Book 5
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HERACLITUS and the Stoics say, that men begin their completeness when the second septenary of years begins, about which time the seminal serum is emitted. Trees first begin their perfection when they give their seeds; till then they are immature, imperfect, and unfruitful. After the same manner a man is completed in the second septenary of years, and is capable of learning what is good and evil, and of discipline therein.
Chapter XXV. WHETHER SLEEP OR DEATH APPERTAINS TO THE SOUL OR BODY.
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ARISTOTLE’S opinion is, that both the soul and body sleep; and this proceeds from the moisture in the breast, which doth steam and arise in the manner of a vapor into the head, and from the aliment in the stomach, whose natural heat is cooled in the heart. Death is the perfect refrigeration of all heat in the body; but death is only of the body, and not of the soul, for the soul is immortal. Anaxagoras thinks, that sleep makes the operations of the body to cease; it is a corporeal passion and affects not the soul. Death is the separation of the soul from the body. Leucippus, that sleep is only of the body; but when the smaller particles cause immoderate evaporation from the soul’s heat, this makes death; but these affections of death and sleep are of the body, not of the soul. Empedocles, that death is nothing else but separation of those fiery parts by which man is composed, and according to this sentiment both body and soul die; but sleep is only a smaller separation of the fiery qualities.
Chapter XXVI. HOW PLANTS GROW, AND WHETHER THEY ARE ANIMALS.
