BOOK III. X. 7-IO 



alone — not to break off the stock-branch but to add 

 everything else to the supply of cuttings. 



But we, having at first taken reason as a guide, 8 

 and now a long period of experimentation as well, 

 choose no shoot, and consider none to be fruitful, 

 except one that has borne fruit in the generative 

 part of the vine. For one that has come forth in 

 a barren place, luxuriant and strong but destitute 

 of offspring, offers a deceptive appearance of fruit- 

 fulness but possesses no generative power. Common 9 

 sense teaches us that this is undoubtedly ti-ue, if only, 

 as in our own bodies every member has its peculiar 

 functions, so too the parts of fruit-bearing stocks 

 have their proper duties. We know that human 

 beings have a soul breathed into them as a charioteer 

 and guide of their members, and that senses were 

 implanted in them for the perception of those im- 

 pressions which are discovered by touch, by smell, by 

 hearing, and by seeing ; that feet were devised for 

 walking and arms for embracing. And that my 

 discourse may not wander without restraint over all 

 the relations of sensory functions, the ears can effect 

 nothing that belongs to the eyes, and the eyes nothing 

 that belongs to the ears ; nor, indeed, is the power of 

 procreation bestowed upon the hands or the feet. 

 But the father of the universe concealed in the belly 10 

 that which he willed should be unknown to mankind, 

 in order that the eternal creatress " of things, en- 

 dowed with divine understanding, might mingle in 

 certain hidden parts of the body, as it were, in mystery 



« I.e. Nature ; cf. I. Praef. 2 ; Pliny, N.H. XXXI. 1. 



• aeterna SA, vett. edd., Sobel : eterna acM : aeternus 

 vulgo. 



