BOOK VII. L. 167-170 



regard the whole extent of time. Wliat of tlie fact 

 that, if we take into account our nightly pcriod of 

 slumber, evervbody is alive for only a half of his 

 life, whereas an equal portion is passed in a manner 

 that resembles death, or, in default of slumber, 

 torture. And vre are not counting in the years of 

 infancy that h\ck sensation, nor those of old age that 

 remains ahve to be tormented, nor all the kinds of 

 dangers, all the diseases, all the fears, all the anxieties, 

 with death so often invoked that this is the commonest 

 of pravers. But nature has granted man no better Bretit!/ o/ 

 gift than the shortness of Hfe. The senses grow dull, /"" '"^''^- 

 the hmbs are numb, sight, hearing, gait, even the 

 teeth and ahmentary organs die before we do, and 

 yet this period is reckoned a portion of hfe. Con- 

 sequently it is virtually a miracle — and this is the 

 sohtarv instance of it found — that the musician 

 Xenophilus lived to 105 without anv bodily disable- 

 ment. But assuredly with all the rest of men, as in 

 the case of none of the other animals, morbid heat or 

 else stifFness returns througli the several portions of 

 the hmbs at fixed hours, and not only at certain hours 

 but also every three or four days or nights, even all 

 the year round. And moreover the death of the 

 intellect in some measure is a disease. For nature has 

 imposed certain laws even upon dise.tses : a four-day- 

 period fever never begins at mid-winter or in the winter 

 months, and some people are not attacked by it when 

 over the age of 60, while willi others, particularly 

 women, it is discarded at puberty ; and old men are 

 least susceptible to plague. For diseases attack not 

 only entire nations but also particular classes, some- 

 times the slaves, sometimes the nobihty, and so 

 through other grades. In this respect it has been 



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