Summary

Portrait of Lactantius Lactantius Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VI, On the Workmanship of God… (1885)

What of the heart? unless we shall happen to think that they ought to be believed, who think that the affection of anger is placed in the gall, that of fear in the heart, of joy in the spleen. But they will have it that the office of the liver is, by its embrace and heat, to digest the food in the stomach; some think that the desires of the amorous passions are contained in the liver.
Source: Wikisource

Portrait of Lactantius Lactantius Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VI, On the Workmanship of God… (1885)

But I think that all things which relate to the motions of the mind and soul, are of so obscure and profound a nature, that it is beyond the power of man to see through them clearly. This, however, ought to be sure and undoubted, that so many objects and so many organs have one and the same office—to retain the soul in the body.
Source: Wikisource

Portrait of Lactantius Lactantius Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VI, On the Workmanship of God… (1885)

For, if it were so, perhaps the more gentle animals would either have no gall at all, or less than the wild beasts; the more timid ones would have more heart, the more lustful would have more liver, the more playful more spleen. As, therefore, we perceive that we hear with our ears, that we see with our eyes, that we smell with our nostrils; so assuredly we should perceive that we are angry with the gall, that we desire with the liver, that we rejoice with the spleen.
Source: Wikisource

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