(11) And the creatures that breathe by the expansion of the lung towards the thorax draw in the air. Then if they assign to God viscera, and arteries, and veins, and nerves, and parts, they will make Him in nothing different from man.

(79) Timaeus: Wherefore the region of the chest and that of the lungs when they let out the breath become filled again by the air surrounding the body, which filters in through the porous flesh and circulates round. And again, when the air is repelled and passes out through the body it pushes the inspired air round and in by way of the passages of the mouth and of the nostrils. The originating cause

(66) Timaeus: For this subject, then, let this account suffice. Next, as regards the property of the nostrils, it does not contain fixed kinds. For the whole range of smells is a half-formed class, and no kind possesses the symmetry requisite for containing any smell; for our veins in these organs are of too narrow a construction for the kinds of earth and of water and too wide for those of fire and air, so that no one has ever yet perceived any smell from any of these, but only from substances which are in process of being moistened or putrefied or melted or vaporized.

(97) 3. The first elements are air, water, and fire; the fire is above, the water is below, and a breath of air establishes balance between them. The token is: the fire carries the water. The letterמ (M) is mute; ש (Sh) is hissing like fire; there is א (A) among them, a breath of air which reconciles the two.

(79) Timaeus: and lays hold on the meats and drinks, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small particles it disperses them through the outlets by which it passes and draws them off to the veins, like water drawn into channels from a spring; and thus it causes the streams of the veins to flow through the body as through a pipe. Once again let us consider the process of respiration, and the causes in virtue of which it has come to be such as it now is.

(4) Panvotrus saith:—I signify to posterity that air is a tenuous matter of water, and that it is not separated from it. It remains above the dry earth, to wit, the air hidden in the water, which is under the earth. If this air did not exist, the earth would not remain above the humid water. They answer:—Thou hast said well; complete, therefore, thy speech. Sut he continueth: The air which is hidden in the water under the earth is that which sustains the earth, lest it should be plunged into the said water; and it, moreover, prevents the earth from being overflowed by that water. The province of the air is, therefore, to fill up and to make separation between diverse things, that is to say, water and earth, and it is constituted a peacemaker between hostile things, namely, water and fire, dividing these, lest they destroy one another.

The Turba saith:—If you gave an illustration hereof, it would be clearer to those who do not understand.

He answereth:—An egg is an illustration, for therein four things are conjoined; the visible cortex or shell represents the earth, and the albumen, or white part, is the water.* But a very thin inner cortex is joined to the outer cortex, representing, as I have signified to you, the separating medium between earth and water, namely, that air which divides the earth from the water. The yolk also of the egg represents fire; the cortex which contains the yolk corresponds to that other air which separates the water from the fire. But they are both one and the same air, namely, that which separates things frigid, the earth from the water, and that which separates the water from the fire. But the lower air is thicker than the upper air, and the upper air is more rare and subtle, being nearer to the fire than the lower air. In the egg, therefore, are four things—earth, water, air, and fire. But the point of the Sun, these four excepted, is in the centre of the yolk, and this is the chicken. Consequently, all philosophers in this most excellent art have described the egg as an example, which same thing they have set over their work.

(10) Now, if nourishing substances taken in by the nostrils are diviner than those taken in by the mouth, yet they infer respiration. What, then, do they say of God? Whether does He exhale like the tribe of oaks? Or does He only inhale, like the aquatic animals, by the dilatation of their gills? Or does He breathe all round, like the insects, by the compression of the section by means of their wings? But no one, if he is in his senses, will liken God to any of these.

(4) 'These are the two ends, air among the Devas, breath among the senses (prânâh).' ________________

(78) Timaeus: He constructed wholly of fire, but the inner-weels and the envelope of air; and taking this He placed it round about the living creature that was molded in the following manner. The part consisting of the inner-weels He let down into the mouth; and since this part was twofold, He let down one inner-weel by way of the windpipe into the lungs, and the other into the belly alongside the windpipe. And cleaving the former of these weels in two He gave to both sections a common outlet by way of the channels of the nose, so that when the first conduit by way of the mouth failed to act,

(2) Air is, therefore, twofold in nature-tangible atmosphere and an intangible, volatile substratum which may be termed spiritual air. Fire is visible and invisible, discernible and indiscernible--a spiritual, ethereal flame manifesting through a material, substantial flame. Carrying the analogy further, water consists of a dense fluid and a potential essence of a fluidic nature. Earth has likewise two essential parts--the lower being fixed, terreous, immobile; the higher, rarefied, mobile, and virtual. The general term elements has been applied to the lower, or physical, phases of these four primary principles, and the name elemental essences to their corresponding invisible, spiritual constitutions. Minerals, plants, animals, and men live in a world composed of the gross side of these four elements, and from various combinations of them construct their living organisms.

