Yet some say that there are no hidden
fountains of water, lying ready in such places as these, and say that it
is not because they are dug out or broken into that they flow, but that
they have their origin and cause in the saturation of the surrounding
earth which becomes saturated by its close texture and coldness, acting
upon the moist vapours, which when pressed together low down turn into
water. For just as women's breasts are not receptacles full of milk
ready to flow, but change the nutriment which is in them into milk, and
so supply it, so also the cold places which are full of springs have no
water concealed in them, nor any such reservoirs as would be needed to
send out deep rivers from any fixed point, but by their pressure they
convert the air and vapour which is in them into water. At any rate,
those places which are dug over break more into springs and run more
with water, in answer to this treatment of their surface, just as
women's breasts respond to sucking, for it moistens and softens the
vapour; whereas land which is not worked is incapable of producing
water, not having the motion by which moisture is obtained. Those who
argue thus have given sceptics the opportunity of saying, that if it be
true, there can be no blood in animals, but that it gathers about
wounds, and that the flow of blood is produced by the air, or some
change which takes place in the flesh.
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