ON X. WHY WOMEN DO NOT EAT THE MIDDLE PART OF LETTUCE.

BOOK V.

What is your opinion at present, Sossius Senecio, of the pleasures of
mind and body, is not evident to me;

Because us two a thousand things divide,
Vast shady hills, and the rough ocean's tide.
("Iliad" i. 156)

But formerly, I am sure, you did not lean to nor like their opinion,
who will not allow the soul to have any proper agreeable pleasure, which
without respect to the body she desires for herself; but define that she
lives as a form assistant to the body, is directed by the passions of
it, and, as that is affected, is either pleased or grieved, or, like a
looking-glass, only receives the images of those sensible impressions
made upon the body. This sordid and debasing opinion is especially
confuted as follows; for at a feast, the genteel well-bred men after
supper fall upon some topic or another as second course, and cheer one
another by their pleasant talk. Now the body hath very little or no
share in this; which evidently proves that this is a particular
banquet for the soul, and that those pleasures are peculiar to her, and
different from those which pass to her through the body and are vitiated
thereby. Now, as nurses, when they feed children, taste a little of
their pap, and have but little pleasure therefrom, but when the infants
are satisfied, leave crying, and go to sleep, then being at their own
disposal, they take such meat and drink as is agreeable to their own
bodies; thus the soul partakes of the pleasures that arise from eating
and drinking, like a nurse, being subservient to the appetites of the
body, kindly yielding to its necessities and wants, and calming its
desires; but when that is satisfied and at rest, then being free from
her business and servile employment, she seeks her own proper pleasures,
revels on discourse, problems, stories, curious questions, or subtle
resolutions. Nay, what shall a man say, when he sees the dull unlearned
fellows after supper minding such pleasures as have not the least
relation to the body? They tell tales, propose riddles, or set one
another a-guessing at names, comprised and hid under such and such
numbers. Thus mimics, drolls, Menander and his actors were admitted into
banquets, not because they can free the eye from any pain, or raise
any tickling motion in the flesh; but because the soul, being naturally
philosophical and a lover of instruction, covets its own proper p