e world in space,
which is the mother and nurse of generation. The work of digestion
is carried on by the superior sharpness of the triangles forming the
substances of the human body to those which are introduced into it in
the shape of food. The freshest and acutest forms of triangles are those
that are found in children, but they become more obtuse with advancing
years; and when they finally wear out and fall to pieces, old age and
death supervene.

As in the Republic, Plato is still the enemy of the purgative treatment
of physicians, which, except in extreme cases, no man of sense will ever
adopt. For, as he adds, with an insight into the truth, 'every disease
is akin to the nature of the living being and is only irritated by
stimulants.' He is of opinion that nature should be left to herself, and
is inclined to think that physicians are in vain (Laws--where he says
that warm baths would be more beneficial to the limbs of the aged rustic
than the prescriptions of a not over-wise doctor). If he seems to be
extreme in his condemnation of medicine and to rely too much on diet and
exercise, he might appeal to nearly all the best physicians of our own
age in support of his opinions, who often speak to their patients of the
worthlessness of drugs. For we ourselves are sceptical about medicine,
and very unwilling to submit to the purgative treatment of physicians.
May we not claim for Plato an anticipation of modern ideas as about some
questions of astronomy and physics, so also about medicine? As in the
Charmides he tells us that the body cannot be cured without the soul,
so in the Timaeus he strongly asserts the sympathy of soul and body;
any defect of either is the occasion of the greatest discord and
disproportion in the other. Here too may be a presentiment that in the
medicine of the future the interdependence of mind and body will be more
fully recognized, and that the influence of the one over the other may
be exerted in a manner which is not now thought possible.

Section 7.

In Plato's explanation of sensation we are struck by the fact that
he has not the same distinct conception of organs of sense which is
familiar to ourselves. The senses are not instruments, but rather
passages, through which external objects strike upon the mind. The eye
is the aperture through which the stream of vision passes, the ear is
the aperture through which the vibrations of sound pass. But that the
complex structure of the eye or