In order, then, that this part, feeding thus at its manger and housed as far away as possible from the counselling part, and creating the least possible turmoil and din, should allow the Supreme part to take counsel in peace 71a concerning what benefits all, both individually and in the mass,—for these reasons they stationed it in that position. And inasmuch as they knew that it would not understand reason, and that, even if it did have some share in the perception of reasons, it would have no natural instinct to pay heed to any of them but would be bewitched for the most part both day and night by images and phantasms,—to guard against this God devised and constructed the form of the liver and placed it in that part’s abode; 71b and He fashioned it dense and smooth and bright and sweet, yet containing bitterness, that the power of thoughts which proceed from the mind, moving in the liver as in a mirror which receives impressions and provides visible images, should frighten this part of the soul; for when the mental power bears down upon it with stern threats, it uses a kindred portion of the liver’s bitterness¹ and makes it swiftly suffuse the whole liver, so that it exhibits bilious colors, and by contraction makes it 71c all wrinkled and rough; moreover, as regards the lobe and passages and gates² of the liver, the first of these it bends back from the straight and compresses, while it blocks the others and closes them up, and thus it produces pains and nausea. On the other hand, when a breath of mildless from the intellect paints on the liver appearances of the opposite kind, and calms down its bitterness by refusing to move or touch the nature opposite to itself, and using upon the liver the sweetness inherent therein 71d rectifies all its parts so as to make them straight and smooth and free, it causes the part of the soul planted round the liver to be cheerful and serene, so that in the night it passes its time sensibly, being occupied in its slumbers with divination, seeing that in reason and intelligence it has no share.

For they who constructed us, remembering the injunction of their Father, when He enjoined upon them to make the mortal kind 71e as good as they possibly could, rectified the vile part of us by thus establishing therein the organ of divination, that it might in some degree lay hold on truth. And that God gave unto man’s foolishness the gift of divination³ a sufficient token is this: no man achieves true and inspired divination when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration.

But it belongs to a man when in his right mind to recollect and ponder both the things spoken in dream or waking vision by the divining and inspired nature, and all the visionary forms that were seen, and by means of reasoning to discern about them all 72a wherein they are significant and for whom they portend evil or good in the future, the past, or the present. But it is not the task of him who has been in a state of frenzy, and still continues therein, to judge the apparitions and voices seen or uttered by himself; for it was well said of old that to do and to know one’s own and oneself belongs only to him who is sound of mind. Wherefore also it is customary to set the tribe of prophets⁴ to pass judgement 72b upon these inspired divinations; and they, indeed, themselves are named “diviners” by certain who are wholly ignorant of the truth that they are not diviners but interpreters of the mysterious voice and apparition, for whom the most fitting name would be “prophets of things divined.”

For these reasons, then, the nature of the liver is such as we have stated and situated in the region we have described, for the sake of divination. Moreover, when the individual creature is alive this organ affords signs that are fairly manifest, but when deprived of life⁵ it becomes blind and the divinations it presents are too much obscured to have any 72c clear significance.

The structure of the organ which adjoins it,⁶ with its seat on the left, is for the sake of the liver, to keep it always bright and clean, as a wiper that is laid beside a mirror always prepared and ready to hand. Wherefore also, whenever any impurities due to ailments of the body occur round about the liver, the loose texture of the spleen cleanses and absorbs them all, seeing that it is woven of a stuff that is porous and bloodless: hence, when it is filled with the offscourings, the spleen grows to be large and festered; 72d and conversely, when the body is cleansed, it is reduced and shrinks back to its primal state.

Concerning the soul, then, what part of it is mortal, what part immortal, and where and with what companions and for what reasons these have been housed apart, only if God concurred could we dare to affirm that our account is true⁷; but that our account is probable we must dare to affirm now, and to affirm still more positively as our inquiry proceeds: affirmed, therefore, let it be. 72e

The subject which comes next to this we must investigate on the same lines; and that subject is the way in which the remainder of the body has been generated.⁸ Its construction would most fittingly be ascribed to reasoning such as this.

