Note 122 — Chapter VII · THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD, CONSIDERED AS A SCHEME OR CONSTITUTION, IMPERFECTLY COMPREHENDED.

[Maimonides makes use of the following similitude. “Suppose one of good understanding, whose mother had died soon after he was born to be brought up on an island, where he saw no human being but his father nor the female of any beast. This person when grown up inquires how men are produced. He is told that they are bred in the womb of one of the same species and that while in the womb we are very small and there move and are nourished. The young man inquires whether when thus in the womb we did not eat, and drink, and breathe, as we do now, and is answered, No. Then he denies it, and offers demonstration that it could not be so. For says he, if either of us cease to breathe our life is gone; and how could we have lived close shut up in a womb for months? So if we cease to eat and drink, we die, and how could the child live so for months? and thus he satisfies himself that it is impossible man should come into existence in such a manner.”]