De Virtutibus

Therefore, he says to the man who is about to live in accordance with his most sacred constitution, "My good man, there is a great abundance of things of which you are permitted the enjoyment, to which there is no blame attached; for, perhaps, it would have been pardonable if it were not so, since want and scarcity compel men to do many things which otherwise they would not intend. But you ought to be preeminent in temperance and the practise of all virtues; being reckoned in the most admirable of all classifications and enrolled in obedience to a most excellent captain, the right reason of nature, by all which considerations you ought to be rendered humane, avoiding receiving in your mind any thing which is wrong.

And why in addition to the pains which the animal bears in parturition, should you also inflict other pains from external causes, by the immediate separation of the mother from her offspring? For it is inevitable that she will resist and be indignant when they are thus parted, by reason of the affection implanted by nature in every mother towards her offspring, and especially at the time of their birth; since at this time the breasts are full of milk-like springs, and then if through want of the child which is to suck them the flow of milk receives a check, they become hardened by being distended by the weight of the milk, and the women themselves are overwhelmed with pain.

Therefore, says the law, give her offspring to the mother, if not for the whole time, still at all events for the first seven days, to rear on her milk, and render not unprofitable those fountains of milk which nature has bestowed upon her breasts, destroying that second bounty of hers which she has prepared [*]( Exodus xxiii. 19.)