4
ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE
350 BC
ON LONGEVITY AND SHORTNESS OF LIFE
by Aristotle
translated by G. R. T. Ross
1
THE reasons for some animals being long-lived and others
short-lived, and, in a word, causes of the length and brevity of
life call for investigation.
The necessary beginning to our inquiry is a statement of the
difficulties about these points. For it is not clear whether in
animals and plants universally it is a single or diverse cause that
makes some to be long-lived, others short-lived. Plants too have in
some cases a long life, while in others it lasts but for a year.
Further, in a natural structure are longevity and a sound
constitution coincident, or is shortness of life independent of
unhealthiness? Perhaps in the case of certain maladies a diseased
state of the body and shortness of life are interchangeable, while
in the case of others ill-health is perfectly compatible with long
life.
Of sleep and waking we have already treated; about life and death we
shall speak later on, and likewise about health and disease, in so far
as it belongs to the science of nature to do so. But at present we
have to investigate the causes of some creatures being long-lived, and
others short-lived. We find this distinction affecting not only entire
genera opposed as wholes to one another, but applying also to
contrasted sets of individuals within the same species. As an instance
of the difference applying to the genus I give man and horse (for
mankind has a longer life than the horse), while within the species
there is the difference between man and man; for of men also some
are long-lived, others short-lived, differing from each other in
respect of the different regions in which they dwell. Races inhabiting
warm countries have longer life, those living in a cold climate live a
shorter time. Likewise there are similar differences among individuals
occupying the same locality.
2
In order to find premisses for our argument, we must answer the
question, What is that which, in natural objects, makes them easily
destroyed, or the reverse? Since fire and water, and whatsoever is
akin thereto, do not possess identical powers they are reciprocal
causes of generation and decay. Hence it is natural to infer that
everything else arising from them and composed of them should share in
the same nature, in all cases where things are not, like a house, a
composite unity formed by the synthesis of many things.
In other matters a different account must be given; for in many
things their mode of dissolution is something peculiar to
themselves, e.g. in knowledge and health and disease. These pass
away even though the medium in which they are found is not destroyed
but continues to exist; for example, take the termination of
ignorance, which is recollection or learning, while knowledge passes
away into forgetfulness, or error. But accidentally the disintegration
of a natural object is accompanied by the destruction of the
non-physical reality; for, when the animal dies, the health or
knowledge resident in it passes away too. Hence from these
considerations we may draw a conclusion about the soul too; for, if
the inherence of soul in body is not a matter of nature but like
that of knowledge in the soul, there would be another mode of
dissolution pertaining to it besides that which occurs when the body
is destroyed. But since evidently it does not admit of this dual
dissolution, the soul must stand in a different case in respect of its
union with the body.
3
Perhaps one might reasonably raise the question whether there is any
place where what is corruptible becomes incorruptible, as fire does in
the upper regions where it meets with no opposite. Opposites destroy
each other, and hence accidentally, by their destruction, whatsoever
is attributed to them is destroyed. But no opposite in a real
substance is accidentally destroyed, because real substance is not
predicated of any subject. Hence a thing which has no opposite, or
which is situated where it has no opposite, cannot be destroyed. For
what will that be which can destroy it, if destruction comes only
through contraries, but no contrary to it exists either absolutely
or in the particular place where it is? But perhaps this is in one
sense true, in another sense not true, for it is impossible that
anything containing matter should not have in any sense an opposite.
Heat and straightness can be present in every part of a thing, but
it is impossible that the thing should be nothing but hot or white
or straight; for, if that were so, attributes would have an
independent existence. Hence if, in all cases, whenever the active and
the passive exist together, the one acts and the other is acted on, it
is impossible that no change should occur. Further, this is so if a
waste product is an opposite, and waste must always be produced; for
opposition is always the source of change, and refuse is what
remains of the previous opposite. But, after expelling everything of a
nature actually opposed, would an object in this case also be
imperishable? No, it would be destroyed by the environment.
If then that is so, what we have said sufficiently accounts for
the change; but, if not, we must assume that something of actually
opposite character is in the changing object, and refuse is produced.
Hence accidentally a lesser flame is consumed by a greater one,
for the nutriment, to wit the smoke, which the former takes a long
period to expend, is used up by the big flame quickly.
Hence [too] all things are at all times in a state of transition and
are coming into being and passing away. The environment acts on them
either favourably or antagonistically, and, owing to this, things that
change their situation become more or less enduring than their
nature warrants, but never are they eternal when they contain contrary
qualities; for their matter is an immediate source of contrariety,
so that if it involves locality they show change of situation, if
quantity, increase and diminution, while if it involves qualitative
affection we find alteration of character.
4
We find that a superior immunity from decay attaches neither to
the largest animals (the horse has shorter life than man) nor to those
that are small (for most insects live but for a year). Nor are
plants as a whole less liable to perish than animals (many plants
are annuals), nor have sanguineous animals the pre-eminence (for the
bee is longer-lived than certain sanguineous animals). Neither is it
the bloodless animals that live longest (for molluscs live only a
year, though bloodless), nor terrestrial organisms (there are both
plants and terrestrial animals of which a single year is the
period), nor the occupants of the sea (for there we find the
crustaceans and the molluscs, which are short-lived).
Speaking generally, the longest-lived things occur among the plants,
e.g. the date-palm. Next in order we find them among the sanguineous
animals rather than among the bloodless, and among those with feet
rather than among the denizens of the water. Hence, taking these two
characters together, the longest-lived animals fall among
sanguineous animals which have feet, e.g. man and elephant. As a
matter of fact also it is a general rule that the larger live longer
than the smaller, for the other long-lived animals too happen to be of
a large size, as are also those I have mentioned.
5
The following considerations may enable us to understand the reasons
for all these facts. We must remember that an animal is by nature
humid and warm, and to live is to be of such a constitution, while old
age is dry and cold, and so is a corpse. This is plain to observation.
But the material constituting the bodies of all things consists of the
following-the hot and the cold, the dry and the moist. Hence when they
age they must become dry, and therefore the fluid in them requires
to be not easily dried up. Thus we explain why fat things are not
liable to decay. The reason is that they contain air; now air
relatively to the other elements is fire, and fire never becomes
corrupted.
Again the humid element in animals must not be small in quantity,
for a small quantity is easily dried up. This is why both plants and
animals that are large are, as a general rule, longer-lived than the
rest, as was said before; it is to be expected that the larger
should contain more moisture. But it is not merely this that makes
them longer lived; for the cause is twofold, to wit, the quality as
well as the quantity of the fluid. Hence the moisture must be not only
great in amount but also warm, in order to be neither easily congealed
nor easily dried up.
It is for this reason also that man lives longer than some animals
which are larger; for animals live longer though there is a deficiency
in the amount of their moisture, if the ratio of its qualitative
superiority exceeds that of its quantitative deficiency.
In some creatures the warm element is their fatty substance, which
prevents at once desiccation and congelation; but in others it assumes
a different flavour. Further, that which is designed to be not
easily destroyed should not yield waste products. Anything of such a
nature causes death either by disease or naturally, for the potency of
the waste product works adversely and destroys now the entire
constitution, now a particular member.
This is why salacious animals and those abounding in seed age
quickly; the seed is a residue, and further, by being lost, it
produces dryness. Hence the mule lives longer than either the horse or
the ass from which it sprang, and females live longer than males if
the males are salacious. Accordingly cock-sparrows have a shorter life
than the females. Again males subject to great toil are short-lived
and age more quickly owing to the labour; toil produces dryness and
old age is dry. But by natural constitution and as a general rule
males live longer than females, and the reason is that the male is
an animal with more warmth than the female.
The same kind of animals are longer-lived in warm than in cold
climates for the same reason, on account of which they are of larger
size. The size of animals of cold constitution illustrates this
particularly well, and hence snakes and lizards and scaly reptiles are
of great size in warm localities, as also are testacea in the Red Sea:
the warm humidity there is the cause equally of their augmented size
and of their life. But in cold countries the humidity in animals is
more of a watery nature, and hence is readily congealed.
Consequently it happens that animals with little or no blood are in
northerly regions either entirely absent (both the land animals with
feet and the water creatures whose home is the sea) or, when they do
occur, they are smaller and have shorter life; for the frost
prevents growth.
Both plants and animals perish if not fed, for in that case they
consume themselves; just as a large flame consumes and burns up a
small one by using up its nutriment, so the natural warmth which is
the primary cause of digestion consumes the material in which it is
located.
Water animals have a shorter life than terrestrial creatures, not
strictly because they are humid, but because they are watery, and
watery moisture is easily destroyed, since it is cold and readily
congealed. For the same reason bloodless animals perish readily unless
protected by great size, for there is neither fatness nor sweetness
about them. In animals fat is sweet, and hence bees are longer-lived
than other animals of larger size.
6
It is amongst the plants that we find the longest life-more than
among the animals, for, in the first place, they are less watery and
hence less easily frozen. Further they have an oiliness and a
viscosity which makes them retain their moisture in a form not
easily dried up, even though they are dry and earthy.
But we must discover the reason why trees are of an enduring
constitution, for it is peculiar to them and is not found in any
animals except the insects.
Plants continually renew themselves and hence last for a long
time. New shoots continually come and the others grow old, and with
the roots the same thing happens. But both processes do not occur
together. Rather it happens that at one time the trunk and the
branches alone die and new ones grow up beside them, and it is only
when this has taken place that the fresh roots spring from the
surviving part. Thus it continues, one part dying and the other
growing, and hence also it lives a long time.
There is a similarity, as has been already said, between plants
and insects, for they live, though divided, and two or more may be
derived from a single one. Insects, however, though managing to
live, are not able to do so long, for they do not possess organs;
nor can the principle resident in each of the separated parts create
organs. In the case of a plant, however, it can do so; every part of a
plant contains potentially both root and stem. Hence it is from this
source that issues that continued growth when one part is renewed
and the other grows old; it is practically a case of longevity. The
taking of slips furnishes a similar instance, for we might say that,
in a way, when we take a slip the same thing happens; the shoot cut
off is part of the plant. Thus in taking slips this perpetuation of
life occurs though their connexion with the plant is severed, but in
the former case it is the continuity that is operative. The reason
is that the life principle potentially belonging to them is present in
every part.
Identical phenomena are found both in plants and in animals. For
in animals the males are, in general, the longer-lived. They have
their upper parts larger than the lower (the male is more of the dwarf
type of build than the female), and it is in the upper part that
warmth resides, in the lower cold. In plants also those with great
heads are longer-lived, and such are those that are not annual but
of the tree-type, for the roots are the head and upper part of a
plant, and among the annuals growth occurs in the direction of their
lower parts and the fruit.
These matters however will be specially investigated in the work
On Plants. But this is our account of the reasons for the duration
of life and for short life in animals. It remains for us to discuss
youth and age, and life and death. To come to a definite understanding
about these matters would complete our course of study on animals.
-THE END-
350 BC
by Aristotle
translated by William Ogle
Book I
1
EVERY systematic science, the humblest and the noblest alike,
seems to admit of two distinct kinds of proficiency; one of which
may be properly called scientific knowledge of the subject, while
the other is a kind of educational acquaintance with it. For an
educated man should be able to form a fair off-hand judgement as to
the goodness or badness of the method used by a professor in his
exposition. To be educated is in fact to be able to do this; and
even the man of universal education we deem to be such in virtue of
his having this ability. It will, however, of course, be understood
that we only ascribe universal education to one who in his own
individual person is thus critical in all or nearly all branches of
knowledge, and not to one who has a like ability merely in some
special subject. For it is possible for a man to have this
competence in some one branch of knowledge without having it in all.
It is plain then that, as in other sciences, so in that which
inquires into nature, there must be certain canons, by reference to
which a hearer shall be able to criticize the method of a professed
exposition, quite independently of the question whether the statements
made be true or false. Ought we, for instance (to give an illustration
of what I mean), to begin by discussing each separate species-man,
lion, ox, and the like-taking each kind in hand inde. pendently of the
rest, or ought we rather to deal first with the attributes which
they have in common in virtue of some common element of their
nature, and proceed from this as a basis for the consideration of them
separately? For genera that are quite distinct yet oftentimes
present many identical phenomena, sleep, for instance, respiration,
growth, decay, death, and other similar affections and conditions,
which may be passed over for the present, as we are not yet prepared
to treat of them with clearness and precision. Now it is plain that if
we deal with each species independently of the rest, we shall
frequently be obliged to repeat the same statements over and over
again; for horse and dog and man present, each and all, every one of
the phenomena just enumerated. A discussion therefore of the
attributes of each such species separately would necessarily involve
frequent repetitions as to characters, themselves identical but
recurring in animals specifically distinct. (Very possibly also
there may be other characters which, though they present specific
differences, yet come under one and the same category. For instance,
flying, swimming, walking, creeping, are plainly specifically
distinct, but yet are all forms of animal progression.) We must, then,
have some clear understanding as to the manner in which our
investigation is to be conducted; whether, I mean, we are first to
deal with the common or generic characters, and afterwards to take
into consideration special peculiarities; or whether we are to start
straight off with the ultimate species. For as yet no definite rule
has been laid down in this matter. So also there is a like uncertainty
as to another point now to be mentioned. Ought the writer who deals
with the works of nature to follow the plan adopted by the
mathematicians in their astronomical demonstrations, and after
considering the phenomena presented by animals, and their several
parts, proceed subsequently to treat of the causes and the reason why;
or ought he to follow some other method? And when these questions
are answered, there yet remains another. The causes concerned in the
generation of the works of nature are, as we see, more than one. There
is the final cause and there is the motor cause. Now we must decide
which of these two causes comes first, which second. Plainly, however,
that cause is the first which we call the final one. For this is the
Reason, and the Reason forms the starting-point, alike in the works of
art and in works of nature. For consider how the physician or how
the builder sets about his work. He starts by forming for himself a
definite picture, in the one case perceptible to mind, in the other to
sense, of his end-the physician of health, the builder of a
house-and this he holds forward as the reason and explanation of
each subsequent step that he takes, and of his acting in this or
that way as the case may be. Now in the works of nature the good end
and the final cause is still more dominant than in works of art such
as these, nor is necessity a factor with the same significance in them
all; though almost all writers, while they try to refer their origin
to this cause, do so without distinguishing the various senses in
which the term necessity is used. For there is absolute necessity,
manifested in eternal phenomena; and there is hypothetical
necessity, manifested in everything that is generated by nature as
in everything that is produced by art, be it a house or what it may.
For if a house or other such final object is to be realized, it is
necessary that such and such material shall exist; and it is necessary
that first this then that shall be produced, and first this and then
that set in motion, and so on in continuous succession, until the
end and final result is reached, for the sake of which each prior
thing is produced and exists. As with these productions of art, so
also is it with the productions of nature. The mode of necessity,
however, and the mode of ratiocination are different in natural
science from what they are in the theoretical sciences; of which we
have spoken elsewhere. For in the latter the starting-point is that
which is; in the former that which is to be. For it is that which is
yet to be-health, let us say, or a man-that, owing to its being of
such and such characters, necessitates the pre-existence or previous
production of this and that antecedent; and not this or that
antecedent which, because it exists or has been generated, makes it
necessary that health or a man is in, or shall come into, existence.
Nor is it possible to track back the series of necessary antecedents
to a starting-point, of which you can say that, existing itself from
eternity, it has determined their existence as its consequent. These
however again, are matters that have been dealt with in another
treatise. There too it was stated in what cases absolute and
hypothetical necessity exist; in what cases also the proposition
expressing hypothetical necessity is simply convertible, and what
cause it is that determines this convertibility.
Another matter which must not be passed over without consideration
is, whether the proper subject of our exposition is that with which
the ancient writers concerned themselves, namely, what is the
process of formation of each animal; or whether it is not rather, what
are the characters of a given creature when formed. For there is no
small difference between these two views. The best course appears to
be that we should follow the method already mentioned, and begin
with the phenomena presented by each group of animals, and, when
this is done, proceed afterwards to state the causes of those
phenomena, and to deal with their evolution. For elsewhere, as for
instance in house building, this is the true sequence. The plan of the
house, or the house, has this and that form; and because it has this
and that form, therefore is its construction carried out in this or
that manner. For the process of evolution is for the sake of the thing
Anally evolved, and not this for the sake of the process.
Empedocles, then, was in error when he said that many of the
characters presented by animals were merely the results of
incidental occurrences during their development; for instance, that
the backbone was divided as it is into vertebrae, because it
happened to be broken owing to the contorted position of the foetus in
the womb. In so saying he overlooked the fact that propagation implies
a creative seed endowed with certain formative properties. Secondly,
he neglected another fact, namely, that the parent animal
pre-exists, not only in idea, but actually in time. For man is
generated from man; and thus it is the possession of certain
characters by the parent that determines the development of like
characters in the child. The same statement holds good also for the
operations of art, and even for those which are apparently
spontaneous. For the same result as is produced by art may occur
spontaneously. Spontaneity, for instance, may bring about the
restoration of health. The products of art, however, require the
pre-existence of an efficient cause homogeneous with themselves,
such as the statuary's art, which must necessarily precede the statue;
for this cannot possibly be produced spontaneously. Art indeed
consists in the conception of the result to be produced before its
realization in the material. As with spontaneity, so with chance;
for this also produces the same result as art, and by the same
process.
The fittest mode, then, of treatment is to say, a man has such and
such parts, because the conception of a man includes their presence,
and because they are necessary conditions of his existence, or, if
we cannot quite say this, which would be best of all, then the next
thing to it, namely, that it is either quite impossible for him to
exist without them, or, at any rate, that it is better for him that
they should be there; and their existence involves the existence of
other antecedents. Thus we should say, because man is an animal with
such and such characters, therefore is the process of his
development necessarily such as it is; and therefore is it
accomplished in such and such an order, this part being formed
first, that next, and so on in succession; and after a like fashion
should we explain the evolution of all other works of nature.
Now that with which the ancient writers, who first philosophized
about Nature, busied themselves, was the material principle and the
material cause. They inquired what this is, and what its character;
how the universe is generated out of it, and by what motor
influence, whether, for instance, by antagonism or friendship, whether
by intelligence or spontaneous action, the substratum of matter
being assumed to have certain inseparable properties; fire, for
instance, to have a hot nature, earth a cold one; the former to be
light, the latter heavy. For even the genesis of the universe is
thus explained by them. After a like fashion do they deal also with
the development of plants and of animals. They say, for instance, that
the water contained in the body causes by its currents the formation
of the stomach and the other receptacles of food or of excretion;
and that the breath by its passage breaks open the outlets of the
nostrils; air and water being the materials of which bodies are
made; for all represent nature as composed of such or similar
substances.
But if men and animals and their several parts are natural
phenomena, then the natural philosopher must take into consideration
not merely the ultimate substances of which they are made, but also
flesh, bone, blood, and all other homogeneous parts; not only these,
but also the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, foot; and must
examine how each of these comes to be what it is, and in virtue of
what force. For to say what are the ultimate substances out of which
an animal is formed, to state, for instance, that it is made of fire
or earth, is no more sufficient than would be a similar account in the
case of a couch or the like. For we should not be content with
saying that the couch was made of bronze or wood or whatever it
might be, but should try to describe its design or mode of composition
in preference to the material; or, if we did deal with the material,
it would at any rate be with the concretion of material and form.
For a couch is such and such a form embodied in this or that matter,
or such and such a matter with this or that form; so that its shape
and structure must be included in our description. For the formal
nature is of greater importance than the material nature.
Does, then, configuration and colour constitute the essence of the
various animals and of their several parts? For if so, what Democritus
says will be strictly correct. For such appears to have been his
notion. At any rate he says that it is evident to every one what
form it is that makes the man, seeing that he is recognizable by his
shape and colour. And yet a dead body has exactly the same
configuration as a living one; but for all that is not a man. So
also no hand of bronze or wood or constituted in any but the
appropriate way can possibly be a hand in more than name. For like a
physician in a painting, or like a flute in a sculpture, in spite of
its name it will be unable to do the office which that name implies.
Precisely in the same way no part of a dead body, such I mean as its
eye or its hand, is really an eye or a hand. To say, then, that
shape and colour constitute the animal is an inadequate statement, and
is much the same as if a woodcarver were to insist that the hand he
had cut out was really a hand. Yet the physiologists, when they give
an account of the development and causes of the animal form, speak
very much like such a craftsman. What, however, I would ask, are the
forces by which the hand or the body was fashioned into its shape? The
woodcarver will perhaps say, by the axe or the auger; the
physiologist, by air and by earth. Of these two answers the
artificer's is the better, but it is nevertheless insufficient. For it
is not enough for him to say that by the stroke of his tool this
part was formed into a concavity, that into a flat surface; but he
must state the reasons why he struck his blow in such a way as to
effect this, and what his final object was; namely, that the piece
of wood should develop eventually into this or that shape. It is
plain, then, that the teaching of the old physiologists is inadequate,
and that the true method is to state what the definitive characters
are that distinguish the animal as a whole; to explain what it is both
in substance and in form, and to deal after the same fashion with
its several organs; in fact, to proceed in exactly the same way as
we should do, were we giving a complete description of a couch.
If now this something that constitutes the form of the living
being be the soul, or part of the soul, or something that without
the soul cannot exist; as would seem to be the case, seeing at any
rate that when the soul departs, what is left is no longer a living
animal, and that none of the parts remain what they were before,
excepting in mere configuration, like the animals that in the fable
are turned into stone; if, I say, this be so, then it will come within
the province of the natural philosopher to inform himself concerning
the soul, and to treat of it, either in its entirety, or, at any rate,
of that part of it which constitutes the essential character of an
animal; and it will be his duty to say what this soul or this part
of a soul is; and to discuss the attributes that attach to this
essential character, especially as nature is spoken of in two
senses, and the nature of a thing is either its matter or its essence;
nature as essence including both the motor cause and the final
cause. Now it is in the latter of these two senses that either the
whole soul or some part of it constitutes the nature of an animal; and
inasmuch as it is the presence of the soul that enables matter to
constitute the animal nature, much more than it is the presence of
matter which so enables the soul, the inquirer into nature is bound on
every ground to treat of the soul rather than of the matter. For
though the wood of which they are made constitutes the couch and the
tripod, it only does so because it is capable of receiving such and
such a form.
What has been said suggests the question, whether it is the whole
soul or only some part of it, the consideration of which comes
within the province of natural science. Now if it be of the whole soul
that this should treat, then there is no place for any other
philosophy beside it. For as it belongs in all cases to one and the
same science to deal with correlated subjects-one and the same
science, for instance, deals with sensation and with the objects of
sense-and as therefore the intelligent soul and the objects of
intellect, being correlated, must belong to one and the same
science, it follows that natural science will have to include the
whole universe in its province. But perhaps it is not the whole
soul, nor all its parts collectively, that constitutes the source of
motion; but there may be one part, identical with that in plants,
which is the source of growth, another, namely the sensory part, which
is the source of change of quality, while still another, and this
not the intellectual part, is the source of locomotion. I say not
the intellectual part; for other animals than man have the power of
locomotion, but in none but him is there intellect. Thus then it is
plain that it is not of the whole soul that we have to treat. For it
is not the whole soul that constitutes the animal nature, but only
some part or parts of it. Moreover, it is impossible that any
abstraction can form a subject of natural science, seeing that
everything that Nature makes is means to an end. For just as human
creations are the products of art, so living objects are manifest in
the products of an analogous cause or principle, not external but
internal, derived like the hot and the cold from the environing
universe. And that the heaven, if it had an origin, was evolved and is
maintained by such a cause, there is therefore even more reason to
believe, than that mortal animals so originated. For order and
definiteness are much more plainly manifest in the celestial bodies
than in our own frame; while change and chance are characteristic of
the perishable things of earth. Yet there are some who, while they
allow that every animal exists and was generated by nature,
nevertheless hold that the heaven was constructed to be what it is
by chance and spontaneity; the heaven, in which not the faintest
sign of haphazard or of disorder is discernible! Again, whenever there
is plainly some final end, to which a motion tends should nothing
stand in the way, we always say that such final end is the aim or
purpose of the motion; and from this it is evident that there must
be a something or other really existing, corresponding to what we call
by the name of Nature. For a given germ does not give rise to any
chance living being, nor spring from any chance one; but each germ
springs from a definite parent and gives rise to a definite progeny.
And thus it is the germ that is the ruling influence and fabricator of
the offspring. For these it is by nature, the offspring being at any
rate that which in nature will spring from it. At the same time the
offspring is anterior to the germ; for germ and perfected progeny
are related as the developmental process and the result. Anterior,
however, to both germ and product is the organism from which the
germ was derived. For every germ implies two organisms, the parent and
the progeny. For germ or seed is both the seed of the organism from
which it came, of the horse, for instance, from which it was
derived, and the seed of the organism that will eventually arise
from it, of the mule, for example, which is developed from the seed of
the horse. The same seed then is the seed both of the horse and of the
mule, though in different ways as here set forth. Moreover, the seed
is potentially that which will spring from it, and the relation of
potentiality to actuality we know.
There are then two causes, namely, necessity and the final end.
For many things are produced, simply as the results of necessity. It
may, however, be asked, of what mode of necessity are we speaking when
we say this. For it can be of neither of those two modes which are set
forth in the philosophical treatises. There is, however, the third
mode, in such things at any rate as are generated. For instance, we
say that food is necessary; because an animal cannot possibly do
without it. This third mode is what may be called hypothetical
necessity. Here is another example of it. If a piece of wood is to
be split with an axe, the axe must of necessity be hard; and, if hard,
must of necessity be made of bronze or iron. Now exactly in the same
way the body, which like the axe is an instrument-for both the body as
a whole and its several parts individually have definite operations
for which they are made-just in the same way, I say, the body, if it
is to do its work, must of necessity be of such and such a
character, and made of such and such materials.
It is plain then that there are two modes of causation, and that
both of these must, so far as possible, be taken into account in
explaining the works of nature, or that at any rate an attempt must be
made to include them both; and that those who fail in this tell us
in reality nothing about nature. For primary cause constitutes the
nature of an animal much more than does its matter. There are indeed
passages in which even Empedocles hits upon this, and following the
guidance of fact, finds himself constrained to speak of the ratio
(olugos) as constituting the essence and real nature of things.
Such, for instance, is the case when he explains what is a bone. For
he does not merely describe its material, and say it is this one
element, or those two or three elements, or a compound of all the
elements, but states the ratio (olugos) of their combination. As
with a bone, so manifestly is it with the flesh and all other
similar parts.
The reason why our predecessors failed in hitting upon this method
of treatment was, that they were not in possession of the notion of
essence, nor of any definition of substance. The first who came near
it was Democritus, and he was far from adopting it as a necessary
method in natural science, but was merely brought to it, spite of
himself, by constraint of facts. In the time of Socrates a nearer
approach was made to the method. But at this period men gave up
inquiring into the works of nature, and philosophers diverted their
attention to political science and to the virtues which benefit
mankind.
