109. In short they assert that man in his beginning and first formation is so folded up that the knees are above, and by these the eyes are shaped so that there are deep hollows. Ennius says: “Atque genua comprimit artagena.” Thence it is that when men fall on their knees they at once begin to weep. For nature has willed that they remember their mother’s womb where they sat in darkness, as it were, until they should come to the light. 118. _Cor_ is derived from a Greek term—what they call καρδία (heart)—or, it may be, from _cura_ (cure). For in it dwell all anxious thought and wisdom. And it is near the lungs for this reason, that when it is fired by anger it may be cooled by the liquid of the lungs. It has two arteries, of which the left has more blood, the right, more air. From it also is the pulse we find in the right arm. 120. The _pulsus_ (pulse) is so called because it beats (_palpitet_), and by its evidence we perceive that there is sickness or health. Its motion is two-fold; a simple motion which is made up of a single beat, and a composite, made up of several movements—irregular and unequal. And these movements have definite limits.... 121. The veins are so called because they are the passages of the flowing blood, and its streamlets spread through all the body, by which all the parts are moistened. 124. The Greeks call the lungs πλεύμων, because they are the bellows of the heart and in them is πνεῦμα, that is, _spiritus_, by which they are stirred and moved, whence they are called _pulmones_.... 125. _Jecur_ (liver) has its name because in it fire (_ignis_) has its seat, and from there it flies up into the head. Thence it spreads to the eyes and the other organs of sense and the limbs, and by its heat it changes into blood the liquid that it has appropriated from food, and this blood it furnishes to the several parts to feed and nourish them. In the liver pleasure resides and desire, according to those who dispute about natural philosophy. 127. The spleen is so called from corresponding to (_supplementum_) the liver on the opposite side in order that there may be no vacuum, and this certain men believe was formed with a view to laughter. For it is by the spleen we laugh, by the bile we are angry, by the heart we are wise, by the liver we love. And while these four elements remain, the animal is whole. Chapter 3. On human monstrosities. 1. Portents, Varro says, are those births which seem to have taken place contrary to nature. But they are not contrary to nature, because they come by the divine will, since the will of the creator is the nature of each thing that is created. Whence, too, the heathen themselves call God now nature, now God. 2. A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to known nature....