The works of Plato · Plato
SOCRATES, TIMÆUS, CRITIAS, HERMOCRATES.
LVII.—These channels therefore the Deity employed for the purpose of distributing moisture from the belly into the veins, by weaving with fire and air a network resembling basket-nets (or weeds), with two curved passages of entrance,—one of which he again twisted and divided into two branches, winding the continuations of these curved passages like coils of rope in every direction as far as the ends of the net. Now all the inner parts of the network he composed of fire, but the great flexures and the receptacle itself of air;—and lastly, he took and placed them in the new-formed animal, as follows. One of the curved passages he placed in the mouth; but, as this part has two flexures, he caused one (_i. e._ the trachea) to pass along the arteries into the lungs, the other (_i. e._ the œsophagus) by the side of the arteries into the belly. The other curved part he divided into two separate passages, making them pass in common to the channels of the nose, so that when the one does not reach the mouth, all the streams of the other might still be filled from this. But as for the remaining part of the hollow network, he made it extend all over the concavity of the body, and the whole of it flow gently together into the curved passages, as being of an airy texture, and at another time to flow through them backwards. But the net, which is of a thin structure, he so disposed as to make it penetrate through and again emerge.[355] Besides this, he ordered that the interior rays of fire should follow in constant succession, the air at the same time passing into each, and that this should never cease to be the case, as long as the mortal animal’s life continued. And as respects the name of this kind of motion, we call it expiration and inspiration.
Now this whole action and affection that it produces in our nature, is caused by certain bodily moistenings and coolings, alike conducive to our nutriment and life:—for as the breath passes in and out, an interior fire attends it in its course; and when it is diffused through the belly and meets with solid and liquid food, it reduces them both to a state of moisture, and by dividing them into very small parts, carries them along in its course; pouring them, as from a fountain, into the veins, and so cutting channels through the body as through an aqueduct. ----- Footnote 354: This passage is well illustrated by Longinus, xxxii. sect. 5, where he is illustrating the power of metaphor:—τῆς δὲ τροφῆς ἕνεκα, φησί, διωχέτευσαν τὸ σῶμα, τέμνοντες ὥσπερ ἐν κήποις ὀχετούς, ὡς ἔκ τινος νάματος ἐπιόντος, ἀραιοῦ ὄντος αὐλῶνος τοῦ σώματος, τὰ τῶν φλεβῶν ῥέοι νάματα. A very similar passage occurs in the Timæus Locrus, p. 101, c., p. 437 of vol. vii. in Stallbaum’s edition of Plato’s works. Footnote 355: The whole of this description refers to the œsophagus, which enters the upper part of the stomach, and runs side by side with the trachea, which divides to form the entrance to the two great cells of the lungs. This division is no doubt that of one of the ἐγκύρτια, which, it is said, God διέπλεξε δίκρουν, and then subdivided it into the numerous bronchial tubes that ramify in all directions over the surface of the lungs, _i. e._ διὰ παντὸς πρὸς τὰ ἔσχατα τοῦ πλέγματος. It may also be added that in the mouth are two passages leading up to the channels of the nose. The meaning is exceedingly obscure; but the reader is referred to Stallbaum and Martin for several long explanatory notes on this curious account.
LIX.—And as regards the cause from which they derive their origin, we may propose the following. In every animal in the universe those of its internal parts are the hottest which surround the veins and blood, just as if they contained a fountain of fire;[356] and this heat we compared to a bow-net, extending through the middle of the body, and woven wholly of fire; all outside of it being composed of air. Yet heat, it must be agreed, naturally proceeds outward into a region with which it is allied. But as there are two passages for the heat,—one through the body outwards, the other again through the mouth and nostrils; hence, when the breath is impelled towards the latter, it in turn repels that latter. But that which is drawn into the fire becomes heated by so falling, while what is exhaled becomes cooled;—and so, owing to the change of temperature, they pass again into their former condition, whether hot or cold, through the mutual repulsion of each other; and as the same influence is constant and mutually operating, its circular agitation gives birth to the expiration and inspiration of the breath. ----- Footnote 356: Gr. πᾶν ζῶον αὑτοῦ τἄντος περὶ τὸ αἷμα καὶ τὰς φλεβάς θερμοτάτας ἔχει, οἷον ἐν αὑτῷ πηγήν τινα ἐνοῦσαν πυρός. The common reading has πάντως, instead of τἄντος, and θερμότητα for θερμοτάτας.
