[213] i.e. one might assume an attraction.
[214] i.e. visible to the mind’s eye as distinguished from the bodily eye. cf. p. 21, [note 4]. Theoreton without qualification means merely visible, not theoretic. cf. p. 205, [note 1].
[215] According to the Pneumatist school, certain of whose ideas were accepted by Erasistratus, the air, breath, pneuma, or spirit was brought by inspiration into the left side of the heart, where it was converted into natural, vital, and psychic pneuma; the latter then went to the brain, whence it was distributed through the nervous system; practically this teaching involved the idea of a psyche, or conscious vital principle. “Psychic pneuma” is in Latin spiritus animalis (anima = psyche); cf. p. 126, [note 4]. Introduction, p. [xxxiv].
[216] Observe that Erasistratus’s “simple nerve” may be almost looked on as an anticipation of the cell. The question Galen now asks is whether this vessel is a “unit mass of living matter,” or merely an agglomeration of atoms subject to mechanical law. cf. Galen’s “fibres,” p. [329].
[217] cf. Book I., chap. [xii].
[218] i.e. in biology we must begin with living substance—with something which is specifically alive—here with the “unit mass of living matter.” cf. p. 73, [note 3].
[219] “Ad elementa quae nec coalescere possunt nec in partes dividi” (Linacre). On the two contrasted schools cf. p. [45].
[220] cf. loc. cit.
[221] “Auxetic.” cf. p. 26, [note 1].
[222] “At corporum quae nec una committi nec dividi possunt nullum in se formatricem, auctricem, nutricem, aut in summa artificem facultatem habet; quippe quod impatibile esse immutibileque praesumitur” (Linacre).