Of the method itself the following is an example. In dealing with
respiration we must show that it takes place for such or such a
final object; and we must also show that this and that part of the
process is necessitated by this and that other stage of it. By
necessity we shall sometimes mean hypothetical necessity, the
necessity, that is, that the requisite antecedants shall be there,
if the final end is to be reached; and sometimes absolute necessity,
such necessity as that which connects substances and their inherent
properties and characters. For the alternate discharge and re-entrance
of heat and the inflow of air are necessary if we are to live. Here we
have at once a necessity in the former of the two senses. But the
alternation of heat and refrigeration produces of necessity an
alternate admission and discharge of the outer air, and this is a
necessity of the second kind.
In the foregoing we have an example of the method which we must
adopt, and also an example of the kind of phenomena, the causes of
which we have to investigate.
2
Some writers propose to reach the definitions of the ultimate
forms of animal life by bipartite division. But this method is often
difficult, and often impracticable.
Sometimes the final differentia of the subdivision is sufficient
by itself, and the antecedent differentiae are mere surplusage. Thus
in the series Footed, Two-footed, Cleft-footed, the last term is
all-expressive by itself, and to append the higher terms is only an
idle iteration. Again it is not permissible to break up a natural
group, Birds for instance, by putting its members under different
bifurcations, as is done in the published dichotomies, where some
birds are ranked with animals of the water, and others placed in a
different class. The group Birds and the group Fishes happen to be
named, while other natural groups have no popular names; for instance,
the groups that we may call Sanguineous and Bloodless are not known
popularly by any designations. If such natural groups are not to be
broken up, the method of Dichotomy cannot be employed, for it
necessarily involves such breaking up and dislocation. The group of
the Many-footed, for instance, would, under this method, have to be
dismembered, and some of its kinds distributed among land animals,
others among water animals.
3
Again, privative terms inevitably form one branch of dichotomous
division, as we see in the proposed dichotomies. But privative terms
in their character of privatives admit of no subdivision. For there
can be no specific forms of a negation, of Featherless for instance or
of Footless, as there are of Feathered and of Footed. Yet a generic
differentia must be subdivisible; for otherwise what is there that
makes it generic rather than specific? There are to be found
generic, that is specifically subdivisible, differentiae; Feathered
for instance and Footed. For feathers are divisible into Barbed and
Unbarbed, and feet into Manycleft, and Twocleft, like those of animals
with bifid hoofs, and Uncleft or Undivided, like those of animals with
solid hoofs. Now even with differentiae capable of this specific
subdivision it is difficult enough so to make the classification, as
that each animal shall be comprehended in some one subdivision and
in not more than one; but far more difficult, nay impossible, is it to
do this, if we start with a dichotomy into two contradictories.
(Suppose for instance we start with the two contradictories, Feathered
and Unfeathered; we shall find that the ant, the glow-worm, and some
other animals fall under both divisions.) For each differentia must be
presented by some species. There must be some species, therefore,
under the privative heading. Now specifically distinct animals
cannot present in their essence a common undifferentiated element, but
any apparently common element must really be differentiated. (Bird and
Man for instance are both Two-footed, but their two-footedness is
diverse and differentiated. So any two sanguineous groups must have
some difference in their blood, if their blood is part of their
essence.) From this it follows that a privative term, being
insusceptible of differentiation, cannot be a generic differentia;
for, if it were, there would be a common undifferentiated element in
two different groups.
Again, if the species are ultimate indivisible groups, that is,
are groups with indivisible differentiae, and if no differentia be
common to several groups, the number of differentiae must be equal
to the number of species. If a differentia though not divisible
could yet be common to several groups, then it is plain that in virtue
of that common differentia specifically distinct animals would fall
into the same division. It is necessary then, if the differentiae,
under which are ranged all the ultimate and indivisible groups, are
specific characters, that none of them shall be common; for otherwise,
as already said, specifically distinct animals will come into one
and the same division. But this would violate one of the requisite
conditions, which are as follows. No ultimate group must be included
in more than a single division; different groups must not be
included in the same division; and every group must be found in some
division. It is plain then that we cannot get at the ultimate specific
forms of the animal, or any other, kingdom by bifurcate division. If
we could, the number of ultimate differentiae would equal the number
of ultimate animal forms. For assume an order of beings whose prime
differentiae are White and Black. Each of these branches will
bifurcate, and their branches again, and so on till we reach the
ultimate differentiae, whose number will be four or some other power
of two, and will also be the number of the ultimate species
comprehended in the order.
(A species is constituted by the combination differentia and matter.
For no part of an animal is purely material or purely immaterial;
nor can a body, independently of its condition, constitute an animal
or any of its parts, as has repeatedly been observed.)
Further, the differentiae must be elements of the essence, and not
merely essential attributes. Thus if Figure is the term to be divided,
it must not be divided into figures whose angles are equal to two
right angles, and figures whose angles are together greater than two
right angles. For it is only an attribute of a triangle and not part
of its essence that its angles are equal to two right angles.
Again, the bifurcations must be opposites, like White and Black,
Straight and Bent; and if we characterize one branch by either term,
we must characterize the other by its opposite, and not, for
example, characterize one branch by a colour, the other by a mode of
progression, swimming for instance.
Furthermore, living beings cannot be divided by the functions common
to body and soul, by Flying, for instance, and Walking, as we see them
divided in the dichotomies already referred to. For some groups,
Ants for instance, fall under both divisions, some ants flying while
others do not. Similarly as regards the division into Wild and Tame;
for it also would involve the disruption of a species into different
groups. For in almost all species in which some members are tame,
there are other members that are wild. Such, for example, is the
case with Men, Horses, Oxen, Dogs in India, Pigs, Goats, Sheep; groups
which, if double, ought to have what they have not, namely,
different appellations; and which, if single, prove that Wildness
and Tameness do not amount to specific differences. And whatever
single element we take as a basis of division the same difficulty will
occur.
The method then that we must adopt is to attempt to recognize the
natural groups, following the indications afforded by the instincts of
mankind, which led them for instance to form the class of Birds and
the class of Fishes, each of which groups combines a multitude of
differentiae, and is not defined by a single one as in dichotomy.
The method of dichotomy is either impossible (for it would put a
single group under different divisions or contrary groups under the
same division), or it only furnishes a single ultimate differentia for
each species, which either alone or with its series of antecedents has
to constitute the ultimate species.
If, again, a new differential character be introduced at any stage
into the division, the necessary result is that the continuity of
the division becomes merely a unity and continuity of agglomeration,
like the unity and continuity of a series of sentences coupled
together by conjunctive particles. For instance, suppose we have the
bifurcation Feathered and Featherless, and then divide Feathered
into Wild and Tame, or into White and Black. Tame and White are not
a differentiation of Feathered, but are the commencement of an
independent bifurcation, and are foreign to the series at the end of
which they are introduced.
As we said then, we must define at the outset by multiplicity of
differentiae. If we do so, privative terms will be available, which
are unavailable to the dichotomist.
The impossibility of reaching the definition of any of the
ultimate forms by dichotomy of the larger group, as some propose, is
manifest also from the following considerations. It is impossible that
a single differentia, either by itself or with its antecedents,
shall express the whole essence of a species. (In saying a single
differentia by itself I mean such an isolated differentia as
Cleft-footed; in saying a single differentia with antecedent I mean,
to give an instance, Manycleft-footed preceded by Cleft-footed. The
very continuity of a series of successive differentiae in a division
is intended to show that it is their combination that expresses the
character of the resulting unit, or ultimate group. But one is
misled by the usages of language into imagining that it is merely
the final term of the series, Manycleft-footed for instance, that
constitutes the whole differentia, and that the antecedent terms,
Footed, Cleft-footed, are superfluous. Now it is evident that such a
series cannot consist of many terms. For if one divides and
subdivides, one soon reaches the final differential term, but for
all that will not have got to the ultimate division, that is, to the
species.) No single differentia, I repeat, either by itself or with
its antecedents, can possibly express the essence of a species.
Suppose, for example, Man to be the animal to be defined; the single
differentia will be Cleft-footed, either by itself or with its
antecedents, Footed and Two-footed. Now if man was nothing more than a
Cleft-footed animal, this single differentia would duly represent
his essence. But seeing that this is not the case, more differentiae
than this one will necessarily be required to define him; and these
cannot come under one division; for each single branch of a
dichotomy ends in a single differentia, and cannot possibly include
several differentiae belonging to one and the same animal.
It is impossible then to reach any of the ultimate animal forms by
dichotomous division.
4
It deserves inquiry why a single name denoting a higher group was
not invented by mankind, as an appellation to comprehend the two
groups of Water animals and Winged animals. For even these have
certain attributes in common. However, the present nomenclature is
just. Groups that only differ in degree, and in the more or less of an
identical element that they possess, are aggregated under a single
class; groups whose attributes are not identical but analogous are
separated. For instance, bird differs from bird by gradation, or by
excess and defect; some birds have long feathers, others short ones,
but all are feathered. Bird and Fish are more remote and only agree in
having analogous organs; for what in the bird is feather, in the
fish is scale. Such analogies can scarcely, however, serve universally
as indications for the formation of groups, for almost all animals
present analogies in their corresponding parts.
The individuals comprised within a species, such as Socrates and
Coriscus, are the real existences; but inasmuch as these individuals
possess one common specific form, it will suffice to state the
universal attributes of the species, that is, the attributes common to
all its individuals, once for all, as otherwise there will be
endless reiteration, as has already been pointed out.
But as regards the larger groups-such as Birds-which comprehend many
species, there may be a question. For on the one hand it may be
urged that as the ultimate species represent the real existences, it
will be well, if practicable, to examine these ultimate species
separately, just as we examine the species Man separately; to examine,
that is, not the whole class Birds collectively, but the Ostrich,
the Crane, and the other indivisible groups or species belonging to
the class.
On the other hand, however, this course would involve repeated
mention of the same attribute, as the same attribute is common to many
species, and so far would be somewhat irrational and tedious. Perhaps,
then, it will be best to treat generically the universal attributes of
the groups that have a common nature and contain closely allied
subordinate forms, whether they are groups recognized by a true
instinct of mankind, such as Birds and Fishes, or groups not popularly
known by a common appellation, but withal composed of closely allied
subordinate groups; and only to deal individually with the
attributes of a single species, when such species, man, for
instance, and any other such, if such there be-stands apart from
others, and does not constitute with them a larger natural group.
It is generally similarity in the shape of particular organs, or
of the whole body, that has determined the formation of the larger
groups. It is in virtue of such a similarity that Birds, Fishes,
Cephalopoda, and Testacea have been made to form each a separate
class. For within the limits of each such class, the parts do not
differ in that they have no nearer resemblance than that of
analogy-such as exists between the bone of man and the spine of
fish-but differ merely in respect of such corporeal conditions as
largeness smallness, softness hardness, smoothness roughness, and
other similar oppositions, or, in one word, in respect of degree.
We have now touched upon the canons for criticizing the method of
natural science, and have considered what is the most systematic and
easy course of investigation; we have also dealt with division, and
the mode of conducting it so as best to attain the ends of science,
and have shown why dichotomy is either impracticable or
inefficacious for its professed purposes.
Having laid this foundation, let us pass on to our next topic.
5
Of things constituted by nature some are ungenerated,
imperishable, and eternal, while others are subject to generation
and decay. The former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but
less accessible to knowledge. The evidence that might throw light on
them, and on the problems which we long to solve respecting them, is
furnished but scantily by sensation; whereas respecting perishable
plants and animals we have abundant information, living as we do in
their midst, and ample data may be collected concerning all their
various kinds, if only we are willing to take sufficient pains. Both
departments, however, have their special charm. The scanty conceptions
to which we can attain of celestial things give us, from their
excellence, more pleasure than all our knowledge of the world in which
we live; just as a half glimpse of persons that we love is more
delightful than a leisurely view of other things, whatever their
number and dimensions. On the other hand, in certitude and in
completeness our knowledge of terrestrial things has the advantage.
Moreover, their greater nearness and affinity to us balances
somewhat the loftier interest of the heavenly things that are the
objects of the higher philosophy. Having already treated of the
celestial world, as far as our conjectures could reach, we proceed
to treat of animals, without omitting, to the best of our ability, any
member of the kingdom, however ignoble. For if some have no graces
to charm the sense, yet even these, by disclosing to intellectual
perception the artistic spirit that designed them, give immense
pleasure to all who can trace links of causation, and are inclined
to philosophy. Indeed, it would be strange if mimic representations of
them were attractive, because they disclose the mimetic skill of the
painter or sculptor, and the original realities themselves were not
more interesting, to all at any rate who have eyes to discern the
reasons that determined their formation. We therefore must not
recoil with childish aversion from the examination of the humbler
animals. Every realm of nature is marvellous: and as Heraclitus,
when the strangers who came to visit him found him warming himself
at the furnace in the kitchen and hesitated to go in, reported to have
bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even in that kitchen
divinities were present, so we should venture on the study of every
kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us
something natural and something beautiful. Absence of haphazard and
conduciveness of everything to an end are to be found in Nature's
works in the highest degree, and the resultant end of her
generations and combinations is a form of the beautiful.
If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal
kingdom an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the study
of man. For no one can look at the primordia of the human frame-blood,
flesh, bones, vessels, and the like-without much repugnance. Moreover,
when any one of the parts or structures, be it which it may, is
under discussion, it must not be supposed that it is its material
composition to which attention is being directed or which is the
object of the discussion, but the relation of such part to the total
form. Similarly, the true object of architecture is not bricks,
mortar, or timber, but the house; and so the principal object of
natural philosophy is not the material elements, but their
composition, and the totality of the form, independently of which they
have no existence.
The course of exposition must be first to state the attributes
common to whole groups of animals, and then to attempt to give their
explanation. Many groups, as already noticed, present common
attributes, that is to say, in some cases absolutely identical
affections, and absolutely identical organs,-feet, feathers, scales,
and the like-while in other groups the affections and organs are
only so far identical as that they are analogous. For instance, some
groups have lungs, others have no lung, but an organ analogous to a
lung in its place; some have blood, others have no blood, but a
fluid analogous to blood, and with the same office. To treat of the
common attributes in connexion with each individual group would
involve, as already suggested, useless iteration. For many groups have
common attributes. So much for this topic.
As every instrument and every bodily member subserves some partial
end, that is to say, some special action, so the whole body must be
destined to minister to some Plenary sphere of action. Thus the saw is
made for sawing, for sawing is a function, and not sawing for the saw.
Similarly, the body too must somehow or other be made for the soul,
and each part of it for some subordinate function, to which it is
adapted.
We have, then, first to describe the common functions, common,
that is, to the whole animal kingdom, or to certain large groups, or
to the members of a species. In other words, we have to describe the
attributes common to all animals, or to assemblages, like the class of
Birds, of closely allied groups differentiated by gradation, or to
groups like Man not differentiated into subordinate groups. In the
first case the common attributes may be called analogous, in the
second generic, in the third specific.
When a function is ancillary to another, a like relation
manifestly obtains between the organs which discharge these functions;
and similarly, if one function is prior to and the end of another,
their respective organs will stand to each other in the same relation.
Thirdly, the existence of these parts involves that of other things as
their necessary consequents.
Instances of what I mean by functions and affections are
Reproduction, Growth, Copulation, Waking, Sleep, Locomotion, and other
similar vital actions. Instances of what I mean by parts are Nose,
Eye, Face, and other so-called members or limbs, and also the more
elementary parts of which these are made. So much for the method to be
pursued. Let us now try to set forth the causes of all vital
phenomena, whether universal or particular, and in so doing let us
follow that order of exposition which conforms, as we have
indicated, to the order of nature.
Book II
1
THE nature and the number of the parts of which animals are
severally composed are matters which have already been set forth in
detail in the book of Researches about Animals. We have now to inquire
what are the causes that in each case have determined this
composition, a subject quite distinct from that dealt with in the
Researches.
Now there are three degrees of composition; and of these the first
in order, as all will allow, is composition out of what some call
the elements, such as earth, air, water, fire. Perhaps, however, it
would be more accurate to say composition out of the elementary
forces; nor indeed out of all of these, but out of a limited number of
them, as defined in previous treatises. For fluid and solid, hot and
cold, form the material of all composite bodies; and all other
differences are secondary to these, such differences, that is, as
heaviness or lightness, density or rarity, roughness or smoothness,
and any other such properties of matter as there may be. second degree
of composition is that by which the homogeneous parts of animals, such
as bone, flesh, and the like, are constituted out of the primary
substances. The third and last stage is the composition which forms
the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, and the rest.
Now the order of actual development and the order of logical
existence are always the inverse of each other. For that which is
posterior in the order of development is antecedent in the order of
nature, and that is genetically last which in nature is first.
(That this is so is manifest by induction; for a house does not
exist for the sake of bricks and stones, but these materials for the
sake of the house; and the same is the case with the materials of
other bodies. Nor is induction required to show this. it is included
in our conception of generation. For generation is a process from a
something to a something; that which is generated having a cause in
which it originates and a cause in which it ends. The originating
cause is the primary efficient cause, which is something already
endowed with tangible existence, while the final cause is some
definite form or similar end; for man generates man, and plant
generates plant, in each case out of the underlying material.)
In order of time, then, the material and the generative process must
necessarily be anterior to the being that is generated; but in logical
order the definitive character and form of each being precedes the
material. This is evident if one only tries to define the process of
formation. For the definition of house-building includes and
presupposes that of the house; but the definition of the house does
not include nor presuppose that of house-building; and the same is
true of all other productions. So that it must necessarily be that the
elementary material exists for the sake of the homogeneous parts,
seeing that these are genetically posterior to it, just as the
heterogeneous parts are posterior genetically to them. For these
heterogeneous parts have reached the end and goal, having the third
degree of composition, in which degree generation or development often
attains its final term.
Animals, then, are composed of homogeneous parts, and are also
composed of heterogeneous parts. The former, however, exist for the
sake of the latter. For the active functions and operations of the
body are carried on by these; that is, by the heterogeneous parts,
such as the eye, the nostril, the whole face, the fingers, the hand,
and the whole arm. But inasmuch as there is a great variety in the
functions and motions not only of aggregate animals but also of the
individual organs, it is necessary that the substances out of which
these are composed shall present a diversity of properties. For some
purposes softness is advantageous, for others hardness; some parts
must be capable of extension, others of flexion. Such properties,
then, are distributed separately to the different homogeneous parts,
one being soft another hard, one fluid another solid, one viscous
another brittle; whereas each of the heterogeneous parts presents a
combination of multifarious properties. For the hand, to take an
example, requires one property to enable it to effect pressure, and
another and different property for simple prehension. For this
reason the active or executive parts of the body are compounded out of
bones, sinews, flesh, and the like, but not these latter out of the
former.
So far, then, as has yet been stated, the relations between these
two orders of parts are determined by a final cause. We have, however,
to inquire whether necessity may not also have a share in the
matter; and it must be admitted that these mutual relations could
not from the very beginning have possibly been other than they are.
For heterogeneous parts can be made up out of homogeneous parts,
either from a plurality of them, or from a single one, as is the
case with some of the viscera which, varying in configuration, are
yet, to speak broadly, formed from a single homogeneous substance; but
that homogeneous substances should be formed out of a combination of
heterogeneous parts is clearly an impossibility. For these causes,
then, some parts of animals are simple and homogeneous, while others
are composite and heterogeneous; and dividing the parts into the
active or executive and the sensitive, each one of the former is, as
before said, heterogeneous, and each one of the latter homogeneous.
For it is in homogeneous parts alone that sensation can occur, as
the following considerations show.
Each sense is confined to a single order of sensibles, and its organ
must be such as to admit the action of that kind or order. But it is
only that which is endowed with a property in posse that is acted on
by that which has the like property in esse, so that the two are the
same in kind, and if the latter is single so also is the former.
Thus it is that while no physiologists ever dream of saying of the
hand or face or other such part that one is earth, another water,
another fire, they couple each separate sense-organ with a separate
element, asserting this one to be air and that other to be fire.
Sensation, then, is confined to the simple or homogeneous parts.
But, as might reasonably be expected, the organ of touch, though still
homogeneous, is yet the least simple of all the sense-organs. For
touch more than any other sense appears to be correlated to several
distinct kinds of objects, and to recognize more than one category
of contrasts, heat and cold, for instance, solidity and fluidity,
and other similar oppositions. Accordingly, the organ which deals with
these varied objects is of all the sense-organs the most corporeal,
being either the flesh, or the substance which in some animals takes
the place of flesh.
Now as there cannot possibly be an animal without sensation, it
follows as a necessary consequence that every animal must have some
homogeneous parts; for these alone are capable of sensation, the
heterogeneous parts serving for the active functions. Again, as the
sensory faculty, the motor faculty, and the nutritive faculty are
all lodged in one and the same part of the body, as was stated in a
former treatise, it is necessary that the part which is the primary
seat of these principles shall on the one hand, in its character of
general sensory recipient, be one of the simple parts; and on the
other hand shall, in its motor and active character, be one of the
heterogeneous parts. For this reason it is the heart which in
sanguineous animals constitutes this central part, and in bloodless
animals it is that which takes the place of a heart. For the heart,
like the other viscera, is one of the homogeneous parts; for, if cut
up, its pieces are homogeneous in substance with each other. But it is
at the same time heterogeneous in virtue of its definite
configuration. And the same is true of the other so-called viscera,
which are indeed formed from the same material as the heart. For all
these viscera have a sanguineous character owing to their being
situated upon vascular ducts and branches. For just as a stream of
water deposits mud, so the various viscera, the heart excepted, are,
as it were, deposits from the stream of blood in the vessels. And as
to the heart, the very starting-point of the vessels, and the actual
seat of the force by which the blood is first fabricated, it is but
what one would naturally expect, that out of the selfsame nutriment of
which it is the recipient its own proper substance shall be formed.
Such, then, are the reasons why the viscera are of sanguineous aspect;
and why in one point of view they are homogeneous, in another
heterogeneous.
2
Of the homogeneous parts of animals, some are soft and fluid, others
hard and solid; and of the former some are fluid permanently, others
only so long as they are in the living body. Such are blood, serum,
lard, suet, marrow, semen, bile, milk when present, flesh, and their
various analogues. For the parts enumerated are not to be found in all
animals, some animals only having parts analogous to them. Of the hard
and solid homogeneous parts bone, fish-spine, sinew, blood-vessel, are
examples. The last of these points to a sub-division that may be
made in the class of homogeneous parts. For in some of them the
whole and a portion of the whole in one sense are designated by the
same term-as, for example, is the case with blood-vessel and bit of
blood-vessel-while in another sense they are not; but a portion of a
heterogeneous part, such as face, in no sense has the same designation
as the whole.
The first question to be asked is what are the causes to which these
homogeneous parts owe their existence? The causes are various; and
this whether the parts be solid or fluid. Thus one set of
homogeneous parts represent the material out of which the
heterogeneous parts are formed; for each separate organ is constructed
of bones, sinews, flesh, and the like; which are either essential
elements in its formation, or contribute to the proper discharge of
its function. A second set are the nutriment of the first, and are
invariably fluid, for all growth occurs at the expense of fluid
matter; while a third set are the residue of the second. Such, for
instance, are the faeces and, in animals that have a bladder, the
urine; the former being the dregs of the solid nutriment, the latter
of the fluid.
Even the individual homogeneous parts present variations, which
are intended in each case to render them more serviceable for their
purpose. The variations of the blood may be selected to illustrate
this. For different bloods differ in their degrees of thinness or
thickness, of clearness or turbidity, of coldness or heat; and this
whether we compare the bloods from different parts of the same
individual or the bloods of different animals. For, in the individual,
all the differences just enumerated distinguish the blood of the upper
and of the lower halves of the body; and, dealing with classes, one
section of animals is sanguineous, while the other has no blood, but
only something resembling it in its place. As regards the results of
such differences, the thicker and the hotter blood is, the more
conducive is it to strength, while in proportion to its thinness and
its coldness is its suitability for sensation and intelligence. A like
distinction exists also in the fluid which is analogous to blood. This
explains how it is that bees and other similar creatures are of a more
intelligent nature than many sanguineous animals; and that, of
sanguineous animals, those are the most intelligent whose blood is
thin and cold. Noblest of all are those whose blood is hot, and at the
same time thin and clear. For such are suited alike for the
development of courage and of intelligence. Accordingly, the upper
parts are superior in these respects to the lower, the male superior
to the female, and the right side to the left. As with the blood so
also with the other parts, homogeneous and heterogeneous alike. For
here also such variations as occur must be held either to be related
to the essential constitution and mode of life of the several animals,
or, in other cases, to be merely matters of slightly better or
slightly worse. Two animals, for instance, may have eyes. But in one
these eyes may be of fluid consistency, while in the other they are
hard; and in one there may be eyelids, in the other no such
appendages. In such a case, the fluid consistency and the presence
of eyelids, which are intended to add to the accuracy of vision, are
differences of degree. As to why all animals must of necessity have
blood or something of a similar character, and what the nature of
blood may be, these are matters which can only be considered when we
have first discussed hot and cold. For the natural properties of
many substances are referable to these two elementary principles;
and it is a matter of frequent dispute what animals or what parts of
animals are hot and what cold. For some maintain that water animals
are hotter than such as live on land, asserting that their natural
heat counterbalances the coldness of their medium; and again, that
bloodless animals are hotter than those with blood, and females than
males. Parmenides, for instance, and some others declare that women
are hotter than men, and that it is the warmth and abundance of
their blood which causes their menstrual flow, while Empedocles
maintains the opposite opinion. Again, comparing the blood and the
bile, some speak of the former as hot and of the latter as cold, while
others invert the description. If there be this endless disputing
about hot and cold, which of all things that affect our senses are the
most distinct, what are we to think as to our other sensory
impressions?
The explanation of the difficulty appears to be that the term
'hotter' is used in several senses; so that different statements,
though in verbal contradiction with each other, may yet all be more or
less true. There ought, then, to be some clear understanding as to the
sense in which natural substances are to be termed hot or cold,
solid or fluid. For it appears manifest that these are properties on
which even life and death are largely dependent, and that they are
moreover the causes of sleep and waking, of maturity and old age, of
health and disease; while no similar influence belongs to roughness
and smoothness, to heaviness and lightness, nor, in short, to any
other such properties of matter. That this should be so is but in
accordance with rational expectation. For hot and cold, solid and
fluid, as was stated in a former treatise, are the foundations of
the physical elements.
Is then the term hot used in one sense or in many? To answer this we
must ascertain what special effect is attributed to a hotter
substance, and if there be several such, how many these may be. A body
then is in one sense said to be hotter than another, if it impart a
greater amount of heat to an object in contact with it. In a second
sense, that is said to be hotter which causes the keener sensation
when touched, and especially if the sensation be attended with pain.
