Next to the birds came the land-animals, a more brutal formation. These, to borrow the words of Mr. Grote's analysis, "proceeded from men totally destitute of philosophy, who neither looked up to the heavens nor cared for celestial objects; from men making no use whatever of the rotations of their encephalic soul, but following exclusively the guidance of the lower soul in the trunk. Through such tastes and occupations, both their heads and their anterior limbs became dragged down to the earth by the force of affinity. Moreover, when the rotation of the encephalic soul from want of exercise became slackened and fell into desuetude, the round form of the cranium was lost and became converted into an oblong or some other form. These now degenerated into quadrupeds and multipeds, the gods furnishing a greater number of feet in proportion to the stupidity of each, in order that its approximation to earth might be multiplied. To some of the more stupid, however, the gods gave no feet or limbs at all, constraining them to drag the whole length of their bodies along the ground, and to become reptiles. Out of the most stupid and senseless of mankind, by still greater degeneracy, the gods formed fishes, or aquatic animals--the fourth and lowest genus after men, birds, land-animals. This race of beings, from their extreme want of mind, were not considered worthy to live on earth, or to respire thin and pure air. They were condemned to respire nothing but deep and turbid water, many of them, as oysters and other descriptions of shell-fish, being fixed down at the lowest depth or bottom. It is by such transitions (concludes the Platonic 'Timæus') that the different races of animals passed originally, and still continue to pass, into each other. The interchange is determined by the acquisition or loss of reason or rationality."[19]