Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
These testimonies I think are enough; and reason confirms Plato’s
opinion by arguments drawn first from sense. For when the windpipe
is wounded, no drink will go down; but as if the pipe were broken it
runs out, though the weasand be whole and unhurt. And all know that
in the inflammation of the lungs the patient is troubled with extreme
thirst; the heat or dryness or some other cause, together with the
inflammation, making the appetite intense. But a stronger evidence
than all these follows. Those creatures that have very small lungs,
or none at all, neither want nor desire drink, because to some parts
there belongs a natural appetite to drink, and those that want those
parts have no need to drink, nor any appetite to be supplied by it. But
more, the bladder would seem unnecessary; for, if the weasand receives
both meat and drink and conveys it to the belly, the superfluous parts
of the liquids would not want a proper passage, one common one would
suffice as a canal for both that were conveyed to the same vessel
by the same passage. But now the bladder is distinct from the guts,
because the drink goes from the lungs, and the meat from the stomach;
they being separated as we take them down. And this is the reason
that in our water nothing can be found that either in smell or color
resembles dry food. But if the drink were mixed with the dry meat in
the belly, it must be impregnant with its qualities, and not come forth
so simple and untinged. Besides, a stone is never found in the stomach,
though it is likely that the moisture should be coagulated there as
well as in the bladder, if all the liquor were conveyed through the
weasand into the belly. But it is probable that the weasand robs the
windpipe of a sufficient quantity of liquor 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 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 opinion.
_QUESTION II._
WHAT HUMORED MAN IS HE THAT PLATO CALLS ΚΕΡΑΣΒΌΛΟΣ? AND WHY DO THOSE
SEEDS THAT FALL ON THE OXEN’S HORNS BECOME ἈΤΕΡΆΜΟΝΑ?
PLUTARCH, PATROCLES, EUTHYDEMUS, FLORUS.
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