This criterion, however, would seem sometimes to be a false one; for
occasionally it is the idiosyncrasy of the individual that causes
the sensation to be painful. Again, of two things, that is the
hotter which the more readily melts a fusible substance, or sets on
fire an inflammable one. Again, of two masses of one and the same
substance, the larger is said to have more heat than the smaller.
Again, of two bodies, that is said to be the hotter which takes the
longer time in cooling, as also we call that which is rapidly heated
hotter than that which is long about it; as though the rapidity
implied proximity and this again similarity of nature, while the
want of rapidity implied distance and this again dissimilarity of
nature. The term hotter is used then in all the various senses that
have been mentioned, and perhaps in still more. Now it is impossible
for one body to be hotter than another in all these different
fashions. Boiling water for instance, though it is more scalding
than flame, yet has no power of burning or melting combustible or
fusible matter, while flame has. So again this boiling water is hotter
than a small fire, and yet gets cold more rapidly and completely.
For in fact fire never becomes cold; whereas water invariably does so.
Boiling water, again, is hotter to the touch than oil; yet it gets
cold and solid more rapidly than this other fluid. Blood, again, is
hotter to the touch than either water or oil, and yet coagulates
before them. Iron, again, and stones and other similar bodies are
longer in getting heated than water, but when once heated burn other
substances with a much greater intensity. Another distinction is this.
In some of the bodies which are called hot the heat is derived from
without, while in others it belongs to the bodies themselves; and it
makes a most important difference whether the heat has the former or
the latter origin. For to call that one of two bodies the hotter,
which is possessed of heat, we may almost say, accidentally and not of
its own essence, is very much the same thing as if, finding that
some man in a fever was a musician, one were to say that musicians are
hotter than healthy men. Of that which is hot per se and that which is
hot per accidens, the former is the slower to cool, while not rarely
the latter is the hotter to the touch. The former again is the more
burning of the two-flame, for instance, as compared with boiling
water-while the latter, as the boiling water, which is hot per
accidens, is the more heating to the touch. From all this it is
clear that it is no simple matter to decide which of two bodies is the
hotter. For the first may be the hotter in one sense, the second the
hotter in another. Indeed in some of these cases it is impossible to
say simply even whether a thing is hot or not. For the actual
substratum may not itself be hot, but may be hot when coupled witb
heat as an attribute, as would be the case if one attached a single
name to hot water or hot iron. It is after this manner that blood is
hot. In such cases, in those, that is, in which the substratum owes
its heat to an external influence, it is plain that cold is not a mere
privation, but an actual existence.
There is no knowing but that even fire may be another of these
cases. For the substratum of fire may be smoke or charcoal, and though
the former of these is always hot, smoke being an uprising vapour, yet
the latter becomes cold when its flame is extinguished, as also
would oil and pinewood under similar circumstances. But even
substances that have been burnt nearly all possess some heat, cinders,
for example, and ashes, the dejections also of animals, and, among the
excretions, bile; because some residue of heat has been left in them
after their combustion. It is in another sense that pinewood and fat
substances are hot; namely, because they rapidly assume the
actuality of fire.
Heat appears to cause both coagulation and melting. Now such
things as are formed merely of water are solidified by cold, while
such as are formed of nothing but earth are solidified by fire. Hot
substances again are solidified by cold, and, when they consist
chiefly of earth, the process of solidification is rapid, and the
resulting substance is insoluble; but, when their main constituent
is water, the solid matter is again soluble. What kinds of substances,
however, admit of being solidified, and what are the causes of
solidification, are questions that have already been dealt with more
precisely in another treatise.
In conclusion, then, seeing that the terms hot and hotter are used
in many different senses, and that no one substance can be hotter than
others in all these senses, we must, when we attribute this
character to an object, add such further statements as that this
substance is hotter per se, though that other is often hotter per
accidens; or again, that this substance is potentially hot, that other
actually so; or again, that this substance is hotter in the sense of
causing a greater feeling of heat when touched, while that other is
hotter in the sense of producing flame and burning. The term hot being
used in all these various senses, it plainly follows that the term
cold will also be used with like ambiguity.
So much then as to the signification of the terms hot and cold,
hotter and colder.
3
In natural sequence we have next to treat of solid and fluid.
These terms are used in various senses. Sometimes, for instance,
they denote things that are potentially, at other times things that
are actually, solid or fluid. Ice for example, or any other solidified
fluid, is spoken of as being actually and accidentally solid, while
potentially and essentially it is fluid. Similarly earth and ashes and
the like, when mixed with water, are actually and accidentally
fluid, but potentially and essentially are solid. Now separate the
constituents in such a mixture and you have on the one hand the watery
components to which its fluidity was due, and these are both
actually and potentially fluid, and on the other hand the earthy
components, and these are in every way solid; and it is to bodies that
are solid in this complete manner that the term 'solid' is most
properly and absolutely applicable. So also the opposite term
'fluld' is strictly and absolutely applicable to that only which is
both potentially and actually fluid. The same remark applies also to
hot bodies and to cold.
These distinctions, then, being laid down, it is plain that blood is
essentially hot in so far as that heat is connoted in its name; just
as if boiling water were denoted by a single term, boiling would be
connoted in that term. But the substratum of blood, that which it is
in substance while it is blood in form, is not hot. Blood then in a
certain sense is essentially hot, and in another sense is not so.
For heat is included in the definition of blood, just as whiteness
is included in the definition of a white man, and so far therefore
blood is essentially hot. But so far as blood becomes hot from some
external influence, it is not hot essentially.
As with hot and cold, so also is it with solid and fluid. We can
therefore understand how some substances are hot and fluid so long
as they remain in the living body, but become perceptibly cold and
coagulate so soon as they are separated from it; while others are
hot and consistent while in the body, but when withdrawn under a
change to the opposite condition, and become cold and fluid. Of the
former blood is an example, of the latter bile; for while blood
solidifies when thus separated, yellow bile under the same
circumstances becomes more fluid. We must attribute to such substances
the possession of opposite properties in a greater or less degree.
In what sense, then, the blood is hot and in what sense fluid, and
how far it partakes of the opposite properties, has now been fairly
explained. Now since everything that grows must take nourishment,
and nutriment in all cases consists of fluid and solid substances, and
since it is by the force of heat that these are concocted and changed,
it follows that all living things, animals and plants alike, must on
this account, if on no other, have a natural source of heat. This
natural heat, moreover, must belong to many parts, seeing that the
organs by which the various elaborations of the food are effected
are many in number. For first of all there is the mouth and the
parts inside the mouth, on which the first share in the duty clearly
devolves, in such animals at least as live on food which requires
disintegration. The mouth, however, does not actually concoct the
food, but merely facilitates concoction; for the subdivision of the
food into small bits facilitates the action of heat upon it. After the
mouth come the upper and the lower abdominal cavities, and here it
is that concoction is effected by the aid of natural heat. Again, just
as there is a channel for the admission of the unconcocted food into
the stomach, namely the mouth, and in some animals the so-called
oesophagus, which is continuous with the mouth and reaches to the
stomach, so must there also be other and more numerous channels by
which the concocted food or nutriment shall pass out of the stomach
and intestines into the body at large, and to which these cavities
shall serve as a kind of manger. For plants get their food from the
earth by means of their roots; and this food is already elaborated
when taken in, which is the reason why plants produce no excrement,
the earth and its heat serving them in the stead of a stomach. But
animals, with scarcely an exception, and conspicuously all such as are
capable of locomotion, are provided with a stomachal sac, which is
as it were an internal substitute for the earth. They must therefore
have some instrument which shall correspond to the roots of plants,
with which they may absorb their food from this sac, so that the
proper end of the successive stages of concoction may at last be
attained. The mouth then, its duty done, passes over the food to the
stomach, and there must necessarily be something to receive it in turn
from this. This something is furnished by the bloodvessels, which
run throughout the whole extent of the mesentery from its lowest
part right up to the stomach. A description of these will be found
in the treatises on Anatomy and Natural History. Now as there is a
receptacle for the entire matter taken as food, and also a
receptacle for its excremental residue, and again a third
receptacle, namely the vessels, which serve as such for the blood,
it is plain that this blood must be the final nutritive material in
such animals as have it; while in bloodless animals the same is the
case with the fluid which represents the blood. This explains why
the blood diminishes in quantity when no food is taken, and
increases when much is consumed, and also why it becomes healthy and
unhealthy according as the food is of the one or the other
character. These facts, then, and others of a like kind, make it plain
that the purpose of the blood in sanguineous animals is to subserve
the nutrition of the body. They also explain why no more sensation
is produced by touching the blood than by touching one of the
excretions or the food, whereas when the flesh is touched sensation is
produced. For the blood is not continuous nor united by growth with
the flesh, but simply lies loose in its receptacle, that is in the
heart and vessels. The manner in which the parts grow at the expense
of the blood, and indeed the whole question of nutrition, will find
a more suitable place for exposition in the treatise on Generation,
and in other writings. For our present purpose all that need be said
is that the blood exists for the sake of nutrition, that is the
nutrition of the parts; and with this much let us therefore content
ourselves.
4
What are called fibres are found in the blood of some animals but
not of all. There are none, for instance, in the blood of deer and
of roes; and for this reason the blood of such animals as these
never coagulates. For one part of the blood consists mainly of water
and therefore does not coagulate, this process occurring only in the
other and earthy constituent, that is to say in the fibres, while
the fluid part is evaporating.
Some at any rate of the animals with watery blood have a keener
intellect than those whose blood is of an earthier nature. This is due
not to the coldness of their blood, but rather to its thinness and
purity; neither of which qualities belongs to the earthy matter. For
the thinner and purer its fluid is, the more easily affected is an
animal's sensibility. Thus it is that some bloodless animals,
notwithstanding their want of blood, are yet more intelligent than
some among the sanguineous kinds. Such for instance, as already
said, is the case with the bee and the tribe of ants, and whatever
other animals there may be of a like nature. At the same time too
great an excess of water makes animals timorous. For fear chills the
body; so that in animals whose heart contains so watery a mixture
the way is prepared for the operation of this emotion. For water is
congealed by cold. This also explains why bloodless animals are, as
a general rule, more timorous than such as have blood, so that they
remain motionless, when frightened, and discharge their excretions,
and in some instances change colour. Such animals, on the other
hand, as have thick and abundant fibres in their blood are of a more
earthy nature, and of a choleric temperament, and liable to bursts
of passion. For anger is productive of heat; and solids, when they
have been made hot, give off more heat than fluids. The fibres
therefore, being earthy and solid, are turned into so many hot
embers in the blood, like the embers in a vapour-bath, and cause
ebullition in the fits of passion.
This explains why bulls and boars are so choleric and so passionate.
For their blood is exceedingly rich in fibres, and the bull's at any
rate coagulates more rapidly than that of any other animal. If these
fibres, that is to say if the earthy constituents of which we are
speaking, are taken out of the blood, the fluid that remains behind
will no longer coagulate; just as the watery residue of mud will not
coagulate after removal of the earth. But if the fibres are left the
fluid coagulates, as also does mud, under the influence of cold. For
when the heat is expelled by the cold, the fluid, as has been
already stated, passes off with it by evaporation, and the residue
is dried up and solidified, not by heat but by cold. So long, however,
as the blood is in the body, it is kept fluid by animal heat.
The character of the blood affects both the temperament and the
sensory faculties of animals in many ways. This is indeed what might
reasonably be expected, seeing that the blood is the material of which
the whole body is made. For nutriment supplies the material, and the
blood is the ultimate nutriment. It makes then a considerable
difference whether the blood be hot or cold, thin or thick, turbid
or clear.
The watery part of the blood is serum; and it is watery, either
owing to its not being yet concocted, or owing to its having become
corrupted; so that one part of the serum is the resultant of a
necessary process, while another part is material intended to serve
for the formation of the blood.
5
The differences between lard and suet correspond to differences of
blood. For both are blood concocted into these forms as a result of
abundant nutrition, being that surplus blood that is not expended on
the fleshy part of the body, and is of an easily concocted and fatty
character. This is shown by the unctuous aspect of these substances;
for such unctuous aspect in fluids is due to a combination of air
and fire. It follows from what has been said that no non-sanguineous
animals have either lard or suet; for they have no blood. Among
sanguineous animals those whose blood is dense have suet rather than
lard. For suet is of an earthy nature, that is to say, it contains but
a small proportion of water and is chiefly composed of earth; and this
it is that makes it coagulate, just as the fibrous matter of blood
coagulates, or broths which contain such fibrous matter. Thus it is
that in those horned animals that have no front teeth in the upper jaw
the fat consists of suet. For the very fact that they have horns and
huckle-bones shows that their composition is rich in this earthy
element; for all such appurtenances are solid and earthy in character.
On the other hand in those hornless animals that have front teeth in
both jaws, and whose feet are divided into toes, there is no suet, but
in its place lard; and this, not being of an earthy character, neither
coagulates nor dries up into a friable mass.
Both lard and suet when present in moderate amount are beneficial;
for they contribute to health and strength, while they are no
hindrance to sensation. But when they are present in great excess,
they are injurious and destructive. For were the whole body formed
of them it would perish. For an animal is an animal in virtue of its
sensory part, that is in virtue of its flesh, or of the substance
analogous to flesh. But the blood, as before stated, is not sensitive;
as therefore is neither lard nor suet, seeing that they are nothing
but concocted blood. Were then the whole body composed of these
substances, it would be utterly without sensation. Such animals,
again, as are excessively fat age rapidly. For so much of their
blood is used in forming fat, that they have but little left; and when
there is but little blood the way is already open for decay. For decay
may be said to be deficiency of blood, the scantiness of which renders
it liable, like all bodies of small bulk, to be injuriously affected
by any chance excess of heat or cold. For the same reason fat
animals are less prolific than others. For that part of the blood
which should go to form semen and seed is used up in the production of
lard and suet, which are nothing but concocted blood; so that in these
animals there is either no reproductive excretion at all, or only a
scanty amount.
6
So much then of blood and serum, and of lard and suet. Each of these
has been described, and the purposes told for which they severally
exist. The marrow also is of the nature of blood, and not, as some
think, the germinal force of the semen. That this is the case is quite
evident in very young animals. For in the embryo the marrow of the
bones has a blood-like appearance, which is but natural, seeing that
the parts are all constructed out of blood, and that it is on blood
that the embryo is nourished. But, as the young animal grows up and
ripens into maturity, the marrow changes its colour, just as do the
external parts and the viscera. For the viscera also in animals, so
long as they are young, have each and all a blood-like look, owing
to the large amount of this fluid which they contain.
The consistency of the marrow agrees with that of the fat. For
when the fat consists of lard, then the marrow also is unctuous and
lard-like; but when the blood is converted by concoction into suet,
and does not assume the form of lard, then the marrow also has a suety
character. In those animals, therefore, that have horns and are
without upper front teeth, the marrow has the character of suet; while
it takes the form of lard in those that have front teeth in both jaws,
and that also have the foot divided into toes. What has ben said
hardly applies to the spinal marrow. For it is necessary that this
shall be continuous and extend without break through the whole
backbone, inasmuch as this bone consists of separate vertebrae. But
were the spinal marrow either of unctuous fat or of suet, it could not
hold together in such a continuous mass as it does, but would either
be too fluid or too frangible.
There are some animals that can hardly be said to have any marrow.
These are those whose bones are strong and solid, as is the case
with the lion. For in this animal the marrow is so utterly
insignificant that the bones look as though they had none at all.
However, as it is necessary that animals shall have bones or something
analogous to them, such as the fish-spines of water-animals, it is
also a matter of necessity that some of these bones shall contain
marrow; for the substance contained within the bones is the
nutriment out of which these are formed. Now the universal
nutriment, as already stated, is blood; and the blood within the bone,
owing to the heat which is developed in it from its being thus
surrounded, undergoes concoction, and self-concocted blood is suet
or lard; so that it is perfectly intelligible how the marrow within
the bone comes to have the character of these substances. So also it
is easy to understand why, in those animals that have strong and
compact bones, some of these should be entirely void of marrow,
while the rest contain but little of it; for here the nutriment is
spent in forming the bones.
Those animals that have fish-spines in place of bones have no
other marrow than that of the chine. For in the first place they
have naturally but a small amount of blood; and secondly the only
hollow fish-spine is that of the chine. In this then marrow is formed;
this being the only spine in which there is space for it, and,
moreover, being the only one which owing to its division into parts
requires a connecting bond. This too is the reason why the marrow of
the chine, as already mentioned, is somewhat different from that of
other bones. For, having to act the part of a clasp, it must be of
glutinous character, and at the same time sinewy so as to admit of
stretching.
Such then are the reasons for the existence of marrow, in those
animals that have any, and such its nature. It is evidently the
surplus of the sanguineous nutriment apportioned to the bones and
fish-spines, which has undergone concoction owing to its being
enclosed within them.
7
From the marrow we pass on in natural sequence to the brain. For
there are many who think that the brain itself consists of marrow, and
that it forms the commencement of that substance, because they see
that the spinal marrow is continuous with it. In reality the two may
be said to be utterly opposite to each other in character. For of
all the parts of the body there is none so cold as the brain;
whereas the marrow is of a hot nature, as is plainly shown by its
fat and unctuous character. Indeed this is the very reason why the
brain and spinal marrow are continuous with each other. For,
wherever the action of any part is in excess, nature so contrives as
to set by it another part with an excess of contrary action, so that
the excesses of the two may counterbalance each other. Now that the
marrow is hot is clearly shown by many indications. The coldness of
the brain is also manifest enough. For in the first place it is cold
even to the touch; and, secondly, of all the fluid parts of the body
it is the driest and the one that has the least blood; for in fact
it has no blood at all in its proper substance. This brain is not
residual matter, nor yet is it one of the parts which are anatomically
continuous with each other; but it has a character peculiar to itself,
as might indeed be expected. That it has no continuity with the organs
of sense is plain from simple inspection, and is still more clearly
shown by the fact, that, when it is touched, no sensation is produced;
in which respect it resembles the blood of animals and their
excrement. The purpose of its presence in animals is no less than
the preservation of the whole body. For some writers assert that the
soul is fire or some such force. This, however, is but a rough and
inaccurate assertion; and it would perhaps be better to say that the
soul is incorporate in some substance of a fiery character. The reason
for this being so is that of all substances there is none so
suitable for ministering to the operations of the soul as that which
is possessed of heat. For nutrition and the imparting of motion are
offices of the soul, and it is by heat that these are most readily
effected. To say then that the soul is fire is much the same thing
as to confound the auger or the saw with the carpenter or his craft,
simply because the work is wrought by the two in conjunction. So far
then this much is plain, that all animals must necessarily have a
certain amount of heat. But as all influences require to be
counterbalanced, so that they may be reduced to moderation and brought
to the mean (for in the mean, and not in either extreme, lies the true
and rational position), nature has contrived the brain as a
counterpoise to the region of the heart with its contained heat, and
has given it to animals to moderate the latter, combining in it the
properties of earth and water. For this reason it is, that every
sanguineous animal has a brain; whereas no bloodless creature has such
an organ, unless indeed it be, as the Poulp, by analogy. For where
there is no blood, there in consequence there is but little heat.
The brain, then, tempers the heat and seething of the heart. In order,
however, that it may not itself be absolutely without heat, but may
have a moderate amount, branches run from both blood-vessels, that
is to say from the great vessel and from what is called the aorta, and
end in the membrane which surrounds the brain; while at the same time,
in order to prevent any injury from the heat, these encompassing
vessels, instead of being few and large, are numerous and small, and
their blood scanty and clear, instead of being abundant and thick.
We can now understand why defluxions have their origin in the head,
and occur whenever the parts about the brain have more than a due
proportion of coldness. For when the nutriment steams upwards
through the blood-vessels, its refuse portion is chilled by the
influence of this region, and forms defluxions of phlegm and serum. We
must suppose, to compare small things with great, that the like
happens here as occurs in the production of showers. For when vapour
steams up from the earth and is carried by the heat into the upper
regions, so soon as it reaches the cold air that is above the earth,
it condenses again into water owing to the refrigeration, and falls
back to the earth as rain. These, however, are matters which may be
suitably considered in the Principles of Diseases, so far as natural
philosophy has anything to say to them.
It is the brain again-or, in animals that have no brain, the part
analogous to it-which is the cause of sleep. For either by chilling
the blood that streams upwards after food, or by some other similar
influences, it produces heaviness in the region in which it lies
(which is the reason why drowsy persons hang the head), and causes the
heat to escape downwards in company with the blood. It is the
accumulation of this in excess in the lower region that produces
complete sleep, taking away the power of standing upright from those
animals to whom that posture is natural, and from the rest the power
of holding up the head. These, however, are matters which have been
separately considered in the treatises on Sensation and on Sleep.
That the brain is a compound of earth and water is shown by what
occurs when it is boiled. For, when so treated, it turns hard and
solid, inasmuch as the water is evaporated by the heat, and leaves the
earthy part behind. Just the same occurs when pulse and other fruits
are boiled. For these also are hardened by the process, because the
water which enters into their composition is driven off and leaves the
earth, which is their main constituent, behind.
Of all animals, man has the largest brain in proportion to his size;
and it is larger in men than in women. This is because the region of
the heart and of the lung is hotter and richer in blood in man than in
any other animal; and in men than in women. This again explains why
man, alone of animals, stands erect. For the heat, overcoming any
opposite inclination, makes growth take its own line of direction,
which is from the centre of the body upwards. It is then as a
counterpoise to his excessive heat that in man's brain there is this
superabundant fluidity and coldness; and it is again owing to this
superabundance that the cranial bone, which some call the Bregma, is
the last to become solidified; so long does evaporation continue to
occur through it under the influence of heat. Man is the only
sanguineous animal in which this takes place. Man, again, has more
sutures in his skull than any other animal, and the male more than the
female. The explanation is again to be found in the greater size of
the brain, which demands free ventilation, proportionate to its
bulk. For if the brain be either too fluid or too solid, it will not
perform its office, but in the one case will freeze the blood, and
in the other will not cool it at all; and thus will cause disease,
madness, and death. For the cardiac heat and the centre of life is
most delicate in its sympathies, and is immediately sensitive to the
slightest change or affection of the blood on the outer surface of the
brain.
The fluids which are present in the animal body at the time of birth
have now nearly all been considered. Amongst those that appear only at
a later period are the residua of the food, which include the deposits
of the belly and also those of the bladder. Besides these there is the
semen and the milk, one or the other of which makes its appearance
in appropriate animals. Of these fluids the excremental residua of the
food may be suitably discussed by themselves, when we come to
examine and consider the subject of nutrition. Then will be the time
to explain in what animals they are found, and what are the reasons
for their presence. Similarly all questions concerning the semen and
the milk may be dealt with in the treatise on Generation, for the
former of these fluids is the very starting-point of the generative
process, and the latter has no other ground of existence than
generative purposes.
8
We have now to consider the remaining homogeneous parts, and will
begin with flesh, and with the substance that, in animals that have no
flesh, takes its place. The reason for so beginning is that flesh
forms the very basis of animals, and is the essential constituent of
their body. Its right to this precedence can also be demonstrated
logically. For an animal is by our definition something that has
sensibility and chief of all the primary sensibility, which is that of
Touch; and it is the flesh, or analogous substance, which is the organ
of this sense. And it is the organ, either in the same way as the
pupil is the organ of sight, that is it constitutes the primary
organ of the sense; or it is the organ and the medium through which
the object acts combined, that is it answers to the pupil with the
whole transparent medium attached to it. Now in the case of the
other senses it was impossible for nature to unite the medium with the
sense-organ, nor would such a junction have served any purpose; but in
the case of touch she was compelled by necessity to do so. For of
all the sense-organs that of touch is the only one that has
corporeal substance, or at any rate it is more corporeal than any
other, and its medium must be corporeal like itself.
It is obvious also to sense that it is for the sake of the flesh
that all the other parts exist. By the other parts I mean the bones,
the skin, the sinews, and the blood-vessels, and, again, the hair
and the various kinds of nails, and anything else there may be of a
like character. Thus the bones are a contrivance to give security to
the soft parts, to which purpose they are adapted by their hardness;
and in animals that have no bones the same office is fulfilled by some
analogous substance, as by fishspine in some fishes, and by
cartilage in others.
Now in some animals this supporting substance is situated within the
body, while in some of the bloodless species it is placed on the
outside. The latter is the case in all the Crustacea, as the Carcini
(Crabs) and the Carabi (Prickly Lobsters); it is the case also in
the Testacea, as for instance in the several species known by the
general name of oysters. For in all these animals the fleshy substance
is within, and the earthy matter, which holds the soft parts
together and keeps them from injury, is on the outside. For the
shell not only enables the soft parts to hold together, but also, as
the animal is bloodless and so has but little natural warmth,
surrounds it, as a chaufferette does the embers, and keeps in the
smouldering heat. Similar to this seems to be the arrangement in
another and distinct tribe of animals, namely the Tortoises, including
the Chelone and the several kinds of Emys. But in Insects and in
Cephalopods the plan is entirely different, there being moreover a
contrast between these two themselves. For in neither of these does
there appear to be any bony or earthy part, worthy of notice,
distinctly separated from the rest of the body. Thus in the
Cephalopods the main bulk of the body consists of a soft flesh-like
substance, or rather of a substance which is intermediate to flesh and
sinew, so as not to be so readily destructible as actual flesh. I call
this substance intermediate to flesh and sinew, because it is soft
like the former, while it admits of stretching like the latter. Its
cleavage, however, is such that it splits not longitudinally, like
sinew, but into circular segments, this being the most advantageous
condition, so far as strength is concerned. These animals have also
a part inside them corresponding to the spinous bones of fishes. For
instance, in the Cuttle-fishes there is what is known as the os
sepiae, and in the Calamaries there is the so-called gladius. In the
Poulps, on the other hand, there is no such internal part, because the
body, or, as it is termed in them, the head, forms but a short sac,
whereas it is of considerable length in the other two; and it was this
length which led nature to assign to them their hard support, so as to
ensure their straightness and inflexibility; just as she has
assigned to sanguineous animals their bones or their fish-spines, as
the case may be. To come now to Insects. In these the arrangement is
quite different from that of the Cephalopods; quite different also
from that which obtains in sanguineous animals, as indeed has been
already stated. For in an insect there is no distinction into soft and
hard parts, but the whole body is hard, the hardness, however, being
of such a character as to be more flesh-like than bone, and more
earthy and bone-like than flesh. The purpose of this is to make the
body of the insect less liable to get broken into pieces.
