itself with.

Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness
is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through
overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.

Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because
through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore
the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye.

Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross vapours, which occupy the
vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing
sleepiness.

Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and
shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been
said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the
sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun
doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death,
withering and decaying all things.

Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else
but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth
alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately.

Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because
they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength.

* * * * *

THE PROBLEMS OF

MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS

Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest
thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of
so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life.
Without this knowledge, man is like the ship without either compass or
rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and
prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the
form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a
task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything,
he is nothing, but his soul.

Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all
living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it
happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns
labour, though he attain no virtue by it.

Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate letting
of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better prepared for the
nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood is nouri