[131] Do you not see that the Law says that the camel is an unclean animal, because, though it chews the cud, it does not part the hoof (Lev. 11:4)? And yet, if we fix our eyes on the literal way of regarding the matter, I do not know what principle there is in the reason given for the camel’s uncleanness; but, if we look to the way suggested by latent meanings there is a most vital principle.
[132] For as the animal that chews the cud renders digestible the food taken in before as it rises again to the surface, so the soul of the keen learner, when it has by listening taken in this and that proposition, does not hand them over to forgetfulness, but in stillness all alone goes over them one by one quite quietly, and so succeeds in recalling them all to memory.
[133] Not all memory, however, is a good thing, but that which is brought to bear upon good things only, for it would be a thing most noxious that evil should be unforgettable. That is why, if perfection is to be attained, it is necessary to divide the hoof, in order that, the faculty of memory being cut in twain, language as it flows through the mouth, for which Nature wrought lips as twin boundaries, may separate the beneficial and the injurious forms of memory.
[134] But neither does dividing the hoof by itself apart from chewing the cud appear to have anything advantageous on its own account. For what use is there in dissecting the natures of things, beginning from the beginning and going on to the minutest particles, and yet failing to reach the absolute end, and finding before you defying division those parts which are happily named by some “atoms” or “partless”?
[135] For such a course is clear proof of sagacity and nicety of precision whetted to keenest edge of shrewdness; but it is of no advantage towards promoting nobility of character and a blameless passage through life.