9
There is a resemblance between the osseous and the vascular systems;
for each has a central part in which it begins, and each forms a
continuous whole. For no bone in the body exists as a separate thing
in itself, but each is either a portion of what may be considered a
continuous whole, or at any rate is linked with the rest by contact
and by attachments; so that nature may use adjoining bones either as
though they were actually continuous and formed a single bone, or, for
purposes of flexure, as though they were two and distinct. And
similarly no blood-vessel has in itself a separate individuality;
but they all form parts of one whole. For an isolated bone, if such
there were, would in the first place be unable to perform the office
for the sake of which bones exist; for, were it discontinuous and
separated from the rest by a gap, it would be perfectly unable to
produce either flexure or extension; nor only so, but it would
actually be injurious, acting like a thorn or an arrow lodged in the
flesh. Similarly if a vessel were isolated, and not continuous with
the vascular centre, it would be unable to retain the blood within
it in a proper state. For it is the warmth derived from this centre
that hinders the blood from coagulating; indeed the blood, when
withdrawn from its influence, becomes manifestly putrid. Now the
centre or origin of the blood-vessels is the heart, and the centre
or origin of the bones, in all animals that have bones, is what is
called the chine. With this all the other bones of the body are in
continuity; for it is the chine that holds together the whole length
of an animal and preserves its straightness. But since it is necessary
that the body of an animal shall bend during locomotion, this chine,
while it is one in virtue of the continuity of its parts, yet its
division into vertebrae is made to consist of many segments. It is
from this chine that the bones of the limbs, in such animals as have
these parts, proceed, and with it they are continuous, being
fastened together by the sinews where the limbs admit of flexure,
and having their extremities adapted to each other, either by the
one being hollowed and the other rounded, or by both being hollowed
and including between them a hucklebone, as a connecting bolt, so as
to allow of flexure and extension. For without some such arrangement
these movements would be utterly impossible, or at any rate would be
performed with great difficulty. There are some joints, again, in
which the lower end of the one bone and the upper end of the other are
alike in shape. In these cases the bones are bound together by sinews,
and cartilaginous pieces are interposed in the joint, to serve as a
kind of padding, and prevent the two extremities from grating
against each other.
Round about the bones, and attached to them by thin fibrous bands,
grow the fleshy parts, for the sake of which the bones themselves
exist. For just as an artist, when he is moulding an animal out of
clay or other soft substance, takes first some solid body as a
basis, and round this moulds the clay, so also has nature acted in
fashioning the animal body out of flesh. Thus we find all the fleshy
parts, with one exception, supported by bones, which serve, when the
parts are organs of motion, to facilitate flexure, and, when the parts
are motionless, act as a protection. The ribs, for example, which
enclose the chest are intended to ensure the safety of the heart and
neighbouring viscera. The exception of which mention was made is the
belly. The walls of this are in all animals devoid of bones; in
order that there may be no hindrance to the expansion which
necessarily occurs in this part after a meal, nor, in females, any
interference with the growth of the foetus, which is lodged here.
Now the bones of viviparous animals, of such, that is, as are not
merely externally but also internally viviparous, vary but very little
from each other in point of strength, which in all of them is
considerable. For the Vivipara in their bodily proportions are far
above other animals, and many of them occasionally grow to an enormous
size, as is the case in Libya and in hot and dry countries
generally. But the greater the bulk of an animal, the stronger, the
bigger, and the harder, are the supports which it requires; and
comparing the big animals with each other, this requirement will be
most marked in those that live a life of rapine. Thus it is that the
bones of males are harder than those of females; and the bones of
flesh-eaters, that get their food by fighting, are harder than those
of Herbivora. Of this the Lion is an example; for so hard are its
bones, that, when struck, they give off sparks, as though they were
stones. It may be mentioned also that the Dolphin, in as much as it is
viviparous, is provided with bones and not with fish-spines.
In those sanguineous animals, on the other hand, that are oviparous,
the bones present successive slight variations of character. Thus in
Birds there are bones, but these are not so strong as the bones of the
Vivipara. Then come the Oviparous fishes, where there is no bone,
but merely fish-spine. In the Serpents too the bones have the
character of fish-spine, excepting in the very large species, where
the solid foundation of the body requires to be stronger, in order
that the animal itself may be strong, the same reason prevailing as in
the case of the Vivipara. Lastly, in the Selachia, as they are called,
the fish-spines are replaced by cartilage. For it is necessary that
the movements of these animals shall be of an undulating character;
and this again requires the framework that supports the body to be
made of a pliable and not of a brittle substance. Moreover, in these
Selachia nature has used all the earthy matter on the skin; and she is
unable to allot to many different parts one and the same superfluity
of material. Even in viviparous animals many of the bones are
cartilaginous. This happens in those parts where it is to the
advantage of the surrounding flesh that its solid base shall be soft
and mucilaginous. Such, for instance, is the case with the ears and
nostrils; for in projecting parts, such as these, brittle substances
would soon get broken. Cartilage and bone are indeed fundamentally the
same thing, the differences between them being merely matters of
degree. Thus neither cartilage nor bone, when once cut off, grows
again. Now the cartilages of these land animals are without marrow,
that is without any distinctly separate marrow. For the marrow,
which in bones is distinctly separate, is here mixed up with the whole
mass, and gives a soft and mucilaginous consistence to the
cartilage. But in the Selachia the chine, though it is
cartilaginous, yet contains marrow; for here it stands in the stead of
a bone.
Very nearly resembling the bones to the touch are such parts as
nails, hoofs, whether solid or cloven, horns, and the beaks of
birds, all of which are intended to serve as means of defence. For the
organs which are made out of these substances, and which are called by
the same names as the substances themselves, the organ hoof, for
instance, and the organ horn, are contrivances to ensure the
preservation of the animals to which they severally belong. In this
class too must be reckoned the teeth, which in some animals have but a
single function, namely the mastication of the food, while in others
they have an additional office, namely to serve as weapons; as is
the case with all animals that have sharp interfitting teeth or that
have tusks. All these parts are necessarily of solid and earthy
character; for the value of a weapon depends on such properties. Their
earthy character explains how it is that all such parts are more
developed in four-footed vivipara than in man. For there is always
more earth in the composition of these animals than in that of the
human body. However, not only all these parts but such others as are
nearly connected with them, skin for instance, bladder, membrane,
hairs, feathers, and their analogues, and any other similar parts that
there may be, will be considered farther on with the heterogeneous
parts. There we shall inquire into the causes which produce them,
and into the objects of their presence severally in the bodies of
animals. For, as with the heterogeneous parts, so with these, it is
from a consideration of their functions that alone we can derive any
knowledge of them. The reason for dealing with them at all in this
part of the treatise, and classifying them with the homogeneous parts,
is that under one and the same name are confounded the entire organs
and the substances of which they are composed. But of all these
substances flesh and bone form the basis. Semen and milk were also
passed over when we were considering the homogeneous fluids. For the
treatise on Generation will afford a more suitable place for their
examination, seeing that the former of the two is the very
foundation of the thing generated, while the latter is its
nourishment.
10
Let us now make, as it were, a fresh beginning, and consider the
heterogeneous parts, taking those first which are the first in
importance. For in all animals, at least in all the perfect kinds,
there are two parts more essential than the rest, namely the part
which serves for the ingestion of food, and the part which serves
for the discharge of its residue. For without food growth and even
existence is impossible. Intervening again between these two parts
there is invariably a third, in which is lodged the vital principle.
As for plants, though they also are included by us among things that
have life, yet are they without any part for the discharge of waste
residue. For the food which they absorb from the ground is already
concocted, and they give off as its equivalent their seeds and fruits.
Plants, again, inasmuch as they are without locomotion, present no
great variety in their heterogeneous parts. For, where the functions
are but few, few also are the organs required to effect them. The
configuration of plants is a matter then for separate consideration.
Animals, however, that not only live but feel, present a greater
multiformity of parts, and this diversity is greater in some animals
than in others, being most varied in those to whose share has fallen
not mere life but life of high degree. Now such an animal is man.
For of all living beings with which we are acquainted man alone
partakes of the divine, or at any rate partakes of it in a fuller
measure than the rest. For this reason, then, and also because his
external parts and their forms are more familiar to us than those of
other animals, we must speak of man first; and this the more fitly,
because in him alone do the natural parts hold the natural position;
his upper part being turned towards that which is upper in the
universe. For, of all animals, man alone stands erect.
In man, then, the head is destitute of flesh; this being the
necessary consequence of what has already been stated concerning the
brain. There are, indeed, some who hold that the life of man-would
be longer than it is, were his head more abundantly furnished with
flesh; and they account for the absence of this substance by saying
that it is intended to add to the perfection of sensation. For the
brain they assert to be the organ of sensation; and sensation, they
say, cannot penetrate to parts that are too thickly covered with
flesh. But neither part of this statement is true. On the contrary,
were the region of the brain thickly covered with flesh, the very
purpose for which animals are provided with a brain would be
directly contravened. For the brain would itself be heated to excess
and so unable to cool any other part; and, as to the other half of
their statement, the brain cannot be the cause of any of the
sensations, seeing that it is itself as utterly without feeling as any
one of the excretions. These writers see that certain of the senses
are located in the head, and are unable to discern the reason for
this; they see also that the brain is the most peculiar of all the
animal organs; and out of these facts they form an argument, by
which they link sensation and brain together. It has, however, already
been clearly set forth in the treatise on Sensation, that it is the
region of the heart that constitutes the sensory centre. There also it
was stated that two of the senses, namely touch and taste, are
manifestly in immediate connexion with the heart; and that as
regards the other three, namely hearing, sight, and the centrally
placed sense of smell, it is the character of their sense-organs which
causes them to be lodged as a rule in the head. Vision is so placed in
all animals. But such is not invariably the case with hearing or
with smell. For fishes and the like hear and smell, and yet have no
visible organs for these senses in the head; a fact which demonstrates
the accuracy of the opinion here maintained. Now that vision, whenever
it exists, should be in the neighbourhood of the brain is but what one
would rationally expect. For the brain is fluid and cold, and vision
is of the nature of water, water being of all transparent substances
the one most easily confined. Moreover it cannot but necessarily be
that the more precise senses will have their precision rendered
still greater if ministered to by parts that have the purest blood.
For the motion of the heat of blood destroys sensory activity. For
these reasons the organs of the precise senses are lodged in the head.
It is not only the fore part of the head that is destitute of flesh,
but the hind part also. For, in all animals that have a head, it is
this head which more than any other part requires to be held up.
But, were the head heavily laden with flesh, this would be impossible;
for nothing so burdened can be held upright. This is an additional
proof that the absence of flesh from the head has no reference to
brain sensation. For there is no brain in the hinder part of the head,
and yet this is as much without flesh as is the front.
In some animals hearing as well as vision is lodged in the region of
the head. Nor is this without a rational explanation. For what is
called the empty space is full of air, and the organ of hearing is, as
we say, of the nature of air. Now there are channels which lead from
the eyes to the blood-vessels that surround the brain; and similarly
there is a channel which leads back again from each ear and connects
it with the hinder part of the head. But no part that is without blood
is endowed with sensation, as neither is the blood itself, but only
some one of the parts that are formed of blood.
The brain in all animals that have one is placed in the front part
of the head; because the direction in which sensation acts is in
front; and because the heart, from which sensation proceeds, is in the
front part of the body; and lastly because the instruments of
sensation are the blood-containing parts, and the cavity in the
posterior part of the skull is destitute of blood-vessels.
As to the position of the sense-organs, they have been arranged by
nature in the following well-ordered manner. The organs of hearing are
so placed as to divide the circumference of the head into two equal
halves; for they have to hear not only sounds which are directly in
line with themselves, but sounds from all quarters. The organs of
vision are placed in front, because sight is exercised only in a
straight line, and moving as we do in a forward direction it is
necessary that we should see before us, in the direction of our
motion. Lastly, the organs of smell are placed with good reason
between the eyes. For as the body consists of two parts, a right
half and a left, so also each organ of sense is double. In the case of
touch this is not apparent, the reason being that the primary organ of
this sense is not the flesh or analogous part, but lies internally. In
the case of taste, which is merely a modification of touch and which
is placed in the tongue, the fact is more apparent than in the case of
touch, but still not so manifest as in the case of the other senses.
However, even in taste it is evident enough; for in some animals the
tongue is plainly forked. The double character of the sensations is,
however, more conspicuous in the other organs of sense. For there
are two ears and two eyes, and the nostrils, though joined together,
are also two. Were these latter otherwise disposed, and separated from
each other as are the ears, neither they nor the nose in which they
are placed would be able to perform their office. For in such
animals as have nostrils olfaction is effected by means of
inspiration, and the organ of inspiration is placed in front and in
the middle line. This is the reason why nature has brought the two
nostrils together and placed them as the central of the three
sense-organs, setting them side by side on a level with each other, to
avail themselves of the inspiratory motion. In other animals than
man the arrangement of these sense-organs is also such as is adapted
in each case to the special requirements.
11
For instance, in quadrupeds the ears stand out freely from the
head and are set to all appearance above the eyes. Not that they are
in reality above the eyes; but they seem to be so, because the
animal does not stand erect, but has its head hung downwards. This
being the usual attitude of the animal when in motion, it is of
advantage that its ears shall be high up and movable; for by turning
themselves about they can the better take in sounds from every
quarter.
12
In birds, on the other hand, there are no ears, but only the
auditory passages. This is because their skin is hard and because they
have feathers instead of hairs, so that they have not got the proper
material for the formation of ears. Exactly the same is the case
with such oviparous quadrupeds as are clad with scaly plates, and
the same explanation applies to them. There is also one of the
viviparous quadrupeds, namely the seal, that has no ears but only
the auditory passages. The explanation of this is that the seal,
though a quadruped, is a quadruped of stunted formation.
13
Men, and Birds, and Quadrupeds, viviparous and oviparous alike, have
their eyes protected by lids. In the Vivipara there are two of
these; and both are used by these animals not only in closing the
eyes, but also in the act of blinking; whereas the oviparous
quadrupeds, and the heavy-bodied birds as well as some others, use
only the lower lid to close the eye; while birds blink by means of a
membrane that issues from the canthus. The reason for the eyes being
thus protected is that nature has made them of fluid consistency, in
order to ensure keenness of vision. For had they been covered with
hard skin, they would, it is true, have been less liable to get
injured by anything falling into them from without, but they would not
have been sharp-sighted. It is then to ensure keenness of vision
that the skin over the pupil is fine and delicate; while the lids
are superadded as a protection from injury. It is as a still further
safeguard that all these animals blink, and man most of all; this
action (which is not performed from deliberate intention but from a
natural instinct) serving to keep objects from falling into the
eyes; and being more frequent in man than in the rest of these
animals, because of the greater delicacy of his skin. These lids are
made of a roll of skin; and it is because they are made of skin and
contain no flesh that neither they, nor the similarly constructed
prepuce, unite again when once cut.
As to the oviparous quadrupeds, and such birds as resemble them in
closing the eye with the lower lid, it is the hardness of the skin
of their heads which makes them do so. For such birds as have heavy
bodies are not made for flight; and so the materials which would
otherwise have gone to increase the growth of the feathers are
diverted thence, and used to augment the thickness of the skin.
Birds therefore of this kind close the eye with the lower lid; whereas
pigeons and the like use both upper and lower lids for the purpose. As
birds are covered with feathers, so oviparous quadrupeds are covered
with scaly plates; and these in all their forms are harder than hairs,
so that the skin also to which they belong is harder than the skin
of hairy animals. In these animals, then, the skin on the head is
hard, and so does not allow of the formation of an upper eyelid,
whereas lower down the integument is of a flesh-like character, so
that the lower lid can be thin and extensible.
The act of blinking is performed by the heavy-bodied birds by
means of the membrane already mentioned, and not by this lower lid.
For in blinking rapid motion is required, and such is the motion of
this membrane, whereas that of the lower lid is slow. It is from the
canthus that is nearest to the nostrils that the membrane comes. For
it is better to have one starting-point for nictitation than two;
and in these birds this starting-point is the junction of eye and
nostrils, an anterior starting-point being preferable to a lateral
one. Oviparous quadrupeds do not blink in like manner as the birds;
for, living as they do on the ground, they are free from the necessity
of having eyes of fluid consistency and of keen sight, whereas these
are essential requisites for birds, inasmuch as they have to use their
eyes at long distances. This too explains why birds with talons,
that have to search for prey by eye from aloft, and therefore soar
to greater heights than other birds, are sharpsighted; while common
fowls and the like, that live on the ground and are not made for
flight, have no such keenness of vision. For there is nothing in their
mode of life which imperatively requires it.
Fishes and Insects and the hard-skinned Crustacea present certain
differences in their eyes, but so far resemble each other as that none
of them have eyelids. As for the hard-skinned Crustacea it is
utterly out of the question that they should have any; for an
eyelid, to be of use, requires the action of the skin to be rapid.
These animals then have no eyelids and, in default of this protection,
their eyes are hard, just as though the lid were attached to the
surface of the eye, and the animal saw through it. Inasmuch,
however, as such hardness must necessarily blunt the sharpness of
vision, nature has endowed the eyes of Insects, and still more those
of Crustacea, with mobility (just as she has given some quadrupeds
movable ears), in order that they may be able to turn to the light and
catch its rays, and so see more plainly. Fishes, however, have eyes of
a fluid consistency. For animals that move much about have to use
their vision at considerable distances. If now they live on land,
the air in which they move is transparent enough. But the water in
which fishes live is a hindrance to sharp sight, though it has this
advantage over the air, that it does not contain so many objects to
knock against the eyes. The risk of collision being thus small,
nature, who makes nothing in vain, has given no eyelids to fishes,
while to counterbalance the opacity of the water she has made their
eyes of fluid consistency.
14
All animals that have hairs on the body have lashes on the
eyelids; but birds and animals with scale-like plates, being hairless,
have none. The Libyan ostrich, indeed, forms an exception; for, though
a bird, it is furnished with eyelashes. This exception, however,
will be explained hereafter. Of hairy animals, man alone has lashes on
both lids. For in quadrupeds there is a greater abundance of hair on
the back than on the under side of the body; whereas in man the
contrary is the case, and the hair is more abundant on the front
surface than on the back. The reason for this is that hair is intended
to serve as a protection to its possessor. Now, in quadrupeds, owing
to their inclined attitude, the under or anterior surface does not
require so much protection as the back, and is therefore left
comparatively bald, in spite of its being the nobler of the two sides.
But in man, owing to his upright attitude, the anterior and
posterior surfaces of the body are on an equality as regards need of
protection. Nature therefore has assigned the protective covering to
the nobler of the two surfaces; for invariably she brings about the
best arrangement of such as are possible. This then is the reason that
there is no lower eyelash in any quadruped; though in some a few
scattered hairs sprout out under the lower lid. This also is the
reason that they never have hair in the axillae, nor on the pubes,
as man has. Their hair, then, instead of being collected in these
parts, is either thickly set over the whole dorsal surface, as is
the case for instance in dogs, or, sometimes, forms a mane, as in
horses and the like, or as in the male lion where the mane is still
more flowing and ample. So, again, whenever there is a tail of any
length, nature decks it with hair, with long hair if the stem of the
tail be short, as in horses, with short hair if the stem be long,
regard also being had to the condition of the rest of the body. For
nature invariably gives to one part what she subtracts from another.
Thus when she has covered the general surface of an animal's body with
an excess of hair, she leaves a deficiency in the region of the
tail. This, for instance, in the case with bears.
No animal has so much hair on the head as man. This, in the first
place, is the necessary result of the fluid character of his brain,
and of the presence of so many sutures in his skull. For wherever
there is the most fluid and the most heat, there also must necessarily
occur the greatest outgrowth. But, secondly, the thickness of the hair
in this part has a final cause, being intended to protect the head, by
preserving it from excess of either heat or cold. And as the brain
of man is larger and more fluid than that of any other animal, it
requires a proportionately greater amount of protection. For the
more fluid a substance is, the more readily does it get excessively
heated or excessively chilled, while substances of an opposite
character are less liable to such injurious affections.
These, however, are matters which by their close connexion with
eyelashes have led us to digress from our real topic, namely the cause
to which these lashes owe their existence. We must therefore defer any
further remarks we may have to make on these matters till the proper
occasion arises and then return to their consideration.
15
Both eyebrows and eyelashes exist for the protection of the eyes;
the former that they may shelter them, like the eaves of a house, from
any fluids that trickle down from the head; the latter to act like the
palisades which are sometimes placed in front of enclosures, and
keep out any objects which might otherwise get in. The brows are
placed over the junction of two bones, which is the reason that in old
age they often become so bushy as to require cutting. The lashes are
set at the terminations of small blood-vessels. For the vessels come
to an end where the skin itself terminates; and, in all places where
these endings occur, the exudation of moisture of a corporeal
character necessitates the growth of hairs, unless there be some
operation of nature which interferes, by diverting the moisture to
another purpose.
16
Viviparous quadrupeds, as a rule, present no great variety of form
in the organ of smell. In those of them, however, whose jaws project
forwards and taper to a narrow end, so as to form what is called a
snout, the nostrils are placed in this projection, there being no
other available plan; while, in the rest, there is a more definite
demarcation between nostrils and jaws. But in no animal is this part
so peculiar as in the elephant, where it attains an extraordinary
and strength. For the elephant uses its nostril as a hand; this
being the instrument with which it conveys food, fluid and solid
alike, to its mouth. With it, too, it tears up trees, coiling it round
their stems. In fact it applies it generally to the purposes of a
hand. For the elephant has the double character of a land animal,
and of one that lives in swamps. Seeing then that it has to get its
food from the water, and yet must necessarily breathe, inasmuch as
it is a land animal and has blood; seeing, also, that its excessive
weight prevents it from passing rapidly from water to land, as some
other sanguineous vivipara that breathe can do, it becomes necessary
that it shall be suited alike for life in the water and for life on
dry land. just then as divers are sometimes provided with
instruments for respiration, through which they can draw air from
above the water, and thus may remain for a long time under the sea, so
also have elephants been furnished by nature with their lengthened
nostril; and, whenever they have to traverse the water, they lift this
up above the surface and breathe through it. For the elephant's
proboscis, as already said, is a nostril. Now it would have been
impossible for this nostril to have the form of a proboscis, had it
been hard and incapable of bending. For its very length would then
have prevented the animal from supplying itself with food, being as
great an impediment as the of certain oxen, that are said to be
obliged to walk backwards while they are grazing. It is therefore soft
and flexible, and, being such, is made, in addition to its own
proper functions, to serve the office of the fore-feet; nature in this
following her wonted plan of using one and the same part for several
purposes. For in polydactylous quadrupeds the fore-feet are intended
not merely to support the weight of the body, but to serve as hands.
But in elephants, though they must be reckoned polydactylous, as their
foot has neither cloven nor solid hoof, the fore-feet, owing to the
great size and weight of the body, are reduced to the condition of
mere supports; and indeed their slow motion and unfitness for
bending make them useless for any other purpose. A nostril, then, is
given to the elephant for respiration, as to every other animal that
has a lung, and is lengthened out and endowed with its power of
coiling because the animal has to remain for considerable periods of
time in the water, and is unable to pass thence to dry ground with any
rapidity. But as the feet are shorn of their full office, this same
part is also, as already said, made by nature to supply their place,
and give such help as otherwise would be rendered by them.
As to other sanguineous animals, the Birds, the Serpents, and the
Oviparous quadrupeds, in all of them there are the nostril-holes,
placed in front of the mouth; but in none are there any distinctly
formed nostrils, nothing in fact which can be called nostrils except
from a functional point of view. A bird at any rate has nothing
which can properly be called a nose. For its so-called beak is a
substitute for jaws. The reason for this is to be found in the natural
conformation of birds. For they are winged bipeds; and this makes it
necessary that their heads and neck shall be of light weight; just
as it makes it necessary that their breast shall be narrow. The beak
therefore with which they are provided is formed of a bone-like
substance, in order that it may serve as a weapon as well as for
nutritive purposes, but is made of narrow dimensions to suit the small
size of the head. In this beak are placed the olfactory passages.
But there are no nostrils; for such could not possibly be placed
there.
As for those animals that have no respiration, it has already been
explained why it is that they are without nostrils, and perceive
odours either through gills, or through a blowhole, or, if they are
insects, by the hypozoma; and how the power of smelling depends,
like their motion, upon the innate spirit of their bodies, which in
all of them is implanted by nature and not introduced from without.
Under the nostrils are the lips, in such sanguineous animals, that
is, as have teeth. For in birds, as already has been said, the
purposes of nutrition and defence are fulfilled by a bonelike beak,
which forms a compound substitute for teeth and lips. For supposing
that one were to cut off a man's lips, unite his upper teeth together,
and similarly his under ones, and then were to lengthen out the two
separate pieces thus formed, narrowing them on either side and
making them project forwards, supposing, I say, this to be done, we
should at once have a bird-like beak.
The use of the lips in all animals except man is to preserve and
guard the teeth; and thus it is that the distinctness with which the
lips are formed is in direct proportion to the degree of nicety and
perfection with which the teeth are fashioned. In man the lips are
soft and flesh-like and capable of separating from each other. Their
purpose, as in other animals, is to guard the teeth, but they are more
especially intended to serve a higher office, contributing in common
with other parts to man's faculty of speech. For just as nature has
made man's tongue unlike that of other animals, and, in accordance
with what I have said is her not uncommon practice, has used it for
two distinct operations, namely for the perception of savours and
for speech, so also has she acted with regard to the lips, and made
them serve both for speech and for the protection of the teeth. For
vocal speech consists of combinations of the letters, and most of
these would be impossible to pronounce, were the lips not moist, nor
the tongue such as it is. For some letters are formed by closures of
the lips and others by applications of the tongue. But what are the
differences presented by these and what the nature and extent of
such differences, are questions to which answers must be sought from
those who are versed in metrical science. It was necessary that the
two parts which we are discussing should, in conformity with the
requirements, be severally adapted to fulfil the office mentioned
above, and be of appropriate character. Therefore are they made of
flesh, and flesh is softer in man than in any other animal, the reason
for this being that of all animals man has the most delicate sense
of touch.
17
The tongue is placed under the vaulted roof of the mouth. In land
animals it presents but little diversity. But in other animals it is
variable, and this whethe+r we compare them as a class with such as
live on land, or compare their several species with each other. It
is in man that the tongue attains its greatest degree of freedom, of
softness, and of breadth; the object of this being to render it
suitable for its double function. For its softness fits it for the
perception of savours, a sense which is more delicate in man than in
any other animal, softness being most impressionable by touch, of
which sense taste is but a variety. This same softness again, together
with its breadth, adapts it for the articulation of letters and for
speech. For these qualities, combined with its freedom from
attachment, are those which suit it best for advancing and retiring in
every direction. That this is so is plain, if we consider the case
of those who are tongue-tied in however slight a degree. For their
speech is indistinct and lisping; that is to say there are certain
letters which they cannot pronounce. In being broad is comprised the
possibility of becoming narrow; for in the great the small is
included, but not the great in the small.
