the skin, is compressed and cooled.
Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the causes
which I have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of flesh the
brain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard, which would give
shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time would not
impede our quickness of perception. From the combination of sinew,
skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there arises a triple
compound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard skin
partaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these second
causes, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eye
to the future. For our creators well knew that women and other animals
would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many
animals would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they
fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. For
this purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to
grow at the extremities of the limbs.

And now that all the parts and members of the mortal animal had come
together, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath,
and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the gods
contrived the following remedy: They mingled a nature akin to that of
man with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kind
of animal. These are the trees and plants and seeds which have been
improved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us; anciently
there were only the wild kinds, which are older than the cultivated. For
everything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and
the animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of
soul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel,
having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of
pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. For this nature
is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repelling
the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is not
endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its own
concerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living
being, 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