Those who were constructing our kind were aware of the incontinence that would reside in us in respect of drinks and meats, and how that because of our greed we would consume far more than what was moderate and necessary; wherefore, lest owing to maladies swift destruction should overtake them, 73a and the mortal kind, while still incomplete, come straightway to a complete end,—foreseeing this, the Gods set the “abdomen,”⁹ as it is called, to serve as a receptacle for the holding of the superfluous meat and drink; and round about therein they coiled the structure of the entrails, to prevent the food from passing through quickly and thereby compelling the body to require more food quickly, and causing insatiate appetite, whereby the whole kind by reason of its gluttony would be rendered devoid of philosophy and of culture, and disobedient to the most divine part we possess.

As regards the bones and the flesh and all such substances 73b the position was this. All these had their origin in the generation of the marrow. For it was in this that the bonds of life by which the Soul is bound to the body were fastened, and implanted the roots of the mortal kind; but the marrow itself was generated out of other elements. Taking all these primary triangles¹⁰ which, being unwarped and smooth, were best able to produce with exactness fire and water and air and earth, God separated them, each apart from his own kind, 73c and mixing them one with another in due proportion, He fashioned therefrom the marrow, devising it as a universal seed-stuff for every mortal kind. Next, He engendered therein the various kinds of Soul¹¹ and bound them down; and He straightway divided the marrow itself, in His original division, into shapes corresponding in their number and their nature to the number and the nature of the shapes which should belong to the several kinds of Soul. And that portion of the marrow which was intended to receive within itself, as it were into a field, the divine seed He molded 73d in the shape of a perfect globe¹² and bestowed on it the name of “brain,” purposing that, when each living creature should be completed, the vessel surrounding this should be called the “head.” But that portion which was to contain the other and mortal part of the Soul He divided into shapes that were at once rounded and elongated,¹³ and all these He designated “marrow”; and from these, as from anchors, He cast out bands of the Whole Soul, and around this He finally wrought the whole of this body of ours, when He had first built round about it for a shelter a framework 73e all of bone.

And bone He compounded in this wise. Having sifted earth till it was pure and smooth, He kneaded it and moistened it with marrow; then He placed it in fire, and after that dipped it in water, and from this back to fire, and once again in water; and by thus transferring it many times from the one element to the other He made it so that it was soluble by neither.

This, then, He used, and fashioned thereof, by turning, a bony sphere round about the brain; and therein he left a narrow opening; and around the marrow 74a of both neck and back He molded vertebrae of bone, and set them, like pivots, in a vertical row, throughout all the trunk, beginning from the head. And thus for preserving the whole seed He closed it in with a ring-fence of stony substance; and therein He made joints, using as an aid the power of the Other¹⁴ as an intermediary between them, for the sake of movement and bending. 74b And inasmuch as He deemed that the texture of the bony substance was too hard and inflexible, and that if it were fired and cooled again it would decay and speedily destroy the seed within it, for these reasons He contrived the species known as sinew and flesh. He designed to bind all the limbs together by means of the former, which tightens and relaxes itself around the pivots, and thus cause the body to bend and stretch itself. And the flesh He designed to be a shield against the heat and a shelter against the cold; and, moreover, that in case of falls it should yield to the body softly and gently, like padded garments¹⁵; 74c and, inasmuch as it contains within it warm moisture, that it should supply in summer, by its perspiration and dampness, a congenial coolness over the exterior of the whole body, and contrariwise in winter defend the body sufficiently, by means of its fire, from the frost which attacks and surrounds it from without. Wherefore, with this intent, our Modeller mixed and blended together water and fire and earth, and compounding a ferment of acid and salt 74d mixed it in therewith, and thus molded flesh full of sap and soft. And the substance of the sinews He compounded of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, forming a single substance blended of both and intermediate in quality, and he used yellow also for its coloring. Hence it is that the sinews have acquired a quality that is firmer and more rigid than flesh, but softer and more elastic than bone. With these, then, God enclosed the bones and marrow, first binding them one to another with the sinews, and then shrouding them all over with flesh. 74e

All the bones, then, that possessed most soul¹⁶ He enclosed in least flesh, but the bones which contained least soul with most and most dense flesh; moreover, at the junctions of the bones, except where reason revealed some necessity for its existence, He made but little flesh to grow, lest by hindering the flexions it should make the bodies unwieldy, because stiff in movement, or else through its size and density, when thickly massed together, it should produce insensitiveness, owing to its rigidity, and thereby cause the intellectual parts to be more forgetful and more obtuse.