LXII.—The new composition therefore of every animal, as it has new triangles, [_i. e._ elementary principles,] formed as it were from fresh timbers, causes them to lock closely within each other,—the whole of its bulk being of a delicate structure, formed of fresh marrow and fed on milk. Those triangles, therefore, that compose the bodily aliment, having entered it from without and been received into the animal, from being older and weaker than the simple original triangles therewith agreeing, are overpowered and destroyed by the new triangles; and the animal grows to a large size, because it is supplied from a multitude of similar parts. But when the root of these triangles is relaxed by fatigue and dulness, brought on by the repulsion of many particles during a long period of time, then the food received can no longer cut into its own similitude; but they are themselves easily separated by the bodies that enter from without. Overcome by this, the whole animal at length decays; and this state is what we call old age:—and at last, when the jointed chains of the triangles about the marrow can no longer hold, but through long employment get unfastened and set free the bonds of the soul,—the soul thus loosened naturally flies off with pleasure and delight; for everything contrary to nature is painful, while the natural is pleasant. Hence the death caused by wounds and disease is painful and violent,—while that which follows old age, as the end agreeable to nature, is of all deaths the least irksome, and attended rather by pleasure than pain.[360]
But having now found the second set of conditions suitable to nature, the second mode of considering diseases also is now open to any one desirous of so doing.[361] For as the marrow, bone, flesh, and sinew are composed of those [elements,] as likewise the blood in another way, though from a similar origin, so also most other diseases owe their severity to the causes we have mentioned; though the greatest of them are to be traced to the following cause:—When the generation of these various [bodily substances] takes place inversely, then they become subject to corruption:—for the flesh and sinews are naturally formed from blood,—the sinews indeed from fibres, through the connexion between these, but the flesh from its union with that which when in a separate state becomes solid:—while the glutinous and fatty substance again which is formed from sinews and flesh, at once unites[362] the flesh to the bone, and itself feeds the growth of the bone itself, with which the marrow is surrounded. And again, that which filters through the solid part of the bones, being the purest kind of the triangles, as well as most smooth and unctuous, moistens the marrow by falling drop by drop from the bones. ----- Footnote 361: He now proceeds to consider the second cause of diseases—from the deprivation of the compound substances of the body,—blood, bile, flesh, marrow, &c., which can easily be comprehended, says he, by those who have followed him in his speculations on the first.
Footnote 362: The old reading was πολλά: but the best MSS. have κολλᾷ. ----- LXIV.—When these several things are the case, health mostly ensues; but when the contrary happens—disease. For when the flesh becomes liquefied and sends back what it loses into the veins, then the blood mingled with spirit flows abundantly, and of all kinds, through the veins, with different degrees of colours and bitterness;[363] and yet further, from its acid and salt qualities, it generates all kinds of bile, lymph, and phlegm;—for as they are all generated and corrupted in an opposite way, they first of all destroy the blood itself;[364] and the fluids that can no longer afford nutriment to the body, are borne along the veins without any natural order of circulation; at variance, indeed, with each other, because they derive no mutual advantages from the properties of each, but [positively] hostile to the constitution of the body, and its maintenance in health,—in short, destroying it and bringing it to putrefaction.
