Plants and Trees

The life of mortal animal necessarily consisted of fire and breath. This allowed it to waste away by dissolution and depletion.

The gods contrived a remedy for this by creating another kind of animal.

These are the trees and plants which have been improved by cultivation.

Anciently, they were wild. They are a third kind of soul, which is seated between the midriff [heart chakra] and the navel [chakra].

It has no reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them.

This nature is always:

• in a passive state
• revolving in and about itself
• repelling the motion from outside and using its own.

Accordingly it does not have the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns. It lives, 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 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.

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.

Of all natures fire has the smallest parts. Therefore it penetrates through earth and water and air and their compounds, nor can anything hold it.

A similar principle applies to the human belly. 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 to distribute moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving together a network of fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance 2 lesser weels. He constructed one of these with 2 openings. 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 2 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. 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.

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, never at any time ceasing so long as the mortal being holds together.

This process is called inspiration and expiration, used to give nourishment and life to the body.

When the respiration is going in and out, and the fire, which is fast bound within, follows it, and ever and anon moving to and fro, enters through the belly and reaches the meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small portions and guiding them through the passages where it goes, pumps them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins, and makes the stream of the veins flow through the body as through a conduit.

Respiration

What causes respiration?

There is no such thing as a vacuum into which any of those things which are moved can enter.

The breath is carried from us into the external air. It does not go into a vacant space, but pushes its neighbour out of its place. That which is thrust out in turn drives out its neighbour.

In this way, everything of necessity finally comes round to that place from whence the breath came forth, and enters in there. It follows the breath and fills up the vacant space.

This goes on like the rotation of a wheel, because there can be no such thing as a vacuum.

When the lungs emit the breath, are replenished by the air which surrounds the body and which enters in through the pores of the flesh and is driven round in a circle.

The air which is sent away and passes out through the body forces the breath inwards through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils.

In the interior of every animal the hottest part is that which is around the blood and veins.

It is an internal fountain of fire, which we compare to the network of a creel, being woven all of fire and extended through the centre of the body, while the outer parts are composed of air.

Heat naturally proceeds outward to:

• its own place, and
• to its kindred element.

There are 2 exits for the heat:

1. The one out through the body
2. The other through the mouth and nostrils.

When it moves towards the one, it drives round the air at the other.

That which is driven round falls into the fire and becomes warm, and that which goes forth is cooled.

But when the heat changes its place, and the particles at the other exit grow warmer, the hotter air inclining in that direction and carried towards its native element, fire, pushes round the air at the other.

This being affected in the same way and communicating the same impulse, a circular motion swaying to and fro is produced by the double process, which we call inspiration and expiration.

The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses and of the swallowing of drink and of the projection of bodies, whether discharged in the air or bowled along the ground, are to be investigated on a similar principle.

Swift and slow sounds, which appear to be high and low, and are sometimes discordant on account of their inequality, and then again harmonical on account of the equality of the motion which they excite in us.

When the motions of the antecedent swifter sounds begin to pause and the two are equalized, the slower sounds overtake the swifter and then propel them.

When they overtake them they do not intrude a new and discordant motion, but introduce the beginnings of a slower, which answers to the swifter as it dies away, thus producing a single mixed expression out of high and low, whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to the wise becomes a higher sort of delight, being an imitation of divine harmony in mortal motions.

Moreover, as to the flowing of water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels that are observed about the attraction of amber and the Heraclean stones,—in none of these cases is there any attraction.

These are attributable to the combination of:

• the non-existence of a vacuum
• the fact that objects:
  • push one another round
  • change places
  • pass severally into their proper positions as they are divided or combined.

This is the nature and such are the causes of respiration.

The fire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire and breath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out of the belly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food; and so the streams of food are kept flowing through the whole body in all animals.

Fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which God planted to be our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture.

But red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist substance. Hence, our blood is red. It nourishes the flesh and the whole body.

The process of repletion and evacuation is effected after the manner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are drawn towards one another.

For the external elements which surround us are always causing us to consume away, and distributing and sending off like to like; the particles of blood, too, which are divided and contained within the frame of the animal as in a sort of heaven, are compelled to imitate the motion of the universe.

Each, therefore, of the divided parts within us, being carried to its kindred nature, replenishes the void. When more is taken away than flows in, then we decay, and when less, we grow and increase.

The frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of each kind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is just off the stocks.

They are locked firmly together and yet the whole mass is soft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and nurtured on milk.

When the triangles out of which meats and drinks are composed come in from without, and are comprehended in the body, being older and weaker than the triangles already there, the frame of the body gets the better of them and its newer triangles cut them up, and so the animal grows great, being nourished by a multitude of similar particles.

But when the roots of the triangles are loosened by having undergone many conflicts with many things in the course of time, they are no longer able to cut or assimilate the food which enters, but are themselves easily divided by the bodies which come in from without.

In this way, every animal is overcome and decays. This affection is called “old age”.

At last, when the bonds by which the triangles of the marrow are united no longer hold, and are parted by the strain of existence, they in turn loosen the bonds of the soul, and she, obtaining a natural release, flies away with joy. For that which takes place according to nature is pleasant, but that which is contrary to nature is painful.

Thus death, if caused by disease or produced by wounds, is painful and violent. But death from old age and fulfils the debt of nature is the easiest of deaths. It is accompanied with pleasure rather than with pain.