What has been said explains why, among birds, those that are most
capable of pronouncing letters are such as have the broadest
tongues; and why the viviparous and sanguineous quadrupeds, where
the tongue is hard and thick and not free in its motions, have a
very limited vocal articulation. Some birds have a considerable
variety of notes. These are the smaller kinds. But it is the birds
with talons that have the broader tongues. All birds use their tongues
to communicate with each other. But some do this in a greater degree
than the rest; so that in some cases it even seems as though actual
instruction were imparted from one to another by its agency. These,
however, are matters which have already been discussed in the
Researches concerning Animals.
As to those oviparous and sanguineous animals that live not in the
air but on the earth, their tongue in most cases is tied down and
hard, and is therefore useless for vocal purposes; in the serpents,
however, and in the lizards it is long and forked, so as to be
suited for the perception of savours. So long indeed is this part in
serpents, that though small while in the mouth it can be protruded
to a great distance. In these animals it is forked and has a fine
and hair-like extremity, because of their great liking for dainty
food. For by this arrangement they derive a twofold pleasure from
savours, their gustatory sensation being as it were doubled.
Even some bloodless animals have an organ that serves for the
perception of savours; and in sanguineous animals such an organ is
invariably variably For even in such of these as would seem to an
ordinary observer to have nothing of the kind, some of the fishes
for example, there is a kind of shabby representative of a tongue,
much like what exists in river crocodiles. In most of these cases
the apparent absence of the part can be rationally explained on some
ground or other. For in the first place the interior of the mouth in
animals of this character is invariably spinous. Secondly, in water
animals there is but short space of time for the perception of
savours, and as the use of this sense is thus of short duration,
shortened also is the separate part which subserves it. The reason for
their food being so rapidly transmitted to the stomach is that they
cannot possibly spend any time in sucking out the juices; for were
they to attempt to do so, the water would make its way in during the
process. Unless therefore one pulls their mouth very widely open,
the projection of this part is quite invisible. The region exposed
by thus opening the mouth is spinous; for it is formed by the close
apposition of the gills, which are of a spinous character.
In crocodiles the immobility of the lower jaw also contributes in
some measure to stunt the development of the tongue. For the
crocodile's tongue is adherent to the lower jaw. For its upper and
lower jaws are, as it were, inverted, it being the upper jaw which
in other animals is the immovable one. The tongue, however, on this
animal is not attached to the upper jaw, because that would
interfere with the ingestion of food, but adheres to the lower jaw,
because this is, as it were, the upper one which has changed its
place. Moreover, it is the crocodile's lot, though a land animal, to
live the life of a fish, and this again necessarily involves an
indistinct formation of the part in question.
The roof of the mouth resembles flesh, even in many of the fishes;
and in some of the river species, as for instance in the fishes
known as Cyprini, is so very flesh-like and soft as to be taken by
careless observers for a tongue. The tongue of fishes, however, though
it exists as a separate part, is never formed with such distinctness
as this, as has been already explained. Again, as the gustatory
sensibility is intended to serve animals in the selection of food,
it is not diffused equally over the whole surface of the tongue-like
organ, but is placed chiefly in the tip; and for this reason it is the
tip which is the only part of the tongue separated in fishes from
the rest of the mouth. As all animals are sensible to the pleasure
derivable from food, they all feel a desire for it. For the object
of desire is the pleasant. The part, however, by which food produces
the sensation is not precisely alike in all of them, but while in some
it is free from attachments, in others, where it is not required for
vocal pur, poses, it is adherent. In some again it is hard, in
others soft or flesh-like. Thus even the Crustacea, the Carabi for
instance and the like, and the Cephalopods, such as the Sepias and the
Poulps, have some such part inside the mouth. As for the Insects, some
of them have the part which serves as tongue inside the mouth, as is
the case with ants, and as is also the case with many Testacea,
while in others it is placed externally. In this latter case it
resembles a sting, and is hollow and spongy, so as to serve at one and
the same time for the tasting and for the sucking up of nutriment.
This is plainly to be seen in flies and bees and all such animals, and
likewise in some of the Testacea. In the Purpurae, for instance, so
strong is this part that it enables them to bore holes through the
hard covering of shell-fish, of the spiral snails, for example, that
are used as bait to catch them. So also the gad-flies and cattle-flies
can pierce through the skin of man, and some of them even through
the skins of other animals. Such, then, in these animals is the nature
of the tongue, which is thus as it were the counterpart of the
elephant's nostril. For as in the elephant the nostril is used as a
weapon, so in these animals the tongue serves as a sting.
In all other animals the tongue agrees with description already
given.
Book III
1
WE have next to consider the teeth, and with these the mouth, that
is the cavity which they enclose and form. The teeth have one
invariable office, namely the reduction of food; but besides this
general function they have other special ones, and these differ in
different groups. Thus in some animals the teeth serve as weapons; but
this with a distinction. For there are offensive weapons and there are
defensive weapons; and while in some animals, as the wild Carnivora,
the teeth answer both purposes, in many others, both wild and
domesticated, they serve only for defence. In man the teeth are
admirably constructed for their general office, the front ones being
sharp, so as to cut the food into bits, and the hinder ones broad
and flat, so as to grind it to a pulp; while between these and
separating them are the dog-teeth, which, in accordance with the
rule that the mean partakes of both extremes, share in the
characters of those on either side, being broad in one part but
sharp in another. Similar distinctions of shape are presented by the
teeth of other animals, with the exception of those whose teeth are
one and all of the sharp kind. In man, however, the number and the
character even of these sharp teeth have been mainly determined by the
requirements of speech. For the front teeth of man contribute in
many ways to the formation of letter-sounds.
In some animals, however, the teeth, as already said, serve merely
for the reduction of food. When, besides this, they serve as offensive
and defensive weapons, they may either be formed into tusks, as for
instance is the case in swine, or may be sharp-pointed and interlock
with those of the opposite jaw, in which case the animal is said to be
saw-toothed. The explanation of this latter arrangement is as follows.
The strength of such an animal is in its teeth, and these depend for
their efficiency on their sharpness. In order, then, to prevent
their getting blunted by mutual friction, such of them as serve for
weapons fit into each other's interspaces, and are so kept in proper
condition. No animal that has sharp interfitting teeth is at the
same time furnished with tusks. For nature never makes anything
superfluous or in vain. She gives, therefore, tusks to such animals as
strike in fighting, and serrated teeth to such as bite. Sows, for
instance, have no tusks, and accordingly sows bite instead of
striking.
A general principle must here be noted, which will be found
applicable not only in this instance but in many others that will
occur later on. Nature allots each weapon, offensive and defensive
alike, to those animals alone that can use it; or, if not to them
alone, to them in a more marked degree; and she allots it in its
most perfect state to those that can use it best; and this whether
it be a sting, or a spur, or horns, or tusks, or what it may of a like
kind.
Thus as males are stronger and more choleric than females, it is
in males that such parts as those just mentioned are found, either
exclusively, as in some species, or more fully developed, as in
others. For though females are of course provided with such parts as
are no less necessary to them than to males, the parts, for
instance, which subserve nutrition, they have even these in an
inferior degree, and the parts which answer no such necessary
purpose they do not possess at all. This explains why stags have
horns, while does have none; why the horns of cows are different
from those of bulls, and, similarly, the horns of ewes from those of
rams. It explains also why the females are often without spurs in
species where the males are provided with them, and accounts for
similar facts relating to all other such parts.
All fishes have teeth of the serrated form, with the single
exception of the fish known as the Scarus. In many of them there are
teeth even on the tongue and on the roof of the mouth. The reason
for this is that, living as they do in the water, they cannot but
allow this fluid to pass into the mouth with the food. The fluid
thus admitted they must necessarily discharge again without delay. For
were they not to do so, but to retain it for a time while
triturating the food, the water would run into their digestive
cavities. Their teeth therefore are all sharp, being adapted only
for cutting, and are numerous and set in many parts, that their
abundance may serve in lieu of any grinding faculty, to mince the food
into small bits. They are also curved, because these are almost the
only weapons which fishes possess.
In all these offices of the teeth the mouth also takes its part; but
besides these functions it is subservient to respiration, in all
such animals as breathe and are cooled by external agency. For nature,
as already said, uses the parts which are common to all animals for
many special purposes, and this of her own accord. Thus the mouth
has one universal function in all animals alike, namely its alimentary
office; but in some, besides this, the special duty of serving as a
weapon is attached to it; in others that of ministering to speech; and
again in many, though not in all, the office of respiration. All these
functions are thrown by nature upon one single organ, the construction
of which she varies so as to suit the variations of office.
Therefore it is that in some animals the mouth is contracted, while in
others it is of wide dimensions. The contracted form belongs to such
animals as use the mouth merely for nutritive, respiratory, and
vocal purposes; whereas in such as use it as a means of defence it has
a wide gape. This is its invariable form in such animals as are
saw-toothed. For seeing that their mode of warfare consists in biting,
it is advantageous to them that their mouth shall have a wide opening;
for the wider it opens, the greater will be the extent of the bite,
and the more numerous will be the teeth called into play.
What has just been said applies to fishes as well as to other
animals; and thus in such of them as are carnivorous, and made for
biting, the mouth has a wide gape; whereas in the rest it is small,
being placed at the extremity of a tapering snout. For this form is
suited for their purposes, while the other would be useless.
In birds the mouth consists of what is called the beak, which in
them is a substitute for lips and teeth. This beak presents variations
in harmony with the functions and protective purposes which it serves.
Thus in those birds that are called Crooked-clawed it is invariably
hooked, inasmuch as these birds are carnivorous, and eat no kind of
vegetable food whatsoever. For this form renders it serviceable to
them in obtaining the mastery over their prey, and is better suited
for deeds of violence than any other. Moreover, as their weapons of
offence consist of this beak and of their claws, these latter also are
more crooked in them than in the generality of birds. Similarly in
each other kind of bird the beak is suited to the mode of life.
Thus, in woodpeckers it is hard and strong, as also in crows and birds
of crowlike habit, while in the smaller birds it is delicate, so as to
be of use in collecting seeds and picking up minute animals. In such
birds, again, as eat herbage, and such as live about marshes-those,
for example, that swim and have webbed feet-the bill is broad, or
adapted in some other way to the mode of life. For a broad bill
enables a bird to dig into the ground with ease, just as, among
quadrupeds, does the broad snout of the pig, an animal which, like the
birds in question, lives on roots. Moreover, in these root-eating
birds and in some others of like habits of life, the tips of the
bill end in hard points, which gives them additional facility in
dealing with herbaceous food.
The several parts which are set on the head have now, pretty
nearly all, been considered. In man, however, the part which lies
between the head and the neck is called the face, this name,
(prosopon) being, it would seem, derived from the function of the
part. For as man is the only animal that stands erect, he is also
the only one that looks directly in front (proso) and the only one
whose voice is emitted in that direction.
2
We have now to treat of horns; for these also, when present, are
appendages of the head. They exist in none but viviparous animals;
though in some ovipara certain parts are metaphorically spoken of as
horns, in virtue of a certain resemblance. To none of such parts,
however, does the proper office of a horn belong; for they are never
used, as are the horns of vivipara, for purposes which require
strength, whether it be in self-protection or in offensive strife.
So also no polydactylous animal is furnished with horns. For horns are
defensive weapons, and these polydactylous animals possess other means
of security. For to some of them nature has given claws, to others
teeth suited for combat, and to the rest some other adequate defensive
appliance. There are horns, however, in most of the cloven-hoofed
animals, and in some of those that have a solid hoof, serving them
as an offensive weapon, and in some cases also as a defensive one.
There are horns also in all animals that have not been provided by
nature with some other means of security; such means, for instance, as
speed, which has been given to horses; or great size, as in camels;
for excessive bulk, such as has been given to these animals, and in
a still greater measure to elephants, is sufficient in itself to
protect an animal from being destroyed by others. Other animals
again are protected by the possession of tusks; and among these are
the swine, though they have a cloven hoof.
All animals again, whose horns are but useless appendages, have been
provided by nature with some additional means of security. Thus deer
are endowed with speed; for the large size and great branching of
their horns makes these a source of detriment rather than of profit to
their possessors. Similarly endowed are the Bubalus and gazelle; for
though these animals will stand up against some enemies and defend
themselves with their horns, yet they run away from such as are fierce
and pugnacious. The Bonasus again, whoe horns curve inwards towards
each other, is provided with a means of protection in the discharge of
its excrement; and of this it avails itself when frightened. There are
some other animals besides the Bonasus that have a similar mode of
defence. In no case, however, does nature ever give more than one
adequate means of protection to one and the same animal.
Most of the animals that have horns are cloven-hoofed; but the
Indian ass, as they call it, is also reported to be horned, though its
hoof is solid.
Again as the body, so far as regards its organs of motion,
consists of two distinct parts, the right and the left, so also and
for like reasons the horns of animals are, in the great majority of
cases, two in number. Still there are some that have but a single
horn; the Oryx, for instance, and the so-called Indian ass; in the
former of which the hoof is cloven, while in the latter it is solid.
In such animals the horn is set in the centre of the head; for as
the middle belongs equally to both extremes, this arrangement is the
one that comes nearest to each side having its own horn.
Again, it would appear consistent with reason that the single horn
should go with the solid rather than with the cloven hoof. For hoof,
whether solid or cloven, is of the same nature as horn; so that the
two naturally undergo division simultaneously and in the same animals.
Again, since the division of the cloven hoof depends on deficiency
of material, it is but rationally consistent, that nature, when she
gave an animal an excess of material for the hoofs, which thus
became solid, should have taken away something from the upper parts
and so made the animal to have but one horn. Rightly too did she act
when she chose the head whereon to set the horns; and AEsop's Momus is
beside the mark, when he finds fault with the bull for not having
its horns upon its shoulders. For from this position, says he, they
would have delivered their blow with the greatest force, whereas on
the head they occupy the weakest part of the whole body. Momus was but
dull-sighted in making this hostile criticism. For had the horns
been set on the shoulders, or had they been set on any other part than
they are, the encumbrance of their weight would have been increased,
not only without any compensating gain whatso::ver, but with the
disadvantage of impeding many bodily operations. For the point
whence the blows could be delivered with the greatest force was not
the only matter to be considered, but the point also whence they could
be delivered with the widest range. But as the bull has no hands and
cannot possibly have its horns on its feet or on its knees, where they
would prevent flexion, there remains no other site for them but the
head; and this therefore they necessarily occupy. In this position,
moreover, they are much less in the way of the movements of the body
than they would be elsewhere.
Deer are the only animals in which the horns are solid throughout,
and are also the only animals that cast them. This casting is not
simply advantageous to the deer from the increased lightness which
it produces, but, seeing how heavy the horns are, is a matter of
actual necessity.
In all other animals the horns are hollow for a certain distance,
and the end alone is solid, this being the part of use in a blow. At
the same time, to prevent even the hollow part from being weak, the
horn, though it grows out of the skin, has a solid piece from the
bones fitted into its cavity. For this arrangement is not only that
which makes the horns of the greatest service in fighting, but that
which causes them to be as little of an impediment as possible in
the other actions of life.
Such then are the reasons for which horns exist; and such the
reasons why they are present in some animals, absent from others.
Let us now consider the character of the material nature whose
necessary results have been made available by rational nature for a
final cause.
In the first place, then, the larger the bulk of animals, the
greater is the proportion of corporeal and earthy matter which they
contain. Thus no very small animal is known to have horns, the
smallest horned animal that we are acquainted with being the
gazelle. But in all our speculations concerning nature, what we have
to consider is the general rule; for that is natural which applies
either universally or generally. And thus when we say that the largest
animals have most earthy matter, we say so because such is the general
rule. Now this earthy matter is used in the animal body to form
bone. But in the larger animals there is an excess of it, and this
excess is turned by nature to useful account, being converted into
weapons of defence. Part of it necessarily flows to the upper
portion of the body, and this is allotted by her in some cases to
the formation of tusks and teeth, in others to the formation of horns.
Thus it is that no animal that has horns has also front teeth in
both jaws, those in the upper jaw being deficient. For nature by
subtracting from the teeth adds to the horns; the nutriment which in
most animals goes to the former being here spent on the augmentation
of the latter. Does, it is true, have no horns and yet are equally
deficient with the males as regards the teeth. The reason, however,
for this is that they, as much as the males, are naturally
horn-bearing animals; but they have been stripped of their horns,
because these would not only be useless to them but actually
baneful; whereas the greater strength of the males causes these
organs, though equally useless, to be less of an impediment. In
other animals, where this material is not secreted from the body in
the shape of horns, it is used to increase the size of the teeth; in
some cases of all the teeth, in others merely of the tusks, which thus
become so long as to resemble horns projecting from the jaws.
So much, then, of the parts which appertain to the head.
3
Below the head lies the neck, in such animals as have one. This is
the case with those only that have the parts to which a neck is
subservient. These parts are the larynx and what is called the
oesophagus. Of these the former, or larynx, exists for the sake of
respiration, being the instrument by which such animals as breathe
inhale and discharge the air. Therefore it is that, when there is no
lung, there is also no neck. Of this condition the Fishes are an
example. The other part, or oesophagus, is the channel through which
food is conveyed to the stomach; so that all animals that are
without a neck are also without a distinct oesophagus; Such a part
is in fact not required of necessity for nutritive purposes; for it
has no action whatsoever on the food. Indeed there is nothing to
prevent the stomach from being placed directly after the mouth.
This, however, is quite impossible in the case of the lung. For
there must be some sort of tube common to the two divisions of the
lung, by which--it being bipartite--the breath may be apportioned to
their respective bronchi, and thence pass into the air-pipes; and such
an arrangement will be the best for giving perfection to inspiration
and expiration. The organ then concerned in respiration must of
necessity be of some length; and this, again, necessitates there being
an oesophagus to unite mouth and stomach. This oesophagus is of a
flesh-like character, and yet admits of extension like a sinew. This
latter property is given to it, that it may stretch when food is
introduced; while the flesh-like character is intended to make it soft
and yielding, and to prevent it from being rasped by particles as they
pass downwards, and so suffering damage. On the other hand, the
windpipe and the so-called larynx are constructed out of a
cartilaginous substance. For they have to serve not only for
respiration, but also for vocal purposes; and an instrument that is to
produce sounds must necessarily be not only smooth but firm. The
windpipe lies in front of the oesophagus, although this position
causes it to be some hindrance to the latter in the act of
deglutition. For if a morsel of food, fluid or solid, slips into it by
accident, choking and much distress and violent fits of coughing
ensue. This must be a matter of astonishment to any of those who
assert that it is by the windpipe that an animal imbibes fluid. For
the consequences just mentioned occur invariably, whenever a
particle of food slips in, and are quite obvious. Indeed on many
grounds it is ridiculous to say that this is the channel through which
animals imbibe fluid. For there is no passage leading from the lung to
the stomach, such as the oesophagus which we see leading thither
from the mouth. Moreover, when any cause produces sickness and
vomiting, it is plain enough when the fluid is discharged. It is
manifest also that fluid, when swallowed, does not pass directly
into the bladder and collect there, but goes first into the stomach.
For, when red wine is taken, the dejections of the stomach are seen to
be coloured by its dregs; and such discoloration has been even seen on
many occasions inside the stomach itself, in cases where there have
been wounds opening into that organ. However, it is perhaps silly to
be minutely particular in dealing with silly statements such as this.
The windpipe then, owing to its position in front of the oesophagus,
is exposed, as we have said, to annoyance from the food. To obviate
this, however, nature has contrived the epiglottis. This part is not
found in all sanguineous animals, but only in such of them as have a
lung; nor in all of these, but only in such as at the same time have
their skin covered with hairs, and not either with scaly plates or
with feathers. In such scaly and feathered animals there is no
epiglottis, but its office is supplied by the larynx, which closes and
opens, just as in the other case the epiglottis falls down and rises
up; rising up during the ingress or egress of breath, and falling down
during the ingestion of food, so as to prevent any particle from
slipping into the windpipe. Should there be the slightest want of
accuracy in this movement, or should an inspiration be made during the
ingestion of food, choking and coughing ensue, as already has been
noticed. So admirably contrived, however, is the movement both of
the epiglottis and of the tongue, that, while the food is being ground
to a pulp in the mouth, the tongue very rarely gets caught between the
teeth; and, while the food is passing over the epiglottis seldom
does a particle of it slip into the windpipe.
The animals which have been mentioned as having no epiglottis owe
this deficiency to the dryness of their flesh and to the hardness of
their skin. For an epiglottis made of such materials would not admit
of easy motion. It would, indeed, take a longer time to shut down an
epiglottis made of the peculiar flesh of these animals, and shaped
like that of those with hairy skins, than to bring the edges of the
windpipe itself into contact with each other.
Thus much then as to the reason why some animals have an
epiglottis while others have none, and thus much also as to its use.
It is a contrivance of nature to remedy the vicious position of the
windpipe in front of the oesophagus. That position is the result of
necessity. For it is in the front and centre of the body that the
heart is situated, in which we say is the principle of life and the
source of all motion and sensation. (For sensation and motion are
exercised in the direction which we term forwards, and it is on this
very relation that the distinction of before and behind is founded.)
But where the heart is, there and surrounding it is the lung. Now
inspiration, which occurs for the sake of the lung and for the sake of
the principle which has its seat in the heart, is effected through the
windpipe. Since then the heart must of necessity lie in the very front
place of all, it follows that the larynx also and the windpipe must of
necessity lie in front of the oesophagus. For they lead to the lung
and heart, whereas the oesophagus leads to the stomach. And it is a
universal law that, as regards above and below, front and back,
right and left, the nobler and more honourable part invariably is
placed uppermost, in front, and on the right, rather than in the
opposite positions, unless some more important object stands in the
way.
4
We have now dealt with the neck, the oesophagus, and the windpipe,
and have next to treat of the viscera. These are peculiar to
sanguineous animals, some of which have all of them, others only a
part, while no bloodless animals have any at all. Democritus then
seems to have been mistaken in the notion he formed of the viscera,
if, that is to say, he fancied that the reason why none were
discoverable in bloodless animals was that these animals were too
small to allow them to be seen. For, in sanguineous animals, both
heart and liver are visible enough when the body is only just
formed, and while it is still extremely small. For these parts are
to be seen in the egg sometimes as early as the third day, being
then no bigger than a point; and are visible also in aborted
embryos, while still excessively minute. Moreover, as the external
organs are not precisely alike in all animals, but each creature is
provided with such as are suited to its special mode of life and
motion, so is it with the internal parts, these also differing in
different animals. Viscera, then, are peculiar to sanguineous animals;
and therefore are each and all formed from sanguineous material, as is
plainly to be seen in the new-born young of these animals. For in such
the viscera are more sanguineous, and of greater bulk in proportion to
the body, than at any later period of life, it being in the earliest
stage of formation that the nature of the material and its abundance
are most conspicuous. There is a heart, then, in all sanguineous
animals, and the reason for this has already been given. For that
sanguineous animals must necessarily have blood is self-evident.
And, as the blood is fluid, it is also a matter of necessity that
there shall be a receptacle for it; and it is apparently to meet
this requirement that nature has devised the blood-vessels. These,
again, must necessarily have one primary source. For it is
preferable that there shall be one such, when possible, rather than
several. This primary source of the vessels is the heart. For the
vessels manifestly issue from it and do not go through it. Moreover,
being as it is homogeneous, it has the character of a blood-vessel.
Again its position is that of a primary or dominating part. For
nature, when no other more important purpose stands in her way, places
the more honourable part in the more honourable position; and the
heart lies about the centre of the body, but rather in its upper
than its lower half, and also more in front than behind. This is
most evident in the case of man, but even in other animals there is
a tendency in the heart to assume a similar position, in the centre of
the necessary part of the body, that is to say of the part which
terminates in the vent for excrement. For the limbs vary in position
in different animals, and are not to be counted with the parts which
are necessary for life. For life can be maintained even when they
are removed; while it is self-evident that the addition of them to
an animal is not destructive of it.
There are some who say that the vessels commence in the head. In
this they are clearly mistaken. For in the first place, according to
their representation, there would be many sources for the vessels, and
these scattered; and secondly, these sources would be in a region that
is manifestly cold, as is shown by its intolerance of chill, whereas
the region of the heart is as manifestly hot. Again, as already
said, the vessels continue their course through the other viscera, but
no vessel spreads through the heart. From this it is quite evident
that the heart is a part of the vessels and their origin; and for this
it is well suited by its structure. For its central part consists of a
dense and hollow substance, and is moreover full of blood, as though
the vessels took thence their origin. It is hollow to serve for the
reception of the blood, while its wall is dense, that it may serve
to protect the source of heat. For here, and here alone in all the
viscera and indeed in all the body, there is blood without
blood-vessels, the blood elsewhere being always contained within
vessels. Nor is this but consistent with reason. For the blood is
conveyed into the vessels from the heart, but none passes into the
heart from without. For in itself it constitutes the origin and
fountain, or primary receptacle, of the blood. It is however, from
dissections and from observations on the process of development that
the truth of these statements receives its clearest demonstration. For
the heart is the first of all the parts to be formed; and no sooner is
it formed than it contains blood. Moreover, the motions of pain and
pleasure, and generally of all sensation, plainly have their source in
the heart, and find in it their ultimate termination. This, indeed,
reason would lead us to expect. For the source must, when. ever
possible, be one; and, of all places, the best suited for a source
is the centre. For the centre is one, and is equally or almost equally
within reach of every part. Again, as neither the blood itself, nor
yet any part which is bloodless, is endowed with sensation, it is
plain that that part which first has blood, and which holds it as it
were in a receptacle, must be the primary source of sensation. And
that this part is the heart is not only a rational inference, but also
evident to the senses. For no sooner is the embryo formed, than its
heart is seen in motion as though it were a living creature, and
this before any of the other parts, it being, as thus shown, the
starting-point of their nature in all animals that have blood. A
further evidence of the truth of what has been stated is the fact that
no sanguineous animal is without a heart. For the primary source of
blood must of necessity be present in them all. It is true that
sanguineous animals not only have a heart but also invariably have a
liver. But no one could ever deem the liver to be the primary organ
either of the whole body or of the blood. For the position in which it
is placed is far from being that of a primary or dominating part; and,
moreover, in the most perfectly finished animals there is another
part, the spleen, which as it were counterbalances it. Still
further, the liver contains no spacious receptacle in its substance,
as does the heart; but its blood is in a vessel as in all the other
viscera. The vessel, moreover, extends through it, and no vessel
whatsoever originates in it; for it is from the heart that all the
vessels take their rise. Since then one or other of these two parts
must be the central source, and since it is not the liver which is
such, it follows of necessity that it is the heart which is the source
of the blood, as also the primary organ in other respects. For the
definitive characteristic of an animal is the possession of sensation;
and the first sensory part is that which first has blood; that is to
say is the heart, which is the source of blood and the first of the
parts to contain it.