Such, therefore, of the flesh as becomes liquefied by its great age, being indisposed to putrefy, grows black from long burning; and from having been entirely macerated it becomes bitter, and falls into discontent with the other parts of the body not yet infected with corruption. And then, indeed, instead of bitterness, the black part assumes an acidity, if the bitter becomes more attenuated: but when the bitterness is tinged with blood, it becomes still redder; and when mixed with black, it assumes the nature of bile:—and yet further, to the bitterness is added a yellow colour through the melting of new flesh on the fire surrounding the flame. And this common name for all these some of the physicians assigned them,—or at any rate some who were able to consider many things dissimilar, and to detect in a single class a great number of particulars all deserving a special name. But all else that may be called kinds of bile, receive, according to colour, a name peculiar to each. As for _lymph_ (ἴχωρ), the whey of the blood, it is gentle and mild: while the sediment of black, acid bile, is fierce and wild;—and when mingled by heat with anything of a saline quality, it is called _acid phlegm_. Again, the moisture running from new and tender flesh mingled with the air, which is afterwards inflated and enclosed by moisture, produces bubbles, which separately are invisible, owing to their small size, but when collected in a large bulk become visible, and acquire a white colour from the generation of froth. And all this liquefaction of delicate flesh, when woven together with spirit, we term _white phlegm_,—the sediment of recent phlegm, _tears_ and _sweat_; together with all such secretions that the body sends forth for its purification.
But the white phlegm, when it becomes troublesome through the formation of air-bubbles, being shut out by having breathing-vents outside the body, is of a milder kind, and variegates the body with white spots, generating other diseases also of a similar character. But when mingled with black bile, and dispersed about the most divine circulations of the head, it acts as a disturbing agent, though with less violence during sleep; but if it come to those who are awake, it cannot be expelled without difficulty; and as this is a disease of a sacred nature (or organ, _i. e._ the head), it is most justly called sacred.[369] An acid and salt phlegm again is the source of all those diseases which are produced by a defluxion of humours: and because the places into which this phlegm flows are of infinite variety, it produces all kinds of diseases. But whatever parts of the body are said to be inflamed, all become so from being burnt and inflamed by bile. ----- Footnote 367: Gr. ὑπὸ ῥευμάτων φράχθεις, obstructed by discharges of phlegm. Footnote 368: Gr. ἃ δὴ καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τῆς ξυντονίας τοῦ παθήματος τὰ νοσήματα τέτανοί τε καὶ ὁπισθότονοι προσεῤῥήθησαν. Galen describes the τέτανος as a distension or convulsion extending equally over a considerable part of the body;—but it appears to be a generic term also, of which ὁπισθότονος and ἐμπροσθότονος are species,—one extending over the hinder, and the other over the forepart of the body. Celsus explains it as _nervorum rigor_;—and it seems, in fact, to be an involuntary retraction, in a contrary direction to the muscles.
Footnote 369: _Epilepsy_, however, was what the ancients usually termed the _sacred disease_, because it was supposed to be sent by the anger of the gods, and could only be assuaged or removed by incantations and other sacred ceremonies. ----- LXVII. Now this bile, whenever it makes an expiration, boils and sends up all kinds of tumours, and when inwardly restrained, generates many inflammatory diseases,—but the greatest of all, when mingled with pure blood it disturbs the order of the fibres, which are scattered in the blood for this purpose,—namely, of giving it certain measures of tenuity and density, and that it may neither through heat (as being moist) flow from the thin body, nor from its density become unadapted to motion, and so experience difficulty in flowing back in the veins. The just temperament, then, of these things is under the natural guardianship of the fibres; because if any one collects them together in the blood when dead and in a state of coldness, all the remaining blood becomes diffused; and when let out quickly, it coagulates in consequence of the cold surrounding it. The fibres possessing this influence over the blood, the bile, which is of the nature of ancient blood, and again changed into it from flesh by liquefaction, first gradually falls in a warm, moist state, and becomes coagulated through the power of the fibres; though when coagulated and violently extinguished, it causes a tempest and tremor within.
