sistance to his fellow men. The doctors of old indeed knew how
to cure wounds by magic song, as Homer, the most reliable of all the
writers of antiquity, tells us, making the blood of Ulysses to be
stayed by a chant as it gushed forth from a wound. Now nothing that is
done to save life can be matter for accusation. 'But,' says my
adversary, 'for what purpose save evil did you dissect the fish
brought you by your servant Themison?' As if I had not told you just
now that I write treatises on the organs of all kind of animals,
describing the place, number and purpose of their various parts,
diligently investigating Aristotle's works on anatomy and adding to
them where necessary. I am, therefore, greatly surprised that you are
only aware of my having inspected one small fish, although I have
actually inspected a very large number under all circumstances
wherever I might find them, and have, moreover, made no secret of my
researches, but conducted them openly before all the world, so that
the merest stranger may, if it please him, stand by and observe me. In
this I follow the instruction of my masters, who assert that a free
man of free spirit should as far as possible wear his thoughts upon
his face. Indeed I actually showed this small fish, which you call a
sea-hare, to many who stood by. I do not yet know what name to call
it[14] without closer research, since in spite of its rarity and most
remarkable characteristics I do not find it described by any of the
ancient philosophers. This fish is, as far as my knowledge extends,
unique in one respect, for it contains twelve bones resembling the
knuckle-bones of a sucking-pig, linked together like a chain in its
belly. Apart from this it is boneless. Had Aristotle known this,
Aristotle who records as a most remarkable phenomenon the fact that
the fish known as the small sea-ass alone of all fishes has its
diminutive heart placed in its stomach, he would assuredly have
mentioned the fact.

[Footnote 14: _vocem_ (Colvius).]

41. 'You dissected a fish,' says he. Who can call this a crime in a
philosopher which would be no crime in a butcher or cook? 'You
dissected a fish.' Perhaps you object to the fact that it was raw. You
would not regard it as criminal if I had explored its stomach and cut
up its delicate liver after it was cooked, as you teach the boy
Sicinius Pudens to do with his own fish at meals. And yet it is a
greater crime for a philosopher to eat fish than to inspec