84 iii. 10. ■ 



shown by the phenomena of laughing. For when men are 

 tickled they are quickly set a laughing, because the motion 

 quickly reaches this region. And, even when the heating is 

 more slowly applied, there is still a manifest affection and 

 motion of the intellect in opposition to the will. That man 

 alone is affected by tickling,^ is due firstly to the delicacy of 

 his skin, and secondly to the fact that he is the only animal 

 that laughs. For to be tickled is to be set in laughter, the 

 laughter being produced by such a motion as mentioned of the 

 region of the armpit. 



It is said also that when men in battle are wounded anywhere 

 near the midriff, they are seen to laugh, owing to the heat 

 produced by the wound.^ This may possibly be the case. At 

 any rate it is a statement made by much more credible persons 

 than those who tell the story of the human head, how it speaks 

 after it is cut off. For so some assert, and even call in Homer 

 to support them, representing him as alluding to. this when he 

 wrote,'" " His head still speaking rolled into the dust," instead of 

 "The head of the speaker." So fully was the possibility of. such 

 an occurrence -accepted in Caria, that one of that country was 

 actually brought to trial under the following circumstances. The 

 priest of Zeus Hoplosmios '^ had been murdered ; but as yet it 

 had not been ascertained who was the assassin ; when certain 

 persons asserted that they had heard the murdered man's head, 

 which had been severed from the body, repeat several times the 

 words, " It was Cercidas that killed the man." Search was there- 

 upon made and a man of those parts who bore the name of 

 Cercidas hunted out and put upon his trial. But it is impossible 

 that any one should utter a word when the windpipe is severed 

 and no motion any longer derived from the lungs. Moreover 

 among the Barbarians, where heads are chopped off with great 

 rapidity, nothing of the kind has ever yet occurred. Why again 

 does not the like occur in the case of other animals than man ? 

 For that none of them should laugh, when their midriff is 

 wounded, is but what one would expect ; for no animal but man 

 ever laughs. So too there is nothing irrational in supposing 

 that the trunk may run forwards to a certain distance after the 

 head has been cut off; seeing that bloodless animals at any 

 rate can live, and that for a considerable time, after decapitation, 

 as has been set forth and explained in other passages.'^ 

 673 a. 