When it flows with still greater force, it overcomes the fibres by its own proper heat, and by its ebullition drives them into disorder;[370] and if it retains its prevalence to the end, it penetrates into the marrow, and burning the bonds of the soul, as if they were the cables of a ship, dissolves their union, and sets it wholly free; but, on the other hand, when it flows less abundantly, and the body on becoming liquefied opposes its passage, it then, on finding itself overcome, either escapes through the whole body, or being driven through the veins into the upper or lower belly, escapes from the body like a fugitive from a seditious city, and introduces defluxions, dysenteries, or gripings of the intestines, and all diseases of a similar kind. When the body, therefore, is unusually diseased by an excess of fire, it then labours under _continued_ burnings and fever; but when through excess of air, under _quotidian_ fevers: under _tertian_ through water, because water is less active than fire and air; and under _quartan_, through excess of earth;—for earth, being of all of them the least active, becomes purified in quadruple periods of time, and hence introduces quartan fevers, which are with difficulty dispelled.[371] ----- Footnote 370: Gr. εἰς ἀταξίαν ζέσασα διέσεισε. The old editions have διέσωσε, which makes against the context.
Footnote 371: Martin has taken great and successful pains to point out the surprising sagacity of Plato’s conjectures on the causes of disease. His notes on the subject are well worthy of on attentive perusal. ----- LXVIII. In the above manner are the diseases of the body produced; but the diseases of the soul, resulting from the habit of the body, are as follows. We must admit that the disease of the soul is folly, or a privation of intellect; and that there are two kinds of folly; the one madness, the other ignorance. Whatever passion, therefore, a person experiences that induces either of them, must be called a disease. Excessive pleasures and pains, however, are what we should deem the greatest diseases of the soul:—for when a man is over-elevated with joy or unduly depressed with grief, and so hastens immoderately either to retain the one or fly from the other, he can neither perceive nor hear anything properly, but is agitated with fury, and very little capable of exercising the reasoning power.
But he who possesses a great quantity of fluid-seed about the marrow, and is by nature like a tree over-laden with fruit, such a one having many throes,[372] and also many pleasures in his desires and their attendant offspring,—being maddened too during most of his life by the greatest pleasures and pains, having a soul also rendered morbid and unwise by the body, is wrongly deemed to be—not diseased, but voluntarily bad.[373] In truth, however, sexual intemperance generally becomes a disease of the soul, through a particular state of fluidity and moisture caused by the tenuity of the bones. And indeed it may almost be asserted, that all intemperance in any kind of pleasure, and all disgraceful conduct, is not properly blamed as the consequence of voluntary guilt. For _no one is voluntary bad_: but he who is depraved becomes so through a certain bad habit of body and an ill-governed education; and to every one these are inimical, as they result in a certain evil. And again, in the matter of pain, the soul suffers much depravity through the body.
For where acid and salt phlegm, and likewise bitter and bilious humours, wandering through the body, get no external vent, but revolve inwardly, and mingle their exhalations with the circulation of the soul; they in this case produce within it an infinite variety of diseases, greater or less in degree,—more or less in numbers. They are introduced, indeed, to three seats of the soul; and according to the diversity of the place, each begets every variety of difficulty and sorrow, rashness and timidity, and still further of oblivion and indocility. Besides this also, the vicious manners of cities, and discourses both private and public, often contribute to increase this malady; nor are any branches of learning taught in early life which tend to serve as remedies for such mighty ills;—and thus all the vicious are vicious through two most involuntary causes, which we should always ascribe rather to the planters than the things planted, and to the trainers rather than those trained; but still it should be our anxious endeavour, as far as we can, by education, studies, and learning, to fly from vice, and acquire its contrary—virtue. These particulars, however, require another mode of argument. ----- Footnote 372: The old editions read ὀδύνας, not ὠδῖνας. Footnote 373: This is quite according to Plato’s well-known doctrine—_οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν κακός_, as he explains it below, and in the Republ. ix, p. 589, c.; Protagoras, p. 345, e.
