The Gods foresaw that we should be intemperate in our appetite for food and drink, and that we should thus bring upon ourselves many diseases injurious to life. To mitigate this mischief, they provided us with a great length of intestinal canal, but twisted it round so as to occupy but a small space, in the belly. All the food which we introduce remains thus a long time within us, before it passes away. A greater interval elapses before we need fresh supplies of food. If the food passed away speedily, so that we were constantly obliged to renew it, and were therefore always eating--the human race would be utterly destitute of intelligence and philosophy. They would be beyond the controul of the rational soul.[93] [Footnote 93: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 A.] [Side-note: Bone--Flesh--Marrow.] Bone and flesh come next to be explained. Both of them derive their origin from the spinal marrow: in which the bonds of life are fastened, and soul is linked with body--the root of the human race. The origin of the spinal marrow itself is special and exceptional. Among the triangles employed in the construction of all the four elements, the Gods singled out the very best of each sort. Those selected were combined harmoniously with each other, and employed in the formation of the spinal marrow, as the universal seed ground ([Greek: panspermi/an]) for all the human race. In this marrow the Gods planted the different sorts of souls; distributing and accommodating the figure of each portion of marrow to the requirements of each different soul. For that portion (called the encephalon, as being contained in the head) which was destined to receive the immortal soul, they employed the spherical figure and none other: for the remaining portion, wherein the mortal soul was to be received, they employed a mixture of the spherical and the oblong. All of it together was called by the same name _marrow_, covered and protected by one continuous bony case, and established as the holding ground to fasten the whole extent of soul with the whole extent of body.[94] [Footnote 94: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 C-D.] [Side-note: Nails--Mouth--Teeth. Plants produced for nutrition of man.]