have, as it were, three little bellies" (three ventricles).
334 The Literal Meaning of Genesis what a thing is before knowing what to do with it so sensation comes before movement. The soul therefore, being something non-bodily, first activates the kind of body which is nearest to being non-bodily, like fire (or rather light) and air; and then through these the other coarser elements of the body, like moisture and earth, which constitute the solid mass of the flesh, and which are more subject to being acted on than equipped to act.
16, 22. So then it seems to me that all that was meant where it said: the man was made into a live soul (Gn 2:7), is that he began to have sensation in the body, which is in fact the surest indication of flesh being animated and alive, because even bushes are moved not only by some external force acting on them, as when they are being shaken by winds, but also by that inner motion which drives what ever belongs to the growth and beauty of a tree, by which sap is drawn into the root, and there turned into all that constitutes the nature of the herb or tree. None of this happens, after all, without internal movement. But this movement is not deliberate, like the one which couples the control of the body to sensation, as in every kind of animal which scripture calls "live soul."16 Unless we too, of course, had that other kind of motion within us, our bodies would neither grow nor produce nails and hair. But if that were the only sort of movement in us, without sensation and the power of deliberate movement, the man would not have been said to have been made into a live soul.
17, 23. Accordingly, since the front part of the brain, from which all the senses are distributed, is situated at the forehead, and it is in the face that are to be found the instruments, so to say, of sensation, except for the sense of touch, which is spread through the whole body, this too, however, is shown to have its source in the front part of the brain, from which connections are led back through the crown and the neck to the marrow of the spine, of which we were speaking a moment or two ago; from there the face too of course has its sense of touch, like the whole body—apart from the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting which are located in the face alone. That in my opinion is why it is written that God blew into the man 'sface the puffof life, when he was made into a live soul (Gn 2:7). The front part naturally and rightly takes precedence over the back part, both because it leads while the other follows, and also because from it comes sensation while from the other comes movement—thus deliberation preceding action.
18, 24. And since bodily movement, which follows upon sensation, always involves intervals of time, and since we cannot perform deliberate movements over intervals of time without the aid of memory, that is why the brain is shown to have three ventricles;17 one in front, at the face, from which all sensation is
16. See Gn 1:20-24. 17. The Latin ventriculum means literally "little belly"; so he actually says "the brain is shown to have, as it were, three little bellies" (three ventricles).