The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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dies and is constantly renewed; because nourishment can only enter  
into places where the former nourishment has expired, and if it has  
expired it no longer has life. And if you do not supply nourishment  
equal to the nourishment which is gone, life will fail in vigour,  
and if you take away this nourishment, the life is entirely  
destroyed. But if you restore as much is destroyed day by day, then  
as much of the life is renewed as is consumed, just as the flame of  
the candle is fed by the nourishment afforded by the liquid of this  
candle, which flame continually with a rapid supply restores to it  
from below as much as is consumed in dying above: and from a  
brilliant light is converted in dying into murky smoke; and this  
death is continuous, as the smoke is continuous; and the continuance  
of the smoke is equal to the continuance of the nourishment, and in  
the same instant all the flame is dead and all regenerated,  
simultaneously with the movement of its own nourishment.  
8
44.  
King of the animals--as thou hast described him--I should rather say  
king of the beasts, thou being the greatest--because thou hast  
spared slaying them, in order that they may give thee their children  
for the benefit of the gullet, of which thou hast attempted to make  
a sepulchre for all animals; and I would say still more, if it were  
allowed me to speak the entire truth [5]. But we do not go outside  
human matters in telling of one supreme wickedness, which does not  
happen among the animals of the earth, inasmuch as among them are  
693  


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