as it is going down, and useth it to soften and concoct the
meat. And therefore its excrement is never purely liquid; and the lungs,
disposing of the moisture, as of the breath, to all of the parts that
want it, deposit the superfluous portion in the bladder. And I am sure
that this is a much more probable opinion than the other. But which is
the truth cannot perhaps be discovered, and therefore it is not fit
so peremptorily to find fault with the most acute and most famed
philosopher, especially when the matter is so obscure, and the
Platonists can produce such considerable reasons for their position.

QUESTION II. WHAT HUMORED MAN IS HE THAT PLATO CALLS [Greek omitted]?
AND WHY DO THOSE SEEDS THAT FALL ON THE OXEN'S HORNS BECOME [Greek
omitted]?

PLUTARCH, PATROCLES, EUTHYDEMUS, FLORUS.

We had always some difficulty started about [Greek omitted] and [Greek
omitted], not what humor those words signified (for it is certain that
some, thinking that those seeds which fall on the oxen's horns bear
fruit which is very hard, did by a metaphor call a stiff untractable
fellow by these names), but what was the cause that seeds falling on the
oxen's horns should bear hard fruit. I had often desired my friends to
search no farther, most of all fearing the passage of Theophrastus, in
which he has collected many things whose causes we cannot discover. Such
are the hen's using a straw to purify herself with after she has laid,
the seal's consuming her rennet when she is caught, the deer's burying
his horns, and the goat's stopping the whole herd by holding a branch of
sea-holly in his mouth; and among the rest he reckoned this is a thing
of which we are certain, but whose cause it is very difficult to find.
But once at supper at Delphi, some of my companions--as if we were not
only better counsellors when our bellies are full (as one hath it),
but wine would make us brisker in our inquiries and bolder in our
resolutions desired me to speak somewhat to that problem.

I refused, though I had some excellent men on my side, namely,
Euthydemus my fellow-priest, and Patrocles my relative, who brought
several the like instances, which they had gathered both from husbandry
and hunting; for instance, that those officers that are appointed to
watch the coming of the hail avert the storm by offering a mole's blood
or a woman's cloths; that a wild fig being bound to a garden fig-tree
will keep the fruit from falling and promote their r