A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



womb it transmits virtue and moisture and blood 

 from the brain, from which flesh and sinews and bones 

 and hair and the whole body are produced. And 

 from the vapor is produced the soul, and also sensa- 

 tion. And that the infant first becomes a solid body 

 at the end of forty days; but, according to the prin- 

 ciples of harmony, it is not perfect till seven, or per- 

 haps nine, or at most ten months, and then it is 

 brought forth. And that it contains in itself all the 

 principles of life, which are all connected together, and 

 by their union and combination form a harmonious 

 whole, each of them developing itself at the appointed 

 time. 



" The senses in general, and especially the sight, are a 

 vapor of excessive warmth, and on this account a man 

 is said to see through air and through water. For the 

 hot principle is opposed by the cold one ; since, if the 

 vapor in the eyes were cold, it would have the same 

 temperature as the air, and so would be dissipated. 

 As it is, in some passages he calls the eyes the gates 

 of the sun; and he speaks in a similar manner of 

 hearing and of the other senses. 



"He also says that the soul of man is divided into 

 three parts: into intuition and reason and mind, and 

 that the first and last divisions are found also in other 

 animals, but that the middle one, reason, is only found 

 in man. And that the chief abode of the soul is in 

 those parts of the body which are between the heart 

 and the brain. And that that portion of it which is in 

 the heart is the mind ; but that deliberation and reason 

 reside in the brain. 



"Moreover, that the senses are drops from them; 



124 



