In the second place, as the
soul and body are two, we see also that there are two parts of the
soul, the rational and the irrational, and two corresponding states-
reason and appetite. And as the body is prior in order of generation
to the soul, so the irrational is prior to the rational. The proof
is that anger and wishing and desire are implanted in children from
their very birth, but reason and understanding are developed as they
grow older. Wherefore, the care of the body ought to precede that of
the soul, and the training of the appetitive part should follow:
none the less our care of it must be for the sake of the reason, and
our care of the body for the sake of the soul.
XVI
Since the legislator should begin by considering how the frames of
the children whom he is rearing may be as good as possible, his
first care will be about marriage- at what age should his citizens
marry, and who are fit to marry? In legislating on this subject he
ought to consider the persons and the length of their life, that their
procreative life may terminate at the same period, and that they may
not differ in their bodily powers, as will be the case if the man is
still able to beget children while the woman is unable to bear them,
or the woman able to bear while the man is unable to beget, for from
these causes arise quarrels and differences between married persons.
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