tion moves into the stomach and minces the food. As the fire
returns to its place, it takes with it the minced food or blood; and in
this way the veins are replenished. Plato does not enquire how the blood
is separated from the faeces.

Of the anatomy and functions of the body he knew very little,--e.g.
of the uses of the nerves in conveying motion and sensation, which he
supposed to be communicated by the bones and veins; he was also ignorant
of the distinction between veins and arteries;--the latter term
he applies to the vessels which conduct air from the mouth to the
lungs;--he supposes the lung to be hollow and bloodless; the spinal
marrow he conceives to be the seed of generation; he confuses the parts
of the body with the states of the body--the network of fire and air is
spoken of as a bodily organ; he has absolutely no idea of the phenomena
of respiration, which he attributes to a law of equalization in nature,
the air which is breathed out displacing other air which finds a way
in; he is wholly unacquainted with the process of digestion. Except the
general divisions into the spleen, the liver, the belly, and the lungs,
and the obvious distinctions of flesh, bones, and the limbs of the body,
we find nothing that reminds us of anatomical facts. But we find much
which is derived from his theory of the universe, and transferred
to man, as there is much also in his theory of the universe which is
suggested by man. The microcosm of the human body is the lesser image of
the macrocosm. The courses of the same and the other affect both; they
are made of the same elements and therefore in the same proportions.
Both are intelligent natures endued with the power of self-motion,
and the same equipoise is maintained in both. The animal is a sort of
'world' to the particles of the blood which circulate in it. All the
four elements entered into the original composition of the human frame;
the bone was formed out of smooth earth; liquids of various kinds pass
to and fro; the network of fire and air irrigates the veins. Infancy
and childhood is the chaos or first turbid flux of sense prior to the
establishment of order; the intervals of time which may be observed in
some intermittent fevers correspond to the density of the elements. The
spinal marrow, including the brain, is formed out of the finest sorts of
triangles, and is the connecting link between body and mind. Health is
only to be preserved by imitating the motions of th