Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A. Those who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and digest the superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore become fat. But such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are more cold, and digest less. Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than thirst? A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it consumeth the phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and most at hand; and therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst, because the heat hath nothing to refresh itself with. Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls. Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye. Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross vapours, which occupy the vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing sleepiness. Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death, withering and decaying all things. Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately. Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength. * * * * * THE PROBLEMS OF MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life. Without this knowledge, man is like the ship without either compass or rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything, he is nothing, but his soul. Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.