The apex of the heart is pointed and more solid than the rest of the
organ. It lies against the breast, and entirely in the anterior part
of the body, in order to prevent that region from getting chilled. For
in all animals there is comparatively little flesh over the breast,
whereas there is a more abundant covering of that substance on the
posterior surface, so that the heat has in the back a sufficient
amount of protection. In all animals but man the heart is placed in
the centre of the pectoral region; but in man it inclines a little
towards the left, so that it may counterbalance the chilliness of that
side. For the left side is colder in man, as compared with the
right, than in any other animal. It has been stated in an earlier
treatise that even in fishes the heart holds the same position as in
other animals; and the reason has been given why it appears not to
do so. The apex of the heart, it is true, is in them turned towards
the head, but this in fishes is the front aspect, for it is the
direction in which their motion occurs.
The heart again is abundantly supplied with sinews, as might
reasonably be expected. For the motions of the body commence from
the heart, and are brought about by traction and relaxation. The heart
therefore, which, as already said,' as it were a living creature
inside its possessor, requires some such subservient and strengthening
parts.
In no animals does the heart contain a bone, certainly in none of
those that we have ourselves inspected, with the exception of the
horse and a certain kind of ox. In these exceptional cases the
heart, owing to its large bulk, is provided with a bone as a
support; just as the bones serve as supports for the body generally.
In animals of great size the heart has three cavities; in smaller
animals it has two; and in all has at least one, for, as already
stated, there must be some place in the heart to serve as a receptacle
for the first blood; which, as has been mentioned more than once, is
formed in this organ. But inasmuch as the main blood-vessels are two
in number, namely the so-called great vessel and the aorta, each of
which is the origin of other vessels; inasmuch, moreover, as these two
vessels present differences, hereafter to be discussed, when
compared with each other, it is of advantage that they also shall
themselves have distinct origins. This advantage will be obtained if
each side have its own blood, and the blood of one side be kept
separate from that of the other. For this reason the heart, whenever
it is possible, has two receptacles. And this possibility exists in
the case of large animals, for in them the heart, as the body
generally, is of large size. Again it is still better that there shall
be three cavities, so that the middle and odd one may serve as a
centre common to both sides. But this requires the heart to be of
greater magnitude, so that it is only in the largest hearts that there
are three cavities.
Of these three cavities it is the right that has the most abundant
and the hottest blood, and this explains why the limbs also on the
right side of the body are warmer than those on the left. The left
cavity has the least blood of all, and the coldest; while in the
middle cavity the blood, as regards quantity and heat, is intermediate
to the other two, being however of purer quality than either. For it
behoves the supreme part to be as tranquil as possible, and this
tranquillity can be ensured by the blood being pure, and of moderate
amount and warmth.
In the heart of animals there is also a kind of joint-like division,
something like the sutures of the skull. This is not, however,
attributable to the heart being formed by the union of several parts
into a compound whole, but is rather, as already said, the result of a
joint-like division. These jointings are most distinct in animals of
keen sensibility, and less so in those that are of duller feeling,
in swine for instance. Different hearts differ also from each other in
their sizes, and in their degrees of firmness; and these differences
somehow extend their influence to the temperaments of the animals. For
in animals of low sensibility the heart is hard and dense in
texture, while it is softer in such as are endowed with keener
feeling. So also when the heart is of large size the animal is
timorous, while it is more courageous if the organ be smaller and of
moderate bulk. For in the former the bodily affection which results
from terror already pre-exists; for the bulk of the heart is out of
all proportion to the animal's heat, which being small is reduced to
insignificance in the large space, and thus the blood is made colder
than it would otherwise be.
The heart is of large size in the hare, the deer, the mouse, the
hyena, the ass, the leopard, the marten, and in pretty nearly all
other animals that either are manifestly timorous, or betray their
cowardice by their spitefulness.
What has been said of the heart as a whole is no less true of its
cavities and of the blood-vessels; these also if of large size being
cold. For just as a fire of equal size gives less heat in a large room
than in a small one, so also does the heat in a large cavity or a
large blood-vessel, that is in a large receptacle, have less effect
than in a small one. Moreover, all hot bodies are cooled by motions
external to themselves, and the more spacious the cavities and vessels
are, the greater the amount of spirit they contain, and the more
potent its action. Thus it is that no animal that has large cavities
in its heart, or large blood-vessels, is ever fat, the vessels being
indistinct and the cavities small in all or most fat animals.
The heart again is the only one of the viscera, and indeed the
only part of the body, that is unable to tolerate any serious
affection. This is but what might reasonably be expected. For, if
the primary or dominant part be diseased, there is nothing from
which the other parts which depend upon it can derive succour. A proof
that the heart is thus unable to tolerate any morbid affection is
furnished by the fact that in no sacrificial victim has it ever been
seen to be affected with those diseases that are observable in the
other viscera. For the kidneys are frequently found to be full of
stones, and growths, and small abscesses, as also are the liver, the
lung, and more than all the spleen. There are also many other morbid
conditions which are seen to occur in these parts, those which are
least liable to such being the portion of the lung which is close to
the windpipe, and the portion of the liver which lies about the
junction with the great blood-vessel. This again admits of a
rational explanation. For it is in these parts that the lung and liver
are most closely in communion with the heart. On the other hand,
when animals die not by sacrifice but from disease, and from
affections such as are mentioned above, they are found on dissection
to have morbid affections of the heart.
Thus much of the heart, its nature, and the end and cause of its
existence in such animals as have it.
5
In due sequence we have next to discuss the blood-vessels, that is
to say the great vessel and the aorta. For it is into these two that
the blood first passes when it quits the heart; and all the other
vessels are but offshoots from them. Now that these vessels exist on
account of the blood has already been stated. For every fluid requires
a receptacle, and in the case of the blood the vessels are that
receptacle. Let us now explain why these vessels are two, and why they
spring from one single source, and extend throughout the whole body.
The reason, then, why these two vessels coalesce into one centre,
and spring from one source, is that the sensory soul is in all animals
actually one; and this one-ness of the sensory soul determines a
corresponding one-ness of the part in which it primarily abides. In
sanguineous animals this one-ness is not only actual but potential,
whereas in some bloodless animals it is only actual. Where, however,
the sensory soul is lodged, there also and in the selfsame place
must necessarily be the source of heat; and, again, where this is
there also must be the source of the blood, seeing that it thence
derives its warmth and fluidity. Thus, then, in the oneness of the
part in which is lodged the prime source of sensation and of heat is
involved the one-ness of the source in which the blood originates; and
this, again, explains why the blood-vessels have one common
starting-point.
The vessels, again, are two, because the body of every sanguineous
animal that is capable of locomotion is bilateral; for in all such
animals there is a distinguishable before and behind, a right and
left, an above and below. Now as the front is more honourable and of
higher supremacy than the hinder aspect, so also and in like degree is
the great vessel superior to the aorta. For the great vessel is placed
in front, while the aorta is behind; the former again is plainly
visible in all sanguineous animals, while the latter is in some
indistinct and in some not discernible at all.
Lastly, the reason for the vessels being distributed throughout
the entire body is that in them, or in parts analogous to them, is
contained the blood, or the fluid which in bloodless animals takes the
place of blood, and that the blood or analogous fluid is the
material from which the whole body is made. Now as to the manner in
which animals are nourished, and as to the source from which they
obtain nutriment and as to the way in which they absorb this from
the stomach, these are matters which may be more suitably considered
and explained in the treatise on Generation. But inasmuch as the parts
are, as already said, formed out of the blood, it is but rational that
the flow of the blood should extend, as it does, throughout the
whole of the body. For since each part is formed of blood, each must
have blood about and in its substance.
To give an illustration of this. The water-courses in gardens are so
constructed as to distribute water from one single source or fount
into numerous channels, which divide and subdivide so as to convey
it to all parts; and, again, in house-building stones are thrown
down along the whole ground-plan of the foundation walls; because
the garden-plants in the one case grow at the expense of the water,
and the foundation walls in the other are built out of the stones. Now
just after the same fashion has nature laid down channels for the
conveyance of the blood throughout the whole body, because this
blood is the material out of which the whole fabric is made. This
becomes very evident in bodies that have undergone great emaciation.
For in such there is nothing to be seen but the blood-vessels; just as
when fig-leaves or vine-leaves or the like have dried up, there is
nothing left of them but their vessels. The explanation of this is
that the blood, or fluid which takes its place, is potentially body
and flesh, or substance analogous to flesh. Now just as in
irrigation the largest dykes are permanent, while the smallest are
soon filled up with mud and disappear, again to become visible when
the deposit of mud ceases; so also do the largest blood-vessels remain
permanently open, while the smallest are converted actually into
flesh, though potentially they are no whit less vessels than before.
This too explains why, so long as the flesh of an animal is in its
integrity, blood will flow from any part of it whatsoever that is cut,
though no vessel, however small, be visible in it. Yet there can be no
blood, unless there be a blood-vessel. The vessels then are there, but
are invisible owing to their being clogged up, just as the dykes for
irrigation are invisible until they have been cleared of mud.
As the blood-vessels advance, they become gradually smaller and
smaller, until at last their tubes are too fine to admit the blood.
This fluid can therefore no longer find its way through them, though
they still give passage to the humour which we call sweat; and
especially so when the body is heated, and the mouths of the small
vessels are dilated. Instances, indeed, are not unknown of persons who
in consequence of a cachectic state have secreted sweat that resembled
blood, their body having become loose and flabby, and their blood
watery, owing to the heat in the small vessels having been too
scanty for its concoction. For, as was before said, every compound
of earth and water-and both nutriment and blood are such-becomes
thicker from concoction. The inability of the heat to effect
concoction may be due either to its being absolutely small in
amount, or to its being small in proportion to the quantity of food,
when this has been taken excess. This excess again may be of two
kinds, either quantitative or qualitative; for all substances are
not equally amenable to concoction.
The widest passages in the body are of all parts the most liable
to haemorrhage; so that bleeding occurs not infrequently from the
nostrils, the gums, and the fundament, occasionally also from the
mouth. Such haemorrhages are of a passive kind, and not violent as are
those from the windpipe.
The great vessel and the aorta, which above lie somewhat apart,
lower down exchange positions, and by so doing give compactness to the
body. For when they reach the point where the legs diverge, they
each split into two, and the great vessel passes from the front to the
rear, and the aorta from the rear to the front. By this they
contribute to the unity of the whole fabric. For as in plaited work
the parts hold more firmly together because of the interweaving, so
also by the interchange of position between the blood-vessels are
the anterior and posterior parts of the body more closely knit
together. A similar exchange of position occurs also in the upper part
of the body, between the vessels that have issued from the heart.
The details however of the mutual relations of the different vessels
must be looked for in the treatises on Anatomy and the Researches
concerning Animals.
So much, then, as concerns the heart and the blood-vessels. We
must now pass on to the other viscera and apply the same method of
inquiry to them.
6
The lung, then, is an organ found in all the animals of a certain
class, because they live on land. For there must of necessity be
some means or other of tempering the heat of the body; and in
sanguineous animals, as they are of an especially hot nature, the
cooling agency must be external, whereas in the bloodless kinds the
innate spirit is sufficient of itself for the purpose. The external
cooling agent must be either air or water. In fishes the agent is
water. Fishes therefore never have a lung, but have gills in its
place, as was stated in the treatise on Respiration. But animals
that breathe are cooled by air. These therefore are all provided
with a lung.
All land animals breathe, and even some water animals, such as the
whale, the dolphin, and all the spouting Cetacea. For many animals lie
half-way between terrestrial and aquatic; some that are terrestrial
and that inspire air being nevertheless of such a bodily
constitution that they abide for the most time in the water; and
some that are aquatic partaking so largely of the land character, that
respiration constitutes for them the man condition of life.
The organ of respiration is the lung. This derives its motion from
the heart; but it is its own large size and spongy texture that
affords amplitude of space for entrance of the breath. For when the
lung rises up the breath streams in, and is again expelled when the
lung collapses. It has been said that the lung exists as a provision
to meet the jumping of the heart. But this is out of the question. For
man is practically the only animal whose heart presents this
phenomenon of jumping, inasmuch as he alone is influenced by hope
and anticipation of the future. Moreover, in most animals the lung
is separated from the heart by a considerable interval and lies
above it, so that it can contribute nothing to mitigate any jumping.
The lung differs much in different animals. For in some it is of
large size and contains blood; while in others it is smaller and of
spongy texture. In the vivipara it is large and rich in blood, because
of their natural heat; while in the ovipara it is small and dry but
capable of expanding to a vast extent when inflated. Among terrestrial
animals, the oviparous quadrupeds, such as lizards, tortoises, and the
like, have this kind of lung; and, among inhabitants of the air, the
animals known as birds. For in all these the lung is spongy, and
like foam. For it is membranous and collapses from a large bulk to a
small one, as does foam when it runs together. In this too lies the
explanation of the fact that these animals are little liable to thirst
and drink but sparingly, and that they are able to remain for a
considerable time under water. For, inasmuch as they have but little
heat, the very motion of the lung, airlike and void, suffices by
itself to cool them for a considerable period.
These animals, speaking generally, are also distinguished from
others by their smaller bulk. For heat promotes growth, and
abundance of blood is a sure indication of heat. Heat, again, tends to
make the body erect; and thus it is that man is the most erect of
animals, and the vivipara more erect than other quadrupeds. For no
viviparous animal, be it apodous or be it possessed of feet, is so
given to creep into holes as are the ovipara.
The lung, then, exists for respiration; and this is its universal
office; but in one order of animals it is bloodless and has the
structure described above, to suit the special requirements There
is, however, no one term to denote all animals that have a lung; no
designation, that is, like the term Bird, applicable to the whole of a
certain class. Yet the possession of a lung is a part of their
essence, just as much as the presence of certain characters
constitutes the essence of a bird.
7
Of the viscera some appear to be single, as the heart and lung;
others to be double, as the kidneys; while of a third kind it is
doubtful in which class they should be reckoned. For the liver and the
spleen would seem to lie half-way between the single and the double
organs. For they may be regarded either as constituting each a
single organ, or as a pair of organs resembling each other in
character.
In reality, however, all the organs are double. The reason for
this is that the body itself is double, consisting of two halves,
which are however combined together under one supreme centre. For
there is an upper and a lower half, a front and a rear, a right side
and a left.
This explains why it is that even the brain and the several organs
of sense tend in all animals to consist of two parts; and the same
explanation applies to the heart with its cavities. The lung again
in Ovipara is divided to such an extent that these animals look as
though they had actually two lungs. As to the kidneys, no one can
overlook their double character. But when we come to the liver and the
spleen, any one might fairly be in doubt. The reason of this is, that,
in animals that necessarily have a spleen, this organ is such that
it might be taken for a kind of bastard liver; while in those in which
a spleen is not an actual necessity but is merely present, as it were,
by way of token, in an extremely minute form, the liver plainly
consists of two parts; of which the larger tends to lie on the right
side and the smaller on the left. Not but what there are some even
of the Ovipara in which this condition is comparatively indistinctly
marked; while, on the other hand, there are some Vivipara in which the
liver is manifestly divided into two parts. Examples of such
division are furnished by the hares of certain regions, which have the
appearance of having two livers, and by the cartilaginous and some
other fishes.
It is the position of the liver on the right side of the body that
is the main cause for the formation of the spleen; the existence of
which thus becomes to a certain extent a matter of necessity in all
animals, though not of very stringent necessity.
The reason, then, why the viscera are bilateral is, as we have said,
that there are two sides to the body, a right and a left. For each
of these sides aims at similarity with the other, and so likewise do
their several viscera; and as the sides, though dual, are knit
together into unity, so also do the viscera tend to be bilateral and
yet one by unity of constitution.
Those viscera which lie below the diaphragm exist one and all on
account of the blood-vessels; serving as a bond, by which these
vessels, while floating freely, are yet held in connexion with the
body. For the vessels give off branches which run to the body
through the outstretched structures, like so many anchorlines thrown
out from a ship. The great vessel sends such branches to the liver and
the spleen; and these viscera-the liver and spleen on either side with
the kidneys behind-attach the great vessel to the body with the
firmness of nails. The aorta sends similar branches to each kidney,
but none to the liver or spleen.
These viscera, then, contribute in this manner to the compactness of
the animal body. The liver and spleen assist, moreover, in the
concoction of the food; for both are of a hot character, owing to
the blood which they contain. The kidneys, on the other hand, take
part in the separation of the excretion which flows into the bladder.
The heart then and the liver are essential constituents of every
animal; the liver that it may effect concoction, the heart that it may
lodge the central source of heat. For some part or other there must be
which, like a hearth, shall hold the kindling fire; and this part must
be well protected, seeing that it is, as it were, the citadel of the
body.
All sanguineous animals, then, need these two parts; and this
explains why these two viscera, and these two alone, are invariably
found in them all. In such of them, however, as breathe, there is also
as invariably a third, namely the lung. The spleen, on the other hand,
is not invariably present; and, in those animals that have it, is only
present of necessity in the same sense as the excretions of the
belly and of the bladder are necessary, in the sense, that is, of
being an inevitable concomitant. Therefore it is that in some
animals the spleen is but scantily developed as regards size. This,
for instance, is the case in such feathered animals as have a hot
stomach. Such are the pigeon, the hawk, and the kite. It is the case
also in oviparous quadrupeds, where the spleen is excessively
minute, and in many of the scaly fishes. These same animals are also
without a bladder, because the loose texture of their flesh allows the
residual fluid to pass through and to be applied to the formation of
feathers and scales. For the spleen attracts the residual humours from
the stomach, and owing to its bloodlike character is enabled to assist
in their concoction. Should, however, this residual fluid be too
abundant, or the heat of the spleen be too scanty, the body becomes
sickly from over-repletion with nutriment. Often, too, when the spleen
is affected by disease, the belly becomes hard owing to the reflux
into it of the fluid; just as happens to those who form too much
urine, for they also are liable to a similar diversion of the fluids
into the belly. But in those animals that have but little
superfluous fluid to excrete, such as birds and fishes, the spleen
is never large, and in some exists no more than by way of token. So
also in the oviparous quadrupeds it is small, compact, and like a
kidney. For their lung is spongy, and they drink but little, and
such superfluous fluid as they have is applied to the growth of the
body and the formation of scaly plates, just as in birds it is applied
to the formation of feathers.
On the other hand, in such animals as have a bladder, and whose lung
contains blood, the spleen is watery, both for the reason already
mentioned, and also because the left side of the body is more watery
and colder than the right. For each of two contraries has been so
placed as to go together with that which is akin to it in another pair
of contraries. Thus right and left, hot and cold, are pairs of
contraries; and right is conjoined with hot, after the manner
described, and left with cold.
The kidneys when they are present exist not of actual necessity, but
as matters of greater finish and perfection. For by their special
character they are suited to serve in the excretion of the fluid which
collects in the bladder. In animals therefore where this fluid is very
abundantly formed, their presence enables the bladder to perform its
proper office with greater perfection.
Since then both kidneys and bladder exist in animals for one and the
same function, we must next treat of the bladder, though in so doing
we disregard the due order of succession in which the parts should
be enumerated. For not a word has yet been said of the midriff,
which is one of the parts that environ the viscera and therefore has
to be considered with them.
8
It is not every animal that has a bladder; those only being
apparently intended by nature to have one, whose lung contains
blood. To such it was but reasonable that she should give this part.
For the superabundance in their lung of its natural constituents
causes them to be the thirstiest of animals, and makes them require
a more than ordinary quantity not merely of solid but also of liquid
nutriment. This increased consumption necessarily entails the
production of an increased amount of residue; which thus becomes too
abundant to be concocted by the stomach and excreted with its own
residual matter. The residual fluid must therefore of necessity have a
receptacle of its own; and thus it comes to pass that all animals
whose lung contains blood are provided with a bladder. Those
animals, on the other hand, that are without a lung of this character,
and that either drink but sparingly owing to their lung being of a
spongy texture, or never imbibe fluid at all for drinking's sake but
only as nutriment, insects for instance and fishes, and that are
moreover clad with feathers or scales or scaly plates-all these
animals, owing to the small amount of fluid which they imbibe, and
owing also to such residue as there may be being converted into
feathers and the like, are invariably without a bladder. The
Tortoises, which are comprised among animals with scaly plates, form
the only exception; and this is merely due to the imperfect
development of their natural conformation; the explanation of the
matter being that in the sea-tortoises the lung is flesh-like and
contains blood, resembling the lung of the ox, and that in the
land-tortoises it is of disproportionately large size. Moreover,
inasmuch as the covering which invests them is dense and shell-like,
so that the moisture cannot exhale through the porous flesh, as it
does in birds and in snakes and other animals with scaly plates,
such an amount of secretion is formed that some special part is
required to receive and hold it. This then is the reason why these
animals, alone of their kind, have a bladder, the sea-tortoise a large
one, the land-tortoises an extremely small one.
9
What has been said of the bladder is equally true of the kidneys.
For these also are wanting in all animals that are clad with
feathers or with scales or with scale-like plates; the sea and land
tortoises forming the only exception. In some of the birds, however,
there are flattened kidney like bodies, as though the flesh allotted
to the formation of the kidneys, unable to find one single place of
sufficient size, had been scattered over several.
The Emys has neither bladder nor kidneys. For the softness of its
shell allows of the ready transpiration of fluid; and for this
reason neither of the organs mentioned exists in this animal. All
other animals, however, whose lung contains blood are, as before said,
provided with kidneys. For nature uses these organs for two separate
purposes, namely for the excretion of the residual fluid, and to
subserve the blood-vessels, a channel leading to them from the great
vessel.
In the centre of the kidney is a cavity of variable size. This is
the case in all animals, excepting the seal. The kidneys of this
animal are more solid than those of any other, and in form resemble
the kidneys of the ox. The human kidneys are of similar shape; being
as it were made up of numerous small kidneys, and not presenting one
unbroken surface like the kidneys of sheep and other quadrupeds. For
this reason, should the kidneys of a man be once attacked by
disease, the malady is not easily expelled. For it is as though many
kidneys were diseased and not merely one; which naturally enhances the
difficulties of a cure.
The duct which runs to the kidney from the great vessel does not
terminate in the central cavity, but is expended on the substance of
the organ, so that there is no blood in the cavity, nor is any
coagulum found there after death. A pair of stout ducts, void of
blood, run, one from the cavity of each kidney, to the bladder; and
other ducts, strong and continuous, lead into the kidneys from the
aorta. The purpose of this arrangement is to allow the superfluous
fluid to pass from the blood-vessel into the kidney, and the resulting
renal excretion to collect by the percolation of the fluid through the
solid substance of the organ, in its centre, where as a general rule
there is a cavity. (This by the way explains why the kidney is the
most ill-savoured of all the viscera.) From the central cavity the
fluid is discharged into the bladder by the ducts that have been
mentioned, having already assumed in great degree the character of
excremental residue. The bladder is as it were moored to the
kidneys; for, as already has been stated, it is attached to them by
strong ducts. These then are the purposes for which the kidneys exist,
and such the functions of these organs.
In all animals that have kidneys, that on the right is placed higher
than that on the left. For inasmuch as motion commences from the
right, and the organs on this side are in consequence stronger than
those on the left, they must all push upwards in advance of their
opposite fellows; as may be seen in the fact that men even raise the
right eyebrow more than the left, and that the former is more arched
than the latter. The right kidney being thus drawn upwards is in all
animals brought into contact with the liver; for the liver lies on the
right side.
Of all the viscera the kidneys are those that have the most fat.
This is in the first place the result of necessity, because the
kidneys are the parts through which the residual matters percolate.
For the blood which is left behind after this excretion, being of pure
quality, is of easy concoction, and the final result of thorough
blood-concoction is lard and suet. For just as a certain amount of
fire is left in the ashes of solid substances after combustion, so
also does a remnant of the heat that has been developed remain in
fluids after concoction; and this is the reason why oily matter is
light, and floats on the surface of other fluids. The fat is not
formed in the kidneys themselves, the density of their substance
forbidding this, but is deposited about their external surface. It
consists of lard or of suet, according as the animal's fat is of the
former or latter character. The difference between these two kinds
of fat has already been set forth in other passages. The formation,
then, of fat in the kidneys is the result of necessity; being, as
explained, a consequence of the necessary conditions which accompany
the possession of such organs. But at the same time the fat has a
final cause, namely to ensure the safety of the kidneys, and to
maintain their natural heat. For placed, as these organs are, close to
the surface, they require a greater supply of heat than other parts.
For while the back is thickly covered with flesh, so as to form a
shield for the heart and neighbouring viscera, the loins, in
accordance with a rule that applies to all bendings, are destitute
of flesh; and fat is therefore formed as a substitute for it, so
that the kidneys may not be without protection. The kidneys, moreover,
by being fat are the better enabled to secrete and concoct their
fluid; for fat is hot, and it is heat that effects concoction.
Such, then, are the reasons why the kidneys are fat. But in all
animals the right kidney is less fat than its fellow. The reason for
this is, that the parts on the right side are naturally more solid and
more suited for motion than those on the left. But motion is
antagonistic to fat, for it tends to melt it.
Animals then, as a general rule, derive advantage from their kidneys
being fat; and the fat is often very abundant and extends over the
whole of these organs. But, should the like occur in the sheep,
death ensues. Be its kidneys, however, as fat as they may, they are
never so fat but that some part, if not in both at any rate in the
right one, is left free. The reason why sheep are the only animals
that suffer in this manner, or suffer more than others, is that in
animals whose fat is composed of lard this is of fluid consistency, so
that there is not the same chance in their case of wind getting shut
in and causing mischief. But it is to such an enclosure of wind that
rot is due. And thus even in men, though it is beneficial to them to
have fat kidneys, yet should these organs become over-fat and
diseased, deadly pains ensue. As to those animals whose fat consists
of suet, in none is the suet so dense as in the sheep, neither is it
nearly so abundant; for of all animals there is none in which the
kidneys become so soon gorged with fat as in the sheep. Rot, then,
is produced by the moisture and the wind getting shut up in the
kidneys, and is a malady that carries off sheep with great rapidity.
For the disease forthwith reaches the heart, passing thither by the
aorta and the great vessel, the ducts which connect these with the
kidneys being of unbroken continuity.
