BOOK TWO

 [p. 167]the lodestone, the latter having a faculty attractive of this particular quality [existing in iron]?

Specific attraction; cf. Book I., chap. xiv.

But if the beginning of anadosis depends on the squeezing action of the stomach,

cf. p. 100, note 2.

and the whole movement thereafter on the peristalsis and propulsive action of the veins, as well as on the traction exerted by each of the parts which are undergoing nourishment, then we can abandon the principle of replacement of evacuated matter, as not being suitable for a man who assumes Nature to be a skilled artist; thus we shall also have avoided the contradiction of Asclepiades

In Book II., chap. i.

though we cannot refute it: for the disjunctive argument used for the purposes of demonstration is, in reality, disjunctive not of two but of three alternatives; now, if we treat the disjunction as a disjunction of two alternatives, one of the two propositions assumed in constructing our proof must be false; and if as a disjunctive of three alternatives, no conclusion will be arrived at.

PART 8

Now Erasistratus ought not to have been ignorant of this if he had ever had anything to do with the Peripatetics- even in a dream. Nor, similarly, should he have been unacquainted with the genesis of the humours, about which, not having even anything moderately plausible to say, he thinks to deceive us by the excuse that the consideration of such matters is not the least useful. Then, in Heaven's name, is it useful to know how food is digested in the stomach, but unnecessary to know how bile comes into existence