and inasmuch as there are two outlets, the one out by way of the body, the other by way of the mouth and the nose, whenever the fire rushes in one direction it propels the air round to the other, and the air which is thus propelled round becomes heated by streaming into the fire, whereas the air which passes out becomes cooled. And as the heat changes its situation and the particles about the other outlet become hotter, the hotter body in its turn tends in that direction, and moving towards its own substance propels round the air which is at the former outlet; and thus the air, by continually undergoing and transmitting the same affections, causes inspiration and expiration to come about as a result of this double process, as it were a wheel that oscillates backwards and forwards.

Tim.

Moreover, we must trace out in this way the causes of the phenomena connected with medical cupping-glasses, and the causes of deglutition, and of projectiles, whether discharged aloft or flying over the surface of the earth; and the causes also of all the sounds[*] which because of their quickness or slowness seem shrill or deep, and the movement of which is at one time discordant because of the irregularity of the motion they cause within us, and at another time concordant because of its regularity. For the slower sounds overtake the motions of the earlier and quicker sounds when the latter begin to stop and have already fallen to a speed similar to that with which the slower sounds collide with them afterwards and move them; and when the slower overtake the quicker sounds they do not perturb them by imposing upon them a different motion, but they attach to them the beginning of a slower motion in accord with that which was quicker but is tending to cease; and thus from shrill and deep they blend one single sensation, furnishing pleasure thereby to the unintelligent, and to the intelligent that intellectual delight[*] which is caused by the imitation of the divine harmony[*] manifested in mortal motions. Furthermore, as regards all flowings of waters, and fallings of thunderbolts, and the marvels concerning the attraction of electron[*] and of the Heraclean stone[*]—not one of all these ever possesses any real power of attraction; but the fact that there is no void, and that these bodies propel themselves round one into another, and that according as they separate or unite they all exchange places and proceed severally each to its own region,—it is by means of these complex and reciprocal processes that such marvels are wrought, as will be evident to him who investigates them properly. Moreover, the process of respiration—with which our account commenced—came about, as we previously stated, in this manner and by these means. The fire divides the foods, and rises through the body following after the breath; and as it rises, with the breath it fills the veins from the belly by drawing into them from thence the divided particles. And it is owing to this that in all living creatures the streams of nutriment course in this way through the whole body. And inasmuch as these nutritive particles are freshly divided and derived from kindred substances,—some from fruits, and some from cereals, which God planted for us for the express purpose of serving as food,[*]—they get all varieties of colors because of their commingling, but red is the color that runs through them most of all, it being a natural product of the action of the fire in dividing the liquid food and imprinting itself thereon.[*]

Tim.

Wherefore the color of the stream which flows through the body acquired an appearance such as we have described; and this stream we call blood, which is the nutriment of the flesh

and of the whole body, each part drawing therefrom supplies of fluid and filling up the room of the evacuated matter. And the processes of filling and evacuating take place just as the motion of everything in the Universe takes place, namely, according to the law that every kindred substance moves towards its kind. For the bodies which surround us without are always dissolving us and sending off and distributing to each species of substance what is akin thereto; while the blood-particles, again, being minced up within us and surrounded by the structure of each creature as by a Heaven, are compelled to copy the motion of the whole; hence, when each of the particles that are divided up inside moves towards its kin, it fills up again the emptied place. And when what passes out is more than the inflow every creature decays, but when less, it increases. Now when the structure of the whole creature is new, inasmuch as the triangles which form its elements[*] are still fresh, and as it were straight from the stocks, it keeps them firmly interlocked one with another, and the whole mass of it is of a soft composition, seeing that it is newly produced from marrow and nourished on milk; and as the triangles contained therein, which have invaded it from without and go to form the meats and drinks, are older and weaker than its own, it divides and overcomes them with its own new triangles, and thus renders the creature large by feeding it on many similar substances. But when the root of the triangles[*] grows slack owing to their having fought many fights during long periods, they are no longer able to divide the entering triangles of the food and assimilate them to themselves, but are themselves easily divided by those which enter from without; and in this condition every animal is overpowered and decays; and this process is named old age. And finally, when the bonds of the triangles in the marrow which have been fitly framed together no longer resist the strain but fall asunder, they let slip in turn the bonds of the soul, and it, when thus naturally set loose, flies out gladly; for whereas every process which is contrary to nature is painful, that which takes place naturally is pleasurable. So too, in like manner, the death which occurs in consequence of disease or by wounds is painful and violent, but that which follows on old age and constitutes a natural end is the least grievous of deaths and is accompanied by more of pleasure than of pain.