Chapter XXVII: Of Nourishment and Growth

EMPEDOCLES believes, that animals are nourished by the remaining in them of that which is proper to their own nature; they are augmented by the application of heat; and the subtraction of either of these makes them to languish and decay. The stature of men in this present age, if compared with the magnitude of those men which were first produced, is no other than a mere infancy.