10
We have now dealt with the heart and the lung, as also with the
liver, spleen, and kidneys. The latter are separated from the former
by the midriff or, as some call it, the Phrenes. This divides off
the heart and lung, and, as already said, is called Phrenes in
sanguineous animals, all of which have a midriff, just as they all
have a heart and a liver. For they require a midriff to divide the
region of the heart from the region of the stomach, so that the centre
wherein abides the sensory soul may be undisturbed, and not be
overwhelmed, directly food is taken, by its up-steaming vapour and
by the abundance of heat then superinduced. For it was to guard
against this that nature made a division, constructing the midriff
as a kind of partition-wall and fence, and so separated the nobler
from the less noble parts, in all cases where a separation of upper
from lower is possible. For the upper part is the more honourable, and
is that for the sake of which the rest exists; while the lower part
exists for the sake of the upper and constitutes the necessary element
in the body, inasmuch as it is the recipient of the food.
That portion of the midriff which is near the ribs is fleshier and
stronger than the rest, but the central part has more of a
membranous character; for this structure conduces best to its strength
and its extensibility. Now that the midriff, which is a kind of
outgrowth from the sides of the thorax, acts as a screen to prevent
heat mounting up from below, is shown by what happens, should it,
owing to its proximity to the stomach, attract thence the hot and
residual fluid. For when this occurs there ensues forthwith a marked
disturbance of intellect and of sensation. It is indeed because of
this that the midriff is called Phrenes, as though it had some share
in the process of thinking (Phronein). in reality, however, it has
no part whatsoever itself in the matter, but, lying in close proximity
to organs that have, it brings about the manifest changes of
intelligence in question by acting upon them. This too explains why
its central part is thin. For though this is in some measure the
result of necessity, inasmuch as those portions of the fleshy whole
which lie nearest to the ribs must necessarily be fleshier than the
rest, yet besides this there is a final cause, namely to give it as
small a proportion of humour as possible; for, had it been made of
flesh throughout, it would have been more likely to attract and hold a
large amount of this. That heating of it affects sensation rapidly and
in a notable manner is shown by the phenomena of laughing. For when
men are tickled they are quickly set a-laughing, because the motion
quickly reaches this part, and heating it though but slightly
nevertheless manifestly so disturbs the mental action as to occasion
movements that are independent of the will. That man alone is affected
by tickling is due firstly to the delicacy of his skin, and secondly
to his being the only animal that laughs. For to be tickled is to be
set in laughter, the laughter being produced such a motion as
mentioned of the region of the armpit.
It is said also that when men in battle are wounded anywhere near
the midriff, they are seen to laugh, owing to the heat produced by the
wound. This may possibly be the case. At any rate it is a statement
made by much more credible persons than those who tell the story of
the human head, how it speaks after it is cut off. For so some assert,
and even call in Homer to support them, representing him as alluding
to this when he wrote, 'His head still speaking rolled into the dust,'
instead of 'The head of the speaker'. So fully was the possibility
of such an occurrence accepted in Caria, that one of that country
was actually brought to trial under the following circumstances. The
priest of Zeus Hoplosmios had been murdered; but as yet it had not
been ascertained who was the assassin; when certain persons asserted
that they had heard the murdered man's head, which had been severed
from the body, repeat several times the words, 'Cercidas slew man on
mam.' Search was thereupon made and a man of those parts who bore
the name of Cercidas hunted out and put upon his trial. But it is
impossible that any one should utter a word when the windpipe is
severed and no motion any longer derived from the lung. Moreover,
among the Barbarians, where heads are chopped off with great rapidity,
nothing of the kind has ever yet occurred. Why, again, does not the
like occur in the case of other animals than man? For that none of
them should laugh, when their midriff is wounded, is but what one
would expect; for no animal but man ever laughs. So, too, there is
nothing irrational in supposing that the trunk may run forwards to a
certain distance after the head has been cut seeing that bloodless
animals at any rate can live, and that for a considerable time,
after decapitation, as has been set forth and explained in other
passages.
The purposes, then, for which the viscera severally exist have now
been stated. It is of necessity upon the inner terminations of the
vessels that they are developed; for humour, and that of a bloody
character, cannot but exude at these points, and it is of this,
solidified and coagulated, that the substance of the viscera is
formed. Thus they are of a bloody character, and in substance resemble
each other while they differ from other parts.
11
The viscera are enclosed each in a membrane. For they require some
covering to protect them from injury, and require, moreover, that this
covering shall be light. To such requirements membrane is well
adapted; for it is close in texture so as to form a good protection,
destitute of flesh so as neither to attract humour nor retain it,
and thin so as to be light and not add to the weight of the body. Of
the membranes those are the stoutest and strongest which invest the
heart and the brain; as is but consistent with reason. For these are
the parts which require most protection, seeing that they are the main
governing powers of life, and that it is to governing powers that
guard is due.
12
Some animals have all the viscera that have been enumerated;
others have only some of them. In what kind of animals this latter
is the case, and what is the explanation, has already been stated.
Moreover, the self-same viscera present differences in different
possessors. For the heart is not precisely alike in all animals that
have one; nor, in fact, is any viscus whatsoever. Thus the liver is in
some animals split into several parts, while in others it is
comparatively undivided. Such differences in its form present
themselves even among those sanguineous animals that are viviparous,
but are more marked in fishes and in the oviparous quadrupeds, and
this whether we compare them with each other or with the Vivipara.
As for birds, their liver very nearly resembles that of the
Vivipara; for in them, as in these, it is of a pure and blood-like
colour. The reason of this is that the body in both these classes of
animals admits of the freest exhalation, so that the amount of foul
residual matter within is but small. Hence it is that some of the
Vivipara are without any gall-bladder at all. For the liver takes a
large share in maintaining the purity of composition and the
healthiness of the body. For these are conditions that depend
finally and in the main upon the blood, and there is more blood in the
liver than in any of the other viscera, the heart only excepted. On
the other hand, the liver of oviparous quadrupeds and fishes inclines,
as a rule, to a yellow hue, and there are even some of them in which
it is entirely of this bad colour, in accordance with the bad
composition of their bodies generally. Such, for instance, is the case
in the toad, the tortoise, and other similar animals.
The spleen, again, varies in different animals. For in those that
have horns and cloven hoofs, such as the goat, the sheep, and the
like, it is of a rounded form; excepting when increased size has
caused some part of it to extend its growth longitudinally, as has
happened in the case of the ox. On the other hand, it is elongated
in all polydactylous animals. Such, for instance, is the case in the
pig, in man, and in the dog. While in animals with solid hoofs it is
of a form intermediate to these two, being broad in one part, narrow
in another. Such, for example, is its shape in the horse, the mule,
and the ass.
13
The viscera differ from the flesh not only in the turgid aspect of
their substance, but also in position; for they lie within the body,
whereas the flesh is placed on the outside. The explanation of this is
that these parts partake of the character of blood-vessels, and that
while the former exist for the sake of the vessels, the latter
cannot exist without them.
14
Below the midriff lies the stomach, placed at the end of the
oesophagus when there is one, and in immediate contiguity with the
mouth when the oesophagus is wanting. Continuous with this stomach
is what is called the gut. These parts are present in all animals, for
reasons that are self-evident. For it is a matter of necessity that an
animal shall receive the incoming food; and necessary also that it
shall discharge the same when its goodness is exhausted. This residual
matter, again, must not occupy the same place as the yet unconcocted
nutriment. For as the ingress of food and the discharge of the residue
occur at distinct periods, so also must they necessarily occur in
distinct places. Thus there must be one receptacle for the ingoing
food and another for the useless residue, and between these,
therefore, a part in which the change from one condition to the
other may be effected. These, however, are matters which will be
more suitably set forth when we come to deal with Generation and
Nutrition. What we have at present to consider are the variations
presented by the stomach and its subsidiary parts. For neither in size
nor in shape are these parts uniformly alike in all animals. Thus
the stomach is single in all such sanguineous and viviparous animals
as have teeth in front of both jaws. It is single therefore in all the
polydactylous kinds, such as man, dog, lion, and the rest; in all
the solid-hoofed animals also, such as horse, mule, ass; and in all
those which, like the pig, though their hoof is cloven, yet have front
teeth in both jaws. When, however, an animal is of large size, and
feeds on substances of so thorny and ligneous a character as to be
difficult of concoction, it may in consequence have several
stomachs, as for instance is the case with the camel. A similar
multiplicity of stomachs exists also in the horned animals; the reason
being that horn-bearing animals have no front teeth in the upper
jaw. The camel also, though it has no horns, is yet without upper
front teeth. The explanation of this is that it is more essential
for the camel to have a multiple stomach than to have these teeth. Its
stomach, then, is constructed like that of animals without upper front
teeth, and, its dental arrangements being such as to match its
stomach, the teeth in question are wanting. They would indeed be of no
service. Its food, moreover, being of a thorny character, and its
tongue necessarily made of a fleshy substance, nature uses the
earthy matter which is saved from the teeth to give hardness to the
palate. The camel ruminates like the horned animals, because its
multiple stomach resembles theirs. For all animals that have horns,
the sheep for instance, the ox, the goat, the deer, and the like, have
several stomachs. For since the mouth, owing to its lack of teeth,
only imperfectly performs its office as regards the food, this
multiplicity of stomachs is intended to make up for its
shortcomings; the several cavities receiving the food one from the
other in succession; the first taking the unreduced substances, the
second the same when somewhat reduced, the third when reduction is
complete, and the fourth when the whole has become a smooth pulp. Such
is the reason why there is this multiplicity of parts and cavities
in animals with such dentition. The names given to the several
cavities are the paunch, the honeycomb bag, the manyplies, and the
reed. How these parts are related to each other, in position and in
shape, must be looked for in the treatises on Anatomy and the
Researches concerning Animals.
Birds also present variations in the part which acts as a
recipient of the food; and the reason for these variations is the same
as in the animals just mentioned. For here again it is because the
mouth fails to perform its office and fails even more completely-for
birds have no teeth at all, nor any instrument whatsoever with which
to comminute or grind down their food-it is, I say, because of this,
that in some of them what is called the crop precedes the stomach
and does the work of the mouth; while in others the oesophagus is
either wide throughout or a part of it bulges just before it enters
the stomach, so as to form a preparatory store-house for the unreduced
food; or the stomach itself has a protuberance in some part, or is
strong and fleshy, so as to be able to store up the food for a
considerable period and to concoct it, in spite of its not having been
ground into a pulp. For nature retrieves the inefficiency of the mouth
by increasing the efficiency and heat of the stomach. Other birds
there are, such, namely, as have long legs and live in marshes, that
have none of these provisions, but merely an elongated oesophagus. The
explanation of this is to be found in the moist character of their
food. For all these birds feed on substances easy of reduction, and
their food being moist and not requiring much concoction, their
digestive cavities are of a corresponding character.
Fishes are provided with teeth, which in almost all of them are of
the sharp interfitting kind. For there is but one small section in
which it is otherwise. Of these the fish called Scarus (Parrot-fish)
is an example. And this is probably the reason why this fish
apparently ruminates, though no other fishes do so. For those horned
animals that have no front teeth in the upper jaw also ruminate.
In fishes the teeth are all sharp; so that these animals can
divide their food, though imperfectly. For it is impossible for a fish
to linger or spend time in the act of mastication, and therefore
they have no teeth that are flat or suitable for grinding; for such
teeth would be to no purpose. The oesophagus again in some fishes is
entirely wanting, and in the rest is but short. In order, however,
to facilitate the concoction of the food, some of them, as the
Cestreus (mullet), have a fleshy stomach resembling that of a bird;
while most of them have numerous processes close against the
stomach, to serve as a sort of antechamber in which the food may be
stored up and undergo putrefaction and concoction. There is contrast
between fishes and birds in the position of these processes. For in
fishes they are placed close to the stomach; while in birds, if
present at all, they are lower down, near the end of the gut. Some
of the Vivipara also have processes connected with the lower part of
the gut which serve the same purpose as that stated above.
The whole tribe of fishes is of gluttonous appetite, owing to the
arrangements for the reduction of their food being very imperfect, and
much of it consequently passing through them without undergoing
concoction; and, of all, those are the most gluttonous that have a
straight intestine. For as the passage of food in such cases is rapid,
and the enjoyment derived from it in consequence but brief, it follows
of necessity that the return of appetite is also speedy.
It has already been mentioned that in animals with front teeth in
both jaws the stomach is of small size. It may be classed pretty
nearly always under one or other of two headings, namely as resembling
the stomach of the dog, or as resembling the stomach of the pig. In
the pig the stomach is larger than in the dog, and presents certain
folds of moderate size, the purpose of which is to lengthen out the
period of concoction; while the stomach of the dog is of small size,
not much larger in calibre than the gut, and smooth on the internal
surface.
Not much larger, I say, than the gut; for in all animals after the
stomach comes the gut. This, like the stomach, presents numerous
modifications. For in some animals it is uniform, when uncoiled, and
alike throughout, while in others it differs in different portions.
Thus in some cases it is wider in the neighbourhood of the stomach,
and narrower towards the other end; and this explains by the way why
dogs have to strain so much in discharging their excrement. But in
most animals it is the upper portion that is the narrower and the
lower that is of greater width.
Of greater length than in other animals, and much convoluted, are
the intestines of those that have horns. These intestines, moreover,
as also the stomach, are of ampler volume, in accordance with the
larger size of the body. For animals with horns are, as a rule,
animals of no small bulk, because of the thorough elaboration which
their food undergoes. The gut, except in those animals where it is
straight, invariably widens out as we get farther from the stomach and
come to what is called the colon, and to a kind of caecal
dilatation. After this it again becomes narrower and convoluted.
Then succeeds a straight portion which runs right on to the vent. This
vent is known as the anus, and is in some animals surrounded by fat,
in others not so. All these parts have been so contrived by nature
as to harmonize with the various operations that relate to the food
and its residue. For, as the residual food gets farther on and lower
down, the space to contain it enlarges, allowing it to remain
stationary and undergo conversion. Thus is it in those animals
which, owing either to their large size, or to the heat of the parts
concerned, require more nutriment, and consume more fodder than the
rest.
Neither is it without a purpose, that, just as a narrower gut
succeeds to the upper stomach, so also does the residual food, when
its goodness is thoroughly exhausted, pass from the colon and the
ample space of the lower stomach into a narrower channel and into
the spiral coil. For so nature can regulate her expenditure and
prevent the excremental residue from being discharged all at once.
In all such animals, however, as have to be comparatively moderate
in their alimentation, the lower stomach presents no wide and roomy
spaces, though their gut is not straight, but has a number of
convolutions. For amplitude of space causes desire for ample food, and
straightness of the intestine causes quick return of appetite. And
thus it is that all animals whose food receptacles are either simple
or spacious are of gluttonous habits, the latter eating enormously
at a meal, the former making meals at short intervals.
Again, since the food in the upper stomach, having just been
swallowed, must of necessity be quite fresh, while that which has
reached the lower stomach must have had its juices exhausted and
resemble dung, it follows of necessity that there must also be some
intermediate part, in which the change may be effected, and where
the food will be neither perfectly fresh nor yet dung. And thus it
is that, in all such animals as we are now considering, there is found
what is called the jejunum; which is a part of the small gut, of the
gut, that is, which comes next to the stomach. For this jejunum lies
between the upper cavity which contains the yet unconcocted food and
the lower cavity which holds the residual matter, which by the time it
has got here has become worthless. There is a jejunum in all these
animals, but it is only plainly discernible in those of large size,
and this only when they have abstained from food for a certain time.
For then alone can one hit on the exact period when the food lies
half-way between the upper and lower cavities; a period which is
very short, for the time occupied in the transition of food is but
brief. In females this jejunum may occupy any part whatsoever of the
upper intestine, but in males it comes just before the caecum and
the lower stomach.
15
What is known as rennet is found in all animals that have a multiple
stomach, and in the hare among animals whose stomach is single. In the
former the rennet neither occupies the large paunch, nor the honeycomb
bag, nor the terminal reed, but is found in the cavity which separates
this terminal one from the two first, namely in the so-called
manyplies. It is the thick character of their milk which causes all
these animals to have rennet; whereas in animals with a single stomach
the milk is thin, and consequently no rennet is formed. It is this
difference in thickness which makes the milk of horned animals
coagulate, while that of animals without horns does not. Rennet
forms in the hare because it feeds on herbage that has juice like that
of the fig; for juice of this kind coagulates the milk in the
stomach of the sucklings. Why it is in the manyplies that rennet is
formed in animals with multiple stomachs has been stated in the
Problems.
Book IV
1
THE account which has now been given of the viscera, the stomach,
and the other several parts holds equally good not only for the
oviparous quadrupeds, but also for such apodous animals as the
Serpents. These two classes of animals are indeed nearly akin, a
serpent resembling a lizard which has been lengthened out and deprived
of its feet. Fishes, again, resemble these two groups in all their
parts, excepting that, while these, being land animals, have a lung,
fishes have no lung, but gills in its place. None of these animals,
excepting the tortoise, as also no fish, has a urinary bladder. For
owing to the bloodlessness of their lung, they drink but sparingly;
and such fluid as they have is diverted to the scaly plates, as in
birds it is diverted to the feathers, and thus they come to have the
same white matter on the surface of their excrement as we see on
that of birds. For in animals that have a bladder, its excretion
when voided throws down a deposit of earthy brine in the containing
vessel. For the sweet and fresh elements, being light, are expended on
the flesh.
Among the Serpents, the same peculiarity attaches to vipers, as
among fishes attaches to Selachia. For both these and vipers are
externally viviparous, but previously produce ova internally.
The stomach in all these animals is single, just as it is single
in all other animals that have teeth in front of both jaws; and
their viscera are excessively small, as always happens when there is
no bladder. In serpents these viscera are, moreover, differently
shaped from those of other animals. For, a serpent's body being long
and narrow, its contents are as it were moulded into a similar form,
and thus come to be themselves elongated.
All animals that have blood possess an omentum, a mesentery,
intestines with their appendages, and, moreover, a diaphragm and a
heart; and all, excepting fishes, a lung and a windpipe. The
relative positions, moreover, of the windpipe and the oesophagus are
precisely similar in them all; and the reason is the same as has
already been given.
2
Almost all sanguineous animals have a gall-bladder. In some this
is attached to the liver, in others separated from that organ and
attached to the intestines, being apparently in the latter case no
less than in the former an appendage of the lower stomach. It is in
fishes that this is most clearly seen. For all fishes have a
gall-bladder; and in most of them it is attached to the intestine,
being in some, as in the Amia, united with this, like a border,
along its whole length. It is similarly placed in most serpents
There are therefore no good grounds for the view entertained by some
writers, that the gall exists for the sake of some sensory action. For
they say that its use is to affect that part of the soul which is
lodged in the neighbourhood of the liver, vexing this part when it
is congealed, and restoring it to cheerfulness when it again flows
free. But this cannot be. For in some animals there is absolutely no
gall-bladder at all--in the horse, for instance, the mule, the ass,
the deer, and the roe; and in others, as the camel, there is no
distinct bladder, but merely small vessels of a biliary character.
Again, there is no such organ in the seal, nor, of purely sea-animals,
in the dolphin. Even within the limits of the same genus, some animals
appear to have and others to be without it. Such, for instance, is the
case with mice; such also with man. For in some individuals there is a
distinct gall-bladder attached to the liver, while in others there
is no gall-bladder at all. This explains how the existence of this
part in the whole genus has been a matter of dispute. For each
observer, according as he has found it present or absent in the
individual cases he has examined, has supposed it to be present or
absent in the whole genus. The same has occurred in the case of
sheep and of goats. For these animals usually have a gall-bladder;
but, while in some localities it is so enormously big as to appear a
monstrosity, as is the case in Naxos, in others it is altogether
wanting, as is the case in a certain district belonging to the
inhabitants of Chalcis in Euboea. Moreover, the gall-bladder in fishes
is separated, as already mentioned, by a considerable interval from
the liver. No less mistaken seems to be the opinion of Anaxagoras
and his followers, that the gall-bladder is the cause of acute
diseases, inasmuch as it becomes over-full, and spirts out its
excess on to the lung, the blood-vessels, and the ribs. For, almost
invariably, those who suffer from these forms of disease are persons
who have no gall-bladder at all, as would be quite evident were they
to be dissected. Moreover, there is no kind of correspondence
between the amount of bile which is present in these diseases and
the amount which is exuded. The most probable opinion is that, as
the bile when it is present in any other part of the body is a mere
residuum or a product of decay, so also when it is present in the
region of the liver it is equally excremental and has no further
use; just as is the case with the dejections of the stomach and
intestines. For though even the residua are occasionally used by
nature for some useful purpose, yet we must not in all cases expect to
find such a final cause; for granted the existence in the body of this
or that constituent, with such and such properties, many results
must ensue merely as necessary consequences of these properties. All
animals, then, whose is healthy in composition and supplied with
none but sweet blood, are either entirely without a gall-bladder on
this organ, or have merely small bile-containing vessels; or are
some with and some without such parts. Thus it is that the liver in
animals that have no gall-bladder is, as a rule, of good colour and
sweet; and that, when there is a gall-bladder, that part of the
liver is sweetest which lies immediately underneath it. But, when
animals are formed of blood less pure in composition, the bile
serves for the excretion of its impure residue. For the very meaning
of excrement is that it is the opposite of nutriment, and of bitter
that it is the opposite of sweet; and healthy blood is sweet. So
that it is evident that the bile, which is bitter, cannot have any
use, but must simply be a purifying excretion. It was therefore no bad
saying of old writers that the absence of a gall-bladder gave long
life. In so saying they had in mind deer and animals with solid hoofs.
For such have no gall-bladder and live long. But besides these there
are other animals that have no gall-bladder, though those old
writers had not noticed the fact, such as the camel and the dolphin;
and these also are, as it happens, long-lived. Seeing, indeed, that
the liver is not only useful, but a necessary and vital part in all
animals that have blood, it is but reasonable that on its character
should depend the length or the shortness of life. Nor less reasonable
is it that this organ and none other should have such an excretion
as the bile. For the heart, unable as it is to stand any violent
affection, would be utterly intolerant of the proximity of such a
fluid; and, as to the rest of the viscera, none excepting the liver
are necessary parts of an animal. It is the liver therefore that alone
has this provision. In conclusion, wherever we see bile we must take
it to be excremental. For to suppose that it has one character in this
part, another in that, would be as great an absurdity as to suppose
mucus or the dejections of the stomach to vary in character
according to locality and not to be excremental wherever found.
3
So much then of the gall-bladder, and of the reasons why some
animals have one, while others have not. We have still to speak of the
mesentery and the omentum; for these are associated with the parts
already described and contained in the same cavity. The omentum, then,
is a membrane containing fat; the fat being suet or lard, according as
the fat of the animal generally is of the former or latter
description. What kinds of animals are so distinguished has been
already set forth in an earlier part of this treatise. This
membrane, alike in animals that have a single and in those that have a
multiple stomach, grows from the middle of that organ, along a line
which is marked on it like a seam. Thus attached, it covers the rest
of the stomach and the greater part of the bowels, and this alike in
all sanguineous animals, whether they live on land or in water. Now
the development of this part into such a form as has been described is
the result of necessity. For, whenever solid and fluid are mixed
together and heated, the surface invariably becomes membranous and
skin-like. But the region in which the omentum lies is full of
nutriment of such a mixed character. Moreover, in consequence of the
close texture of the membrane, that portion of the sanguineous
nutriment will alone filter into it which is of a greasy character;
for this portion is composed of the finest particles; and when it
has so filtered in, it will be concocted by the heat of the part,
and will be converted into suet or lard, and will not acquire a
flesh-like or sanguineous constitution. The development, then, of
the omentum is simply the result of necessity. But when once formed,
it is used by nature for an end, namely, to facilitate and to hasten
the concoction of food. For all that is hot aids concoction; and fat
is hot, and the omentum is fat. This too explains why it hangs from
the middle of the stomach; for the upper part of the stomach has no
need of it, being assisted in concoction by the adjacent liver. Thus
much as concerns the omentum.
4
The so-called mesentery is also a membrane; and extends continuously
from the long stretch of intestine to the great vessel and the
aorta. In it are numerous and close-packed vessels, which run from the
intestines to the great vessel and to the aorta. The formation of this
membrane we shall find to be the result of necessity, as is that of
the other [similar] parts. What, however, is the final cause of its
existence in sanguineous animals is manifest on reflection. For it
is necessary that animals shall get nutriment from without; and,
again, that this shall be converted into the ultimate nutriment, which
is then distributed as sustenance to the various parts; this
ultimate nutriment being, in sanguineous animals, what we call
blood, and having, in bloodless animals, no definite name. This
being so, there must be channels through which the nutriment shall
pass, as it were through roots, from the stomach into the
blood-vessels. Now the roots of plants are in the ground; for thence
their nutriment is derived. But in animals the stomach and
intestines represent the ground from which the nutriment is to be
taken. The mesentery, then, is an organ to contain the roots; and
these roots are the vessels that traverse it. This then is the final
cause of its existence. But how it absorbs nutriment, and how that
portion of the food which enters into the vessels is distributed by
them to the various parts of the body, are questions which will be
considered when we come to deal with the generation and nutrition of
animals.
The constitution of sanguineous animals, so far as the parts as
yet mentioned are concerned, and the reasons for such constitution,
have now been set forth. In natural sequence we should next go on to
the organs of generation, as yet undescribed, on which depend the
distinctions of male and female. But, inasmuch as we shall have to
deal specially with generation hereafter, it will be more convenient
to defer the consideration of these parts to that occasion.
5
Very different from the animals we have as yet considered are the
Cephalopoda and the Crustacea. For these have absolutely no viscera
whatsoever; as is indeed the case with all bloodless animals, in which
are included two other genera, namely the Testacea and the Insects.
For in none of them does the material out of which viscera are
formed exist. None of them, that is, have blood. The cause of this
lies in their essential constitution. For the presence of blood in
some animals, its absence from others, must be included in the
conception which determines their respective essences. Moreover, in
the animals we are now considering, none of those final causes will be
found to exist which in sanguineous animals determine the presence
of viscera. For they have no blood vessels nor urinary bladder, nor do
they breathe; the only part that it is necessary for them to have
being that which is analogous to a heart. For in all animals there
must be some central and commanding part of the body, to lodge the
sensory portion of the soul and the source of life. The organs of
nutrition are also of necessity present in them all. They differ,
however, in character because of differences of the habitats in
which they get their subsistence.
In the Cephalopoda there are two teeth, enclosing what is called the
mouth; and inside this mouth is a flesh-like substance which
represents a tongue and serves for the discrimination of pleasant
and unpleasant food. The Crustacea have teeth corresponding to those
of the Cephalopoda, namely their anterior teeth, and also have the
fleshy representative of a tongue. This latter part is found,
moreover, in all Testacea, and serves, as in sanguineous animals,
for gustatory sensations. Similarly provided also are the Insects. For
some of these, such as the Bees and the Flies, have, as already
described, their proboscis protruding from the mouth; while those
others that have no such instrument in front have a part which acts as
a tongue inside the mouth. Such, for instance, is the case in the Ants
and the like. As for teeth, some insects have them, the Bees and the
Ants for instance, though in a somewhat modified form, while others
that live on fluid nutriment are without them. For in many insects the
teeth are not meant to deal with the food, but to serve as weapons.
