men. And when they degenerated, the gods implanted in men the desire of
union with them, creating in man one animate substance and in woman another
in the following manner:--The outlet for liquids they connected with the
living principle of the spinal marrow, which the man has the desire to emit
into the fruitful womb of the woman; this is like a fertile field in which
the seed is quickened and matured, and at last brought to light. When this
desire is unsatisfied the man is over-mastered by the power of the
generative organs, and the woman is subjected to disorders from the
obstruction of the passages of the breath, until the two meet and pluck the
fruit of the tree.

The race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded men, who
thought to pursue the study of the heavens by sight; these were transformed
into birds, and grew feathers instead of hair. The race of wild animals
were men who had no philosophy, and never looked up to heaven or used the
courses of the head, but followed only the influences of passion.
Naturally they turned to their kindred earth, and put their forelegs to the
ground, and their heads were crushed into strange oblong forms. Some of
them have four feet, and some of them more than four,--the latter, who are
the more senseless, drawing closer to their native element; the most
senseless of all have no limbs and trail their whole body on the ground.
The fourth kind are the inhabitants of the waters; these are made out of
the most senseless and ignorant and impure of men, whom God placed in the
uttermost parts of the world in return for their utter ignorance, and
caused them to respire water instead of the pure element of air. Such are
the laws by which animals pass into one another.

And so the world received animals, mortal and immortal, and was fulfilled
with them, and became a visible God, comprehending the visible, made in the
image of the Intellectual, being the one perfect only-begotten heaven.