(11) A: How meanest thou, Thrice-greatest one? H: Is not air body? A: It is. H: And doth this body not pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them? And "body"; doth body not consist from blending of the "four" ? Full, then, of air are all thou callest void; and if of air, then of the "four". Further, of this the converse follows, that all thou callest full are void - of air; for that they have their space filled out with other bodies, and, therefore, are not able to receive the air therein. These, then, which thou dost say are void, they should be hollow named, not void; for they not only are, but they are full of air and spirit.

(116) 'There are a hundred and one arteries of the heart, one of them penetrates the crown of the head. Moving upwards by it, a man (at his death) reaches the Immortal; the other arteries serve for departing in different directions.'

(78) Timaeus: it shuts them in, but air and fire, being of smaller particles than its own structure, it cannot shut in. These elements, therefore, God employed to provide irrigation from the belly to the veins, weaving out of air and fire a veil of mesh-work like unto a fish-weel, having two innerweels at its entrance; and one of these inner-weels He wove over again so as to make it bifurcated; and from the inner-weels He stretched as it were ropes all over it in a circle up to the extremities of the veil. Now the inward parts of the veil

(18) Now the other Regions set themselves in Order; first the stern Flash, that is, the Gall; and beneath the Flash, the Fire, whose Region is the Heart; and beneath the Fire, the Water, whose Region is the Liver; and beneath the Water, the Earth, whose Region is [in] the Lungs.

(4) The eastern breaths are his eastern quarter. The southern breaths are his southern quarter. The western breaths are his western quarter. The northern breaths are his northern quarter. The upper breaths are his upper quarter [i.e. the zenith]. The lower breaths are his lower quarter [i.e. the nadir]. All the breaths are all his quarters. But the Soul (Atman) is not this, it is not that (neti, neti). It is unseizable, for it cannot be seized. It is indestructible, for it cannot be destroyed. It is unattached, for it does not attach itself. It is unbound. It does not tremble. It is not injured. Verily, Janaka, you have reached fearlessness/ — Thus spake Yajnavalkya. Janaka, [king] of Videha, said: ' May fearlessness come unto you, noble Sir, you who make us to know fearlessness. Adora- tion to you! Here are the Videhas, here am I [as your servants].'

(49) When this is gained, there follows the right guidance of the life-currents, the control of the incoming and outgoing breath.

(1) Likewise it carried Smell across. When that was freed from death, it became wind. This wind, when it has crossed beyond death, purifies.

(70) Timaeus: to be the leader of them all. And as a means of relief for the leaping of the heart, in times when dangers are expected and passion is excited—since they knew that all such swelling of the passionate parts would arise from the action of fire,—they contrived and implanted the form of the lungs. This is, in the first place, soft and bloodless; and, moreover, it contains within it perforated cavities like those of a sponge, so that, when it receives the breath and the drink, it might have a cooling effect and furnish relief and comfort

(6) Everybody who has these figures on his coffin, the four openings of the sky are open to him; one in the North, it is the wind of Osiris; one in the South, it is the wind of Aah (the moon); one in the West, it is the wind of Isis; one in the East, it is the wind of Nephthys. Every one of these winds, which are at his entrance when he wants it, breathes into his nostrils

(84) Timaeus: being due partly to air, partly to phlegm, and partly to bile. Whenever the lungs, which are the dispensers of air to the body, fail to keep their outlets clean through being blocked up with rheums, then the air, being unable to pass one way while entering by another way in more than its proper volume, causes the parts deprived of respiration to rot, but forces and distorts the vessels of the veins, and as it thus dissolves the body it is itself shut off within the center thereof which contains the midriff; and as a result of this