202 History of Nature. [BooK VII. 



upward, and Women with the Face downward, as if Nature 

 had provided to save their Modesty even when dead. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

 Examples of a Variety of Forms. 



WE have heard that some Men's Bones are solid, and so 

 live without any Marrow. They are known by the Signs, that 

 they never feel Thirst, nor put forth any Sweat : and yet we 

 know that a Man may conquer his Thirst by his Will ; and 

 Julius Viator, a Roman Knight, descended from the Race of 

 the Confederate Voconti, in his younger Years being ill with 

 an Effusion of Water beneath the Skin, and forbidden by 

 the Physicians to use Fluids in any way, obtained a Nature 

 by Custom, so that in his old Age he forbore to drink. 

 Others also have been able to command their Nature in 

 many Cases. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

 Examples of Diversity of Habits. 



IT is said, that Crassus, Grandfather to that Crassus who 

 was slain in Parthia, never laughed, and on that account 

 was called Agelastus: and also that many have been found 

 to have never wept. Socrates, who was illustrious for his 

 Wisdom, was seen always to carry the same Countenance, 

 never being more cheerful nor more disturbed at one Time 

 than another. But this tendency of the Mind turneth now 

 and then in the End into a certain Rigour and Sternness 

 of Nature, so hard and inflexible that it cannot be ruled ; 

 and so despoileth Men of the humane Affections; and such 

 are called by the Greeks Apathes. who had the Experience 

 of many such : and, what is surprising, some of them were 

 very eminent for Wisdom, as Diogenes the Cynic, Pyrrho, 

 Heraclitus, and Timo ; the latter being carried away so far 

 as to hate the whole Human Race. But these were Ex- 

 amples of depraved Nature. Various remarkable Things are 

 known ; as in Antonia, the Wife of Drusus, who was never 



