=286.= We pass on to consider the body, but at no great length; partly because many functions often considered as bodily are by the Stoics treated as belonging to the soul (as sensations and impulses), partly because the study of the body is rather the task of the physician than of the philosopher. In the body we may notice separately (i) the bones, sinews, and joints, constituting the framework on which the whole is built up; (ii) the surface, including beauty of outline and features, and (iii) the complexion, which suffuses a glow over the surface and most attracts the attention[100]. No absolute distinction can be made between body and soul. Generally speaking, we may say that body is composed of the two grosser elements, earth and water, whilst soul (as we have seen) rests on the two higher elements of air and fire[101]; of the gradations of spirit body possesses distinctively (but not exclusively) that of coherence (ἕξις), whilst it shares with the soul the principle of growth (φύσις)[102]. Yet these contrasts are after all only secondary. As surely as soul is body so body is soul, and divinity penetrates into its humblest parts. In its practical applications Stoicism dwells so little on the body that the wise man seems hardly conscious of its existence. [Sidenote: ‘The flesh.’] =287.= Side by side with the strictly Stoic view of the body we find in all the Roman literature another conception which is strongly dualistic, and which we cannot but think to be drawn from some non-Stoic source[103]. According to this view the body, often called the ‘flesh,’ is essentially evil[104]; it is the prison-house of the soul[105], the source of corruption of the will[106], the hindrance to a clear insight of the intelligence. In the language picturesquely adopted in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ (after St Paul), it is a burden which the enlightened man longs to shake off[107]. For the body so understood we find abusive names; it is the husk in which the grain is concealed[108], the ass from which the owner should be ready to part at any moment[109]. This language tends to be exaggerated and morbid, and leads in practice to asceticism[110]. It appealed in ancient as in modern times to a widespread sentiment, but is not reconcileable with the main teaching of the Stoic philosophy. [Sidenote: Dignity of the body.]