Just therefore, as a body has immoderately long legs, or indeed any other superfluity of parts that hinders its internal symmetry, it at once becomes base, in the participation of labour suffers many afflictions and many convulsions, and through suffering an aggregation of accidents, becomes the cause to itself of innumerable ills. The same too must be understood concerning that compound essence [of body and soul,] which we term an animal;—as, for instance, when the soul in this compound is stronger than the body, and greatly prevails over it, then [the soul,] agitating the whole of it inwardly, fills it with diseases; and, by ardent application to learned pursuits and investigations, causes it to waste away. Lastly, when the soul employs itself in didactic pursuits and logomachies, publicly as well as in private, through a certain ambitious strife, it then inflames the body and dissolves its constitution, and by introducing distillations of humours, deceives the great part of those who are called physicians, inducing them to consider these effects as proceeding from contrary causes.
Also, when a body that is large and superior to the soul in power is joined with a small and weak intellect,—there being naturally two classes of desires in man, one of aliment on account of the body, the other of wisdom for the sake of our most divine part;—in this case, the motions of the more powerful prevailing and enlarging what is their own, but making the reflective part of the soul deaf, indocile, and oblivious, thus induce ignorance—the greatest of all diseases. There is one safety then for both—neither to move the soul without the body, nor the body without the soul; in order that by mutually resisting each other they may be equally balanced and in perfect health. The mathematician then, or any one else who ardently devotes himself to any intellectual pursuit, should at the same time engage the body in gymnastic exercises;—and the man, again, who is careful in rightly forming his body, should at the same time therewith unite the motions of the soul in the exercises of music and all philosophy; if at least he intends to be one, that may justly be called beautiful and at the same time right good.
LXX.—In this very same manner we ought to attend even to the parts of the body, that they may imitate the form of the whole:—for when the body is inwardly burnt and cooled by the things that enter it, and again, is moistened by things external, and suffers all the consequences of these affections; then if any one gives up his body when quiescent to these kinds of motions, he is overcome and perishes.[374] But if any one will imitate what we called the tutor and nurse of the universe, and never allow the body to be at rest, but perpetually move it and assist its natural motions both within and without, by ever implanting in it certain agitations, and also by moderate agitation bring into order according to their mutual relations the wandering passions and parts of the body, he will not, as we said in our former discourse about the universe, place foe against foe, and suffer war and disease to be produced in the body,—but, on the other hand, combining friend with friend, will contrive to induce a state of sound health.
Of all motions, again, that is the best which takes place in itself from itself: for this is particularly allied to intellect and the motion of the universe,—that produced by another being inferior:—whereas that is the worst of all motions, which, when the body is recumbent and at ease, moves it by means of others and only partially. Hence, therefore, of all modes of cleansing and giving consistence to the body, the best is that effected by gymnastics,—the second is that caused by easy conveyance, either in a ship or other suitable vehicle; but the third kind of motion, however useful perhaps to one in extreme need, must on no account be otherwise used by any one endued with intellect; and this is that medical kind of motion produced by pharmaceutical purgation:—for diseases, unless they are extremely dangerous, must not be irritated by medicines. Indeed, every form of disease in some respect resembles the nature of animals;—for the condition of the latter has allotted to it stated periods of life, both as respects individuals and entire races, and each animal separately of itself has its fated life apart from the affection arising from necessity:—because the triangles, which from the very first have power over each, are so composed, as to suffice only for a certain time: beyond which period no animal can extend its life. The same condition of things also takes place in the case of diseases; for if any one destroys them by medicine before the fated time, he will only produce great diseases out of small, and many out of few. On this account we must discipline all such maladies by proper diet, according as each has leisure, and not irritate by medicines an obstinate complaint.—And thus much may suffice to have been said concerning the common animal and its corporeal part,—how each governing himself and governed by himself, may pursue a life regulated by reason.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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