/lit/ - Literature

>>19461517
>Galen was not entirely hostile. Both Plato and Moses, he reasoned, are superior to Epicurus, who ascribed all things, including seemingly purposive characteris-tics, to mere chance. But Plato was wiser than Moses in that his cosmogony included reference to the material cause and not only to the will of the creator in explaining the rationale for why things are as they are. Take the case of hair: why does hair on the top of the head grow continually, while the eyelashes stop growing at a fixed point? According to Galen, Plato's cosmogony in the Timaeus accounts for this difference better than does Moses' in Genesis. For Moses, as Galen understands him, the answer is simple, but unsatisfactory: eyelashes stop growing because God commanded them to do so. By contrast, Plato would counsel us to look to the physiological substratum of the eye-lashes, as well as their 'protective utility', for the explanation.' They grow as far as they need to do to serve their purpose and as far as the hard skin attached to the cartilage of the eyebrow will permit.

You guys remember that time Galen compared Plato to Moses and found the latter wanting?