tain the power of contemplation which
strives to acquire the knowledge of the divine and the human. For if he
shall begin to fall into dotage, perspiration and nutrition and
imagination and appetite, and whatever else there is of the kind, will
not fail; but the power of making use of ourselves, and filling up the
measure of our duty, and clearly separating all appearances, and
considering whether a man should now depart from life, and whatever else
of the kind absolutely requires a disciplined reason,--all this is
already extinguished. We must make haste, then, not only because we are
daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the
understanding of them cease first.

2. We ought to observe also that even the things which follow after the
things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing
and attractive. For instance, when bread is baked some parts are split
at the surface, and these parts which thus open, and have a certain
fashion contrary to the purpose of the baker's art, are beautiful in a
manner, and in a peculiar way excite a desire for eating. And again,
figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the
very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar
beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's
eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and
many other things,--though they are far from being beautiful if a man
should examine them severally,--still, because they are consequent upon
the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they
please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper
insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe,
there is hardly one of those which follow by way of consequence which
will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.
And so he will see even the real gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less
pleasure than those which painters and sculptors show by imitation; and
in an old woman and an old man he will be able to see a certain maturity
and comeliness; and the attractive loveliness of young persons he will
be able to look on with chaste eyes; and many such things will present
themselves, not pleasing to every man, but to him only who has become
truly familiar with Nature and her works.

3. Hippocrates, after curing many diseases, himself fell sick and died.
The Chaldaei foretold t