In the breast, indeed, and what is called the thorax, they seated the mortal part of the soul. And as one part of it was naturally better, and another worse, they formed the cavity of the thorax into two divisions (resembling the separate dwellings of our men and women), placing the midriff as a partition between them. That part of the soul, therefore, which partakes of fortitude and spirit and loves contention they seated nearer the head between the midriff and the neck; as it is the business of the reason to unite with it in forcibly repressing the desires, whenever they will not obey the mandate and word issuing from the citadel above. The heart, which is the head and principle of the veins as well as the fountain of the blood that impetuously circulates through all the members, they placed in a kind of sentry-house, that, in case of any outburst of anger, being informed by the reason of any evil committed in its members, owing either to some foreign cause, or else internal passions, it (the heart) might transmit through all its channels the threatenings and exhortations of reason, so as once more to reduce the body to perfect obedience, and so permit what is the best within us to maintain supreme command. But as the gods foreknew, with respect to the palpitation of the heart under the dread of danger and the excitement of passion, that all such swellings of the inflamed spirit would be produced by fire, they formed the lungs to be a sort of protection thereto; first of all, soft and bloodless, and next internally provided with cavities perforated like a sponge, in order to cool the breath which they receive, and give the heart easy respiration and repose in its excessive heat. On this account, then, they led the channels of the windpipe into the lungs, which they placed like a soft cushion round the heart, in order that when anger rises in it to an extreme height it might fall on some yielding substance, and, so getting cool, yield cheerfully and with less trouble to the authority of reason. (Plato’s “Timaeus,” translated by Henry Davis.)