the council chamber, as Plato graphically
calls the head, in order that the animal passions may not interfere with
the deliberations of reason. Though the soul is said by him to be prior
to the body, yet we cannot help seeing that it is constructed on the
model of the body--the threefold division into the rational, passionate,
and appetitive corresponding to the head, heart and belly. The human
soul differs from the soul of the world in this respect, that it is
enveloped and finds its expression in matter, whereas the soul of the
world is not only enveloped or diffused in matter, but is the element
in which matter moves. The breath of man is within him, but the air or
aether of heaven is the element which surrounds him and all things.

Pleasure and pain are attributed in the Timaeus to the suddenness of our
sensations--the first being a sudden restoration, the second a sudden
violation, of nature (Phileb.). The sensations become conscious to us
when they are exceptional. Sight is not attended either by pleasure or
pain, but hunger and the appeasing of hunger are pleasant and painful
because they are extraordinary.

Section 6.

I shall not attempt to connect the physiological speculations of Plato
either with ancient or modern medicine. What light I can throw upon them
will be derived from the comparison of them with his general system.

There is no principle so apparent in the physics of the Timaeus, or in
ancient physics generally, as that of continuity. The world is conceived
of as a whole, and the elements are formed into and out of one another;
the varieties of substances and processes are hardly known or noticed.
And in a similar manner the human body is conceived of as a whole, and
the different substances of which, to a superficial observer, it appears
to be composed--the blood, flesh, sinews--like the elements out of which
they are formed, are supposed to pass into one another in regular order,
while the infinite complexity of the human frame remains unobserved. And
diseases arise from the opposite process--when the natural proportions
of the four elements are disturbed, and the secondary substances which
are formed out of them, namely, blood, flesh, sinews, are generated in
an inverse order.

Plato found heat and air within the human frame, and the blood
circulating in every part. He assumes in language almost unintelligible
to us that a network of fire and air envelopes the greater part of the
body. This