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strength of the muscles; patience also may be wanting, so that you
lack perseverance. As to whether all these things were found in me
or not [Footnote 84: Leonardo frequently, and perhaps habitually,
wrote in note books of a very small size and only moderately thick;
in most of those which have been preserved undivided, each contains
less than fifty leaves. Thus a considerable number of such volumes
must have gone to make up a volume of the bulk of the 'Codex
Atlanticus' which now contains nearly 1200 detached leaves. In the
passage under consideration, which was evidently written at a late
period of his life, Leonardo speaks of his Manuscript note-books as
numbering 12O; but we should hardly be justified in concluding from
this passage that the greater part of his Manuscripts were now
missing (see Prolegomena, Vol. I, pp. 5-7).], the hundred and
twenty books composed by me will give verdict Yes or No. In these I
have been hindered neither by avarice nor negligence, but simply by
want of time. Farewell [89].
Plans and suggestions for the arrangement of materials (797-802).
7
97.
OF THE ORDER OF THE BOOK.
This work must begin with the conception of man, and describe the
nature of the womb and how the foetus lives in it, up to what stage
it resides there, and in what way it quickens into life and feeds.
659
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