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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: flesh; it is called opos (a vegetable acid).
As to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes into
stone in the following manner:--The water which mixes with the earth and is
broken up in the process changes into air, and taking this form mounts into
its own place. But as there is no surrounding vacuum it thrusts away the
neighbouring air, and this being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced,
having been poured around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and
drives it into the vacant space whence the new air had come up; and the
earth when compressed by the air into an indissoluble union with water
becomes rock. The fairer sort is that which is made up of equal and
similar parts and is transparent; that which has the opposite qualities is
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