t should be suffocated.

Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in continual
motion.

Q. Why have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the
lungs be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it
were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no hearts.

Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because
such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for
urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon
and sparrow hawk.

Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may import life
to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared to the sun,
which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give light to them all.

Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end that the
heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen; for the
spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side also.

Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live first and
die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and original of life,
and without it no part can live. For of the seed retained in the matrix,
there is first engendered a little small skin, which compasses the seed;
whereof first the heart is made of the purest blood; then of blood not
so pure, the liver; and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.

Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a little
heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood touching it,
doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the other parts of the
body, which give courage and boldness.

Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare? A. The
heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the blood which
cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.

Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in it
there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by reason
of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space, filling the
hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and opening of the heart,
and because the heart is earthly the thrusting and moving ceasing, its
parts are at rest, tending downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn,
which, if put into the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity,
therefore occupies a greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it,
but puffs up, and throws it into the fire. The like of