על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד י״חOn the Special Laws, Book IV 18
א׳
1[105] They are the calf, the lamb, the kid, the hart, the gazelle, the buffalo, the wild goat, the pygarg, the antelope, and the giraffe, ten in all. For as he always adhered to the principles of numerical science, which he knew by close observance to be a paramount factor in all that exists, he never enacted any law great or small without calling to his aid and as it were accommodating to his enactment its appropriate number. But of all the numbers from the unit upwards ten is the most perfect, and, as Moses says, most holy and sacred, and with this he seals his list of the clean kinds of animals when he wishes to appoint them for the use of the members of his commonwealth.
ב׳
2[106] He adds a general method for proving and testing the ten kinds, based on two signs, the parted hoof and the chewing of the cud. Any kind which lacks both or one of these is unclean. Now both these two are symbols to teacher and learner of the method best suited for acquiring knowledge, the method by which the better is distinguished from the worse, and thus confusion is avoided.
ג׳
3[107] For just as a cud-chewing animal after biting through the food keeps it at rest in the gullet, again after a bit draws it up and masticates it and then passes it on to the belly, so the pupil after receiving from the teacher through his ears the principles and lore of wisdom prolongs the process of learning, as he cannot at once apprehend and grasp them securely, till by using memory to call up each thing that he has heard by constant exercises which act as the cement of conceptions, he stamps a firm impression of them on his soul.
ד׳
4[108] But the firm apprehension of conceptions is clearly useless unless we discriminate and distinguish them so that we can choose what we should choose and avoid the contrary, and this distinguishing is symbolized by the parted hoof. For the way of life is twofold, one branch leading to vice, the other to virtue and we must turn away from the one and never forsake the other.