III, 1, 18

18. Not in (the case of) the third place, as it is thus perceived.

With regard to third place, the rule of the oblations being five in number need not be attended to for the purpose of obtaining a new body.--Why?--On account of it being perceived thus. That means; because it is seen that the third place is reached in the manner described without any reference to the oblations being limited to the number five, 'Live and die. That is the third place.'--Moreover, in the passage, 'In the fifth oblation water is called man,' the number of the oblations is stated to be the cause of the water becoming the body of a man, not of an insect or moth, &c.; the word 'man' applying to the human species only.--And, further, the text merely teaches that in the fifth oblation the waters are called man, and does not at the same time deny that, where there is no fifth oblation, they are not called man; for if it did the latter, the sentence would have the imperfection of having a double sense. We therefore have to understand that the body of those men who are capable of ascending and descending originates in connexion with the fifth oblation, that in the case of other men, however, a body forms itself from water mixed with the other elements even without a settled number of oblations.