The severed member. A stark image of MOTIFthe severed member (the inverse of the members' cooperation): one who "is unwilling to accept what happens" (μὴ θέλων τὸ συμβαῖνον) and detaches himself, or "does something unsocial" (ἀκοινώνητόν τι πράσσων), makes of himself — "as far as it depends on him" (ὅσον ἐφ’ ἑαυτῷ) — the likeness of a severed hand, foot, or head lying apart from the body. Two modes of self-severance: to murmur at fate (a rupture with the DOGMAorder of the Whole) and to act DOGMAunsocially (a rupture with people) — both are a falling "out of the natural unity" (ἀπὸ τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἑνώσεως), for "by nature you were a part" (ἐπεφύκεις μέρος).

An unheard-of privilege. But the image is turned into consolation: "here is the exquisite thing (κομψόν) — you can grow back." A severed hand cannot; but to man god has given a unique "kindness" (χρηστότης) — not only never to be torn from the DOGMAWhole to begin with, but, once torn, "to return, grow together, and resume the place of a part" (συμφῦναι καὶ τὴν τοῦ μέρους τάξιν ἀπολαβεῖν). Repentance and the return to the social are no humiliation but a power of self-repair granted to the rational alone (cf. 8.16 — a change of mind is free; 11.8 — a branch cut from the branch is cut from the whole tree, yet a man can graft himself on again). No separate term-lemmata are singled out: φύσις sits within the phrase κατὰ φύσιν (folded under DOGMAunity); ἀκοινώνητον is a privative form. The governing discipline is action (not to cut oneself off from people), the sustaining one desire (to accept what happens).