coming from it, and yet you cannot feed on flowers.  And even if you were to eat flesh, you would certainly not take with your gruel the scales of fish, or some worms and flies, though these all shine with a light of their own in the dark. 43.  What then remains, but that you should cease saying that you have in your eyes, nose, and palate sufficient means of testing the presence of the divine part in material objects?  And, without these means, how can you tell not only that there is a greater part of God in plants than in flesh, but that there is any part in plants at all?  Are you led to think this by their beauty—not the beauty of agreeable color, but that of agreement of parts?  An excellent reason, in my opinion.  For you will never be so bold as to compare twisted pieces of wood with the bodies of animals, which are formed of members answering to one another.  But if you choose the testimony of the senses, as those must do who cannot see with their mind the full force of existence, how do you prove that the substance of good escapes from bodies in course of time, and by some kind of attrition, but because God has gone out of it, according to your view, and has left one place for another?  The whole is absurd.  But, as far as I can judge, there are no marks or appearances to give rise to this opinion.  For many things plucked from trees, or pulled out of the ground, are the better of some interval of time before we use them for food, as leeks and endive, lettuce, grapes, apples, figs, and some pears; and there are many other things which get a better color when they are not used immediately after being plucked, besides being more wholesome for the body, and having a finer flavor to the palate.  But these things should not possess all these excellent and agreeable qualities, if, as you say, they become more destitute of good the longer they are kept after separation from their mother earth.  Animal food itself is better and more fit for use the day after the animal is killed; but this should not be, if, as you hold, it possessed more good immediately after the slaughter than next day, when more of the divine substance had escaped. 44.  Who does not know that wine becomes purer and better by age?  Nor is it, as you think, more tempting to the destruction of the senses, but more useful for invigorating the body,—only let there be moderation, which ought to control everything.  The senses are sooner destroyed by new wine.  When the must has been only a short time in the vat, and has begun to ferment, it makes those who look down into it fall headlong, affecting their brain, so that without assistance they would perish.  And as regards health, every one knows that bodies are swollen up and injuriously distended by new wine?  Has it these bad properties because there is more good in it?  Are they not found in wine when old because a good deal of the divine substance has gone?  An absurd thing to say, especially for you, who prove the divine presence by the pleasing effect produced on your eyes, nose, and palate!  And what a contradiction it is to make wine the poison of the princes of darkness, and yet to eat grapes!  Has it more of the poison when in the cup than when in the cluster?  Or if the evil remains unmixed after the good is gone, and that by the process of time, how is it that the same grapes, when hung up for awhile, become milder, sweeter, and more wholesome? or how 140 Disclosure of the Monstrous Tenets of the Manichæans.