In some Testacea, as was said in the first treatise, the organ which
is called the tongue is of considerable strength; and in the Cochli
(Sea-snails) there are also two teeth, just as in the Crustacea. The
mouth in the Cephalopoda is succeeded by a long gullet. This leads
to a crop, like that of a bird, and directly continuous with this is
the stomach, from which a gut runs without windings to the vent. The
Sepias and the Poulps resemble each other completely, so far as
regards the shape and consistency of these parts. But not so the
Teuthides (Calamaries). Here, as in the other groups there are the two
stomach-like receptacles; but the first of these cavities has less
resemblance to a crop, and in neither is the form [or the consistency]
the same as in the other kinds, the whole body indeed being made of
a softer kind of flesh.
The object of this arrangement of the parts in question is the
same in the Cephalopoda as in Birds; for these also are all unable
to masticate their food; and therefore it is that a crop precedes
their stomach.
For purposes of defence, and to enable them to escape from their
foes, the Cephalopoda have what is called their ink. This is contained
in a membranous pouch, which is attached to the body and provided with
a terminal outlet just at the point where what is termed the funnel
gives issue to the residua of the stomach. This funnel is placed on
the ventral surface of the animal. All Cephalopoda alike have this
characteristic ink, but chief of all the Sepia, where it is more
abundant than in the rest. When the animal is disturbed and frightened
it uses this ink to make the surrounding water black and turbid, and
so, as it were, puts a shield in front of its body.
In the Calamaries and the Poulps the ink-bag is placed in the
upper part of the body, in close proximity to the mytis, whereas in
the Sepia it is lower down, against the stomach. For the Sepia has a
more plentiful supply of ink than the rest, inasmuch as it makes
more use of it. The reasons for this are, firstly, that it lives
near the shore, and, secondly, that it has no other means of
protection; whereas the Poulp has its long twining feet to use in
its defence, and is, moreover, endowed with the power of changing
colour. This changing of colour, like the discharge of ink, occurs
as the result of fright. As to the Calamary, it lives far out at
sea, being the only one of the Cephalopoda that does so; and this
gives it protection. These then are the reasons why the ink is more
abundant in the Sepia than in the Calamary, and this greater abundance
explains the lower position; for it allows the ink to be ejected
with ease even from a distance. The ink itself is of an earthy
character, in this resembling the white deposit on the surface of a
bird's excrement and the explanation in both cases is the same,
namely, the absence of a urinary bladder. For, in default of this,
it is the ink that serves for the excretion of the earthiest matter.
And this is more especially the case in the Sepia, because there is
a greater proportion of earth in its composition than in that of the
other Cephalopoda. The earthy character of its bone is a clear
indication of this. For in the Poulp there is no bone at all, and in
the Calamary it is thin and cartilaginous. Why this bone should be
present in some Cephalopoda, and wanting in others, and how its
character varies in those that have it, has now been set forth.
These animals, having no blood, are in consequence cold and of a
timid character. Now, in some animals, fear causes a disturbance of
the bowels, and, in others, a flow of urine from the bladder.
Similarly in these it produces a discharge of ink, and, though the
ejection of this ink in fright, like that of the urine, is the
result of necessity, and, though it is of excremental character, yet
it is used by nature for a purpose, namely, the protection and
safety of the animal that excretes it.
The Crustacea also, both the Caraboid forms and the Crabs, are
provided with teeth, namely their two anterior teeth; and between
these they also present the tongue-like piece of flesh, as has
indeed been already mentioned. Directly after their mouth comes a
gullet, which, if we compare relative sizes, is but small in
proportion to the body: and then a stomach, which in the Carabi and
some of the Crabs is furnished with a second set of teeth, the
anterior teeth being insufficient for adequate mastication. From the
stomach a uniform gut runs in a direct line to the excremental vent.
The parts described are to be found also in all the various
Testacea. The degree of distinctness, however, with which they are
formed varies in the different kinds, and the larger the size of the
animal the more easily distinguishable are all these parts
severally. In the Sea-snails, for example, we find teeth, hard and
sharp, as before mentioned, and between them the flesh-like substance,
just as in the Crustacea and Cephalopoda, and again the proboscis,
which, as has been stated, is something between a sting and a
tongue. Directly after the mouth comes a kind of bird-like crop,
then a gullet, succeeded by a stomach, in which is the mecon, as it is
styled; and continuous with this mecon is an intestine, starting
directly from it. It is this residual substance which appears in all
the Testacea to form the most palatable morsel. Purpuras and Whelks,
and all other Testacea that have turbinate shells, in structure
resemble the Sea-snail. The genera and species of Testacea are very
numerous. For there are those with turbinate shells, of which some
have just been mentioned; and, besides these, there are bivalves and
univalves. Those with turbinate shells may, indeed, after a certain
fashion be said to resemble bivalves. For they all from their very
birth have an operculum to protect that part of their body which is
exposed to view. This is the case with the Purpuras, with Whelks, with
the Nerites, and the like. Were it not for this, the part which is
undefended by the shell would be very liable to injury by collision
with external objects. The univalves also are not without
protection. For on their dorsal surface they have a shell, and by
the under surface they attach themselves to the rocks, and so after
a manner become bivalved, the rock representing the second valve. Of
these the animals known as Limpets are an example. The bivalves,
scallops and mussels, for instance, are protected by the power they
have of closing their valves; and the Turbinata by the operculum
just mentioned, which transforms them, as it were, crom univalves into
bivalves. But of all there is none so perfectly protected as the
sea-urchin. For here there is a globular shell which encloses the body
completely, and which is, moreover, set with sharp spines. This
peculiarity distinguishes the sea-urchin from all other Testacea, as
has already been mentioned.
The structure of the Testacea and of the Crustacea is exactly the
reverse of that of the Cephalopoda. For in the latter the fleshy
substance is on the outside and the earthy substance within, whereas
in the former the soft parts are inside and the hard part without.
In the sea-urchin, however, there is no fleshy part whatsoever.
All the Testacea then, those that have not been mentioned as well as
those that have, agree as stated in possessing a mouth with the
tongue-like body, a stomach, and a vent for excrement, but they differ
from each other in the positions and proportions of these parts. The
details, however, of these differences must be looked for in the
Researches concerning Animals and the treatises on Anatomy. For
while there are some points which can be made clear by verbal
description, there are others which are more suited for ocular
demonstration.
Peculiar among the Testacea are the sea-urchins and the animals
known as Tethya (Ascidians). The sea-urchins have five teeth, and in
the centre of these the fleshy body which is common to all the animals
we have been discussing. Immediately after this comes a gullet, and
then the stomach, divided into a number of separate compartments,
which look like so many distinct stomachs; for the cavities are
separate and all contain abundant residual matter. They are all,
however, connected with one and the same oesophagus, and they all
end in one and the same excremental vent. There is nothing besides the
stomach of a fleshy character, as has already been stated. All that
can be seen are the so-called ova, of which there are several,
contained each in a separate membrane, and certain black bodies
which have no name, and which, beginning at the animal's mouth, are
scattered round its body here and there promiscuously. These
sea-urchins are not all of one species, but there are several
different kinds, and in all of them the parts mentioned are to be
found. It is not, however, in every kind that the so-called ova are
edible. Neither do these attain to any size in any other species
than that with which we are all familiar. A similar distinction may be
made generally in the case of all Testacea. For there is a great
difference in the edible qualities of the flesh of different kinds;
and in some, moreover, the residual substance known as the mecon is
good for food, while in others it is uneatable. This mecon in the
turbinated genera is lodged in the spiral part of the shell, while
in univalves, such as limpets, it occupies the fundus, and in bivalves
is placed near the hinge, the so-called ovum lying on the right; while
on the opposite side is the vent. The former is incorrectly termed
ovum, for it merely corresponds to what in well-fed sanguineous
animals is fat; and thus it is that it makes its appearance in
Testacea at those seasons of the year when they are in good condition,
namely, spring and autumn. For no Testacea can abide extremes of
temperature, and they are therefore in evil plight in seasons of great
cold or heat. This is clearly shown by what occurs in the case of
the sea-urchins. For though the ova are to be found in these animals
even directly they are born, yet they acquire a greater size than
usual at the time of full moon; not, as some think, because
sea-urchins eat more at that season, but because the nights are then
warmer, owing to the moonlight. For these creatures are bloodless, and
so are unable to stand cold and require warmth. Therefore it is that
they are found in better condition in summer than at any other season;
and this all over the world excepting in the Pyrrhean tidal strait.
There the sea-urchins flourish as well in winter as in summer. But the
reason for this is that they have a greater abundance of food in the
winter, because the fish desert the strait at that season.
The number of the ova is the same in all sea-urchins, and is an
odd one. For there are five ova, just as there are also five teeth and
five stomachs; and the explanation of this is to be found in the
fact that the so-called ova are not really ova, but merely, as was
said before, the result of the animal's well-fed condition. Oysters
also have a so-called ovum, corresponding in character to that of
the sea-urchins, but existing only on one side of their body. Now
inasmuch as the sea-urchin is of a spherical form, and not merely a
single disk like the oyster, and in virtue of its spherical shape is
the same from whatever side it be examined, its ovum must
necessarily be of a corresponding symmetry. For the spherical shape
has not the asymmetry of the disk-shaped body of the oysters. For in
all these animals the head is central, but in the sea-urchin the
so-called ovum is above [and symmetrical, while in the oyster it is
only one side]. Now the necessary symmetry would be observed were
the ovum to form a continuous ring. But this may not be. For it
would be in opposition to what prevails in the whole tribe of
Testacea; for in all the ovum is discontinuous, and in all excepting
the sea-urchins asymmetrical, being placed only on one side of the
body. Owing then to this necessary discontinuity of the ovum, which
belongs to the sea-urchin as a member of the class, and owing to the
spherical shape of its body, which is its individual peculiarity, this
animal cannot possibly have an even number of ova. For were they an
even number, they would have to be arranged exactly opposite to each
other, in pairs, so as to keep the necessary symmetry; one ovum of
each pair being placed at one end, the other ovum at the other end
of a transverse diameter. This again would violate the universal
provision in Testacea. For both in the oysters and in the scallops
we find the ovum only on one side of the circumference. The number
then of the ova must be uneven, three for instance, or five. But if
there were only three they would be much too far apart; while, if
there were more than five, they would come to form a continuous
mass. The former arrangement would be disadvantageous to the animal,
the latter an impossibility. There can therefore be neither more nor
less than five. For the same reason the stomach is divided into five
parts, and there is a corresponding number of teeth. For seeing that
the ova represent each of them a kind of body for the animal, their
disposition must conform to that of the stomach, seeing that it is
from this that they derive the material for their growth. Now if there
were only one stomach, either the ova would be too far off from it, or
it would be so big as to fill up the whole cavity, and the
sea-urchin would have great difficulty in moving about and finding due
nourishment for its repletion. As then there are five intervals
between the five ova, so are there of necessity five divisions of
the stomach, one for each interval. So also, and on like grounds,
there are five teeth. For nature is thus enabled to allot to each
stomachal compartment and ovum its separate and similar tooth.
These, then, are the reasons why the number of ova in the sea-urchin
is an odd one, and why that odd number is five. In some sea-urchins
the ova are excessively small, in others of considerable size, the
explanation being that the latter are of a warmer constitution, and so
are able to concoct their food more thoroughly; while in the former
concoction is less perfect, so that the stomach is found full of
residual matter, while the ova are small and uneatable. Those of a
warmer constitution are, moreover, in virtue of their warmth more
given to motion, so that they make expeditions in search of food,
instead of remaining stationary like the rest. As evidence of this, it
will be found that they always have something or other sticking to
their spines, as though they moved much about; for they use their
spines as feet.
The Ascidians differ but slightly from plants, and yet have more
of an animal nature than the sponges, which are virtually plants and
nothing more. For nature passes from lifeless objects to animals in
such unbroken sequence, interposing between them beings which live and
yet are not animals, that scarcely any difference seems to exist
between two neighbouring groups owing to their close proximity.
A sponge, then, as already said, in these respects completely
resembles a plant, that throughout its life it is attached to a
rock, and that when separated from this it dies. Slightly different
from the sponges are the so-called Holothurias and the sea-lungs, as
also sundry other sea-animals that resemble them. For these are free
and unattached. Yet they have no feeling, and their life is simply
that of a plant separated from the ground. For even among
land-plants there are some that are independent of the soil, and
that spring up and grow, either upon other plants, or even entirely
free. Such, for example, is the plant which is found on Parnassus, and
which some call the Epipetrum. This you may hang up on a peg and it
will yet live for a considerable time. Sometimes it is a matter of
doubt whether a given organism should be classed with plants or with
animals. The Ascidians, for instance, and the like so far resemble
plants as that they never live free and unattached, but, on the
other hand, inasmuch as they have a certain flesh-like substance, they
must be supposed to possess some degree of sensibility.
An Ascidian has a body divided by a single septum and with two
orifices, one where it takes in the fluid matter that ministers to its
nutrition, the other where it discharges the surplus of unused
juice, for it has no visible residual substance, such as have the
other Testacea. This is itself a very strong justification for
considering an Ascidian, and anything else there may be among
animals that resembles it, to be of a vegetable character; for
plants also never have any residuum. Across the middle of the body
of these Ascidians there runs a thin transverse partition, and here it
is that we may reasonably suppose the part on which life depends to be
situated.
The Acalephae, or Sea-nettles, as they are variously called, are not
Testacea at all, but lie outside the recognized groups. Their
constitution, like that of the Ascidians, approximates them on one
side to plants, on the other to animals. For seeing that some of
them can detach themselves and can fasten upon their food, and that
they are sensible of objects which come in contact with them, they
must be considered to have an animal nature. The like conclusion
follows from their using the asperity of their bodies as a
protection against their enemies. But, on the other hand, they are
closely allied to plants, firstly by the imperfection of their
structure, secondly by their being able to attach themselves to the
rocks, which they do with great rapidity, and lastly by their having
no visible residuum notwithstanding that they possess a mouth.
Very similar again to the Acalephae are the Starfishes. For these
also fasten on their prey, and suck out its juices, and thus destroy a
vast number of oysters. At the same time they present a certain
resemblance to such of the animals we have described as the
Cephalopoda and Crustacea, inasmuch as they are free and unattached.
The same may also be said of the Testacea.
Such, then, is the structure of the parts that minister to nutrition
and which every animal must possess. But besides these organs it is
quite plain that in every animal there must be some part or other
which shall be analogous to what in sanguineous animals is the
presiding seat of sensation. Whether an animal has or has not blood,
it cannot possibly be without this. In the Cephalopoda this part
consists of a fluid substance contained in a membrane, through which
runs the gullet on its way to the stomach. It is attached to the
body rather towards its dorsal surface, and by some is called the
mytis. Just such another organ is found also in the Crustacea and
there too is known by the same name. This part is at once fluid and
corporeal and, as before said, is traversed by the gullet. For had the
gullet been placed between the mytis and the dorsal surface of the
animal, the hardness of the back would have interfered with its due
dilatation in the act of deglutition. On the outer surface of the
mytis runs the intestine; and in contact with this latter is placed
the ink-bag, so that it may be removed as far as possible from the
mouth and its obnoxious fluid be kept at a distance from the nobler
and sovereign part. The position of the mytis shows that it
corresponds to the heart of sanguineous animals; for it occupies the
self-same place. The same is shown by the sweetness of its fluid,
which has the character of concocted matter and resembles blood.
In the Testacea the presiding seat of sensation is in a
corresponding position, but is less easily made out. It should,
however, always be looked for in some midway position; namely, in such
Testacea as are stationary, midway between the part by which food is
taken in and the channel through which either the excrement or the
spermatic fluid is voided, and, in those species which are capable
of locomotion, invariably midway between the right and left sides.
In Insects this organ, which is the seat of sensation, lies, as
was stated in the first treatise, between the head and the cavity
which contains the stomach. In most of them it consists of a single
part; but in others, for instance in such as have long bodies and
resemble the Juli (Millipedes), it is made up of several parts, so
that such insects continue to live after they have been cut in pieces.
For the aim of nature is to give to each animal only one such dominant
part; and when she is unable to carry out this intention she causes
the parts, though potentially many, to work together actually as
one. This is much more clearly marked in some insects than in others.
The parts concerned in nutrition are not alike in all insects, but
show considerable diversity. Thus some have what is called a sting
in the mouth, which is a kind of compound instrument that combines
in itself the character of a tongue and of lips. In others that have
no such instrument in front there is a part inside the mouth that
answers the same sensory purposes. Immediately after the mouth comes
the intestine, which is never wanting in any insect. This runs in a
straight line and without further complication to the vent;
occasionally, however, it has a spiral coil. There are, moreover, some
insects in which a stomach succeeds to the mouth, and is itself
succeeded by a convoluted intestine, so that the larger and more
voracious insects may be enabled to take in a more abundant supply
of food. More curious than any are the Cicadae. For here the mouth and
the tongue are united so as to form a single part, through which, as
through a root, the insect sucks up the fluids on which it lives.
Insects are always small eaters, not so much because of their
diminutive size as because of their cold temperament. For it is heat
which requires sustenance; just as it is heat which speedily
concocts it. But cold requires no sustenance. In no insects is this so
conspicuous as in these Cicadae. For they find enough to live on in
the moisture which is deposited from the air. So also do the
Ephemera that are found about the Black sea. But while these latter
only live for a single day, the Cicadae subsist on such food for
several days, though still not many.
We have now done with the internal parts of animals, and must
therefore return to the consideration of the external parts which have
not yet been described. It will be better to change our order of
exposition and begin with the animals we have just been describing, so
that proceeding from these, which require less discussion, our account
may have more time to spend on the perfect kinds of animals, those
namely that have blood.
6
We will begin with Insects. These animals, though they present no
great multiplicity of parts, are not without diversities when compared
with each other. They are all manyfooted; the object of this being
to compensate their natural slowness and frigidity, and give greater
activity to their motions. Accordingly we find that those which, as
the (Millipedes), have long bodies, and are therefore the most
liable to refrigeration, have also the greatest number of feet. Again,
the body in these animals is insected-the reason for this being that
they have not got one vital centre but many-and the number of their
feet corresponds to that of the insections.
Should the feet fall short of this, their deficiency is
compensated by the power of flight. Of such flying insects some live a
wandering life, and are forced to make long expeditions in search of
food. These have a body of light weight, and four feathers, two on
either side, to support it. Such are bees and the insects akin to
them. When, however, such insects are of very small bulk, their
feathers are reduced to two, as is the case with flies. Insects with
heavy bodies and of stationary habits, though not polypterous in the
same way as bees, yet have sheaths to their feathers to maintain their
efficiency. Such are the Melolonthae and the like. For their
stationary habits expose their feathers to much greater risks than are
run by those of insects that are more constantly in flight, and on
this account they are provided with this protecting shield. The
feather of an insect has neither barbs nor shaft. For, though it is
called a feather, it is no feather at all, but merely a skin-like
membrane that, owing to its dryness, necessarily becomes detached from
the surface of the body, as the fleshy substance grows cold.
These animals then have their bodies insected, not only for the
reasons already assigned, but also to enable them to curl round in
such a manner as may protect them from injury; for such insects as
have long bodies can roll themselves up, which would be impossible
were it not for the insections; and those that cannot do this can
yet draw their segments up into the insected spaces, and so increase
the hardness of their bodies. This can be felt quite plainly by
putting the finger on one of the insects, for instance, known as
Canthari. The touch frightens the insect, and it remains motionless,
while its body becomes hard. The division of the body into segments is
also a necessary result of there being several supreme organs in place
of one; and this again is a part of the essential constitution of
insects, and is a character which approximates them to plants. For
as plants, though cut into pieces, can still live, so also can
insects. There is, however, this difference between the two cases,
that the portions of the divided insect live only for a limited
time, whereas the portions of the plant live on and attain the perfect
form of the whole, so that from one single plant you may obtain two or
more.
Some insects are also provided with another means of protection
against their enemies, namely a sting. In some this is in front,
connected with the tongue, in others behind at the posterior end.
For just as the organ of smell in elephants answers several uses,
serving alike as a weapon and for purposes of nutrition, so does
also the sting, when placed in connexion with the tongue, as in some
insects, answer more than one end. For it is the instrument through
which they derive their sensations of food, as well as that with which
they suck it up and bring it to the mouth. Such of these insects as
have no anterior sting are provided with teeth, which serve in some of
them for biting the food, and in others for its prehension and
conveyance to the mouth. Such are their uses, for instance, in ants
and all the various kinds of bees. As for the insects that have a
sting behind, this weapon is given them because they are of a fierce
disposition. In some of them the sting is lodged inside the body, in
bees, for example, and wasps. For these insects are made for flight,
and were their sting external and of delicate make it would soon get
spoiled; and if, on the other hand, it were of thicker build, as in
scorpions, its weight would be an incumbrance. As for scorpions that
live on the ground and have a tail, their sting must be set upon this,
as otherwise it would be of no use as a weapon. Dipterous insects
never have a posterior sting. For the very reason of their being
dipterous is that they are small and weak, and therefore require no
more than two feathers to support their light weight; and the same
reason which reduces their feathers to two causes their sting to be in
front; for their strength is not sufficient to allow them to strike
efficiently with the hinder part of the body. Polypterous insects,
on the other hand, are of greater bulk-indeed it is this which
causes them to have so many feathers; and their greater size makes
them stronger in their hinder parts. The sting of such insects is
therefore placed behind. Now it is better, when possible, that one and
the same instrument shall not be made to serve several dissimilar
uses; but that there shall be one organ to serve as a weapon, which
can then be very sharp, and a distinct one to serve as a tongue, which
can then be of spongy texture and fit to absorb nutriment. Whenever,
therefore, nature is able to provide two separate instruments for
two separate uses, without the one hampering the other, she does so,
instead of acting like a coppersmith who for cheapness makes a spit
and lampholder in one. It is only when this is impossible that she
uses one organ for several functions.
The anterior legs are in some cases longer than the others, that
they may serve to wipe away any foreign matter that may lodge on the
insect's eyes and obstruct its sight, which already is not very
distinct owing to the eyes being made of a hard substance. Flies and
bees and the like may be constantly seen thus dressing themselves with
crossed forelegs. Of the other legs, the hinder are bigger than the
middle pair, both to aid in running and also that the insect, when
it takes flight, may spring more easily from the ground. This
difference is still more marked in such insects as leap, in locusts
for instance, and in the various kinds of fleas. For these first
bend and then extend the legs, and, by doing so, are necessarily
shot up from the ground. It is only the. hind legs of locusts, and not
the front ones, that resemble the steering oars of a ship. For this
requires that the joint shall be deflected inwards, and such is
never the case with the anterior limbs. The whole number of legs,
including those used in leaping, is six in all these insects.
7
In the Testacea the body consists of but few parts, the reason being
that these animals live a stationary life. For such animals as move
much about must of necessity have more numerous parts than such as
remain quiet; for their activities are many, and the more
diversified the movements the greater the number of organs required to
effect them. Some species of Testacea are absolutely motionless, and
others not quite but nearly so. Nature, however, has provided them
with a protection in the hardness of the shell with which she has
invested their body. This shell, as already has been said, may have
one valve, or two valves, or be turbinate. In the latter case it may
be either spiral, as in whelks, or merely globular, as in sea-urchins.
When it has two valves, these may be gaping, as in scallops and
mussels, where the valves are united together on one side only, so
as to open and shut on the other; or they may be united together on
both sides, as in the Solens (razor-fishes). In all cases alike the
Testacea have, like plants, the head downwards. The reason for this
is, that they take in their nourishment from below, just as do
plants with their roots. Thus the under parts come in them to be
above, and the upper parts to be below. The body is enclosed in a
membrane, and through this the animal filters fluid free from salt and
absorbs its nutriment. In all there is a head; but none of the
parts, excepting this recipient of food, has any distinctive name.
8
All the Crustacea can crawl as well as swim, and accordingly they
are provided with numerous feet. There are four main genera, viz.
the Carabi, as they are called, the Astaci, the Carides, and the
Carcini. In each of these genera, again, there are numerous species,
which differ from each other not only as regards shape, but also
very considerably as regards size. For, while in some species the
individuals are large, in others they are excessively minute. The
Carcinoid and Caraboid Crustacea resemble each other in possessing
claws. These claws are not for locomotion, but to serve in place of
hands for seizing and holding objects; and they are therefore bent
in the opposite direction to the feet, being so twisted as to turn
their convexity towards the body, while their feet turn towards it
their concavity. For in this position the claws are best suited for
laying hold of the food and carrying it to the mouth. The
distinction between the Carabi and the Carcini (Crabs) consists in the
former having a tail while the latter have none. For the Carabi swim
about and a tail is therefore of use to them, serving for their
propulsion like the blade of an oar. But it would be of no use to
the Crabs; for these animals live habitually close to the shore, and
creep into holes and corners. In such of them as live out at sea,
the feet are much less adapted for locomotion than in the rest,
because they are little given to moving about but depend for
protection on their shell-like covering. The Maiae and the crabs known
as Heracleotic are examples of this; the legs in the former being very
thin, in the latter very short.
The very minute crabs that are found among the small fry at the
bottom of the net have their hindermost feet flattened out into the
semblance of fins or oar-blades, so as to help the animal in swimming.
The Carides are distinguished from the Carcinoid species by the
presence of a tail; and from the Caraboids by the absence of claws.
This is explained by their large number of feet, on which has been
expended the material for the growth of claws. Their feet again are
numerous to suit their mode of progression, which is mainly by
swimming.
Of the parts on the ventral surface, those near the head are in some
of these animals formed like gills, for the admission and discharge of
water; while the parts lower down differ in the two sexes. For in
the female Carabi these are more laminar than in the males, and in the
female crabs the flap is furnished with hairier appendages. This gives
ampler space for the disposal of the ova, which the females retain
in these parts instead of letting them go free, as do fishes and all
other oviparous animals. In the Carabi and in the Crabs the right claw
is invariably the larger and the stronger. For it is natural to
every animal in active operations to use the parts on its right side
in preference to those on its left; and nature, in distributing the
organs, invariably assigns each, either exclusively or in a more
perfect condition, to such animals as can use it. So it is with tusks,
and teeth, and horns, and spurs, and all such defensive and
offensive weapons.
In the Lobsters alone it is a matter of chance which claw is the
larger, and this in either sex. Claws they must have, because they
belong to a genus in which this is a constant character; but they have
them in this indeterminate way, owing to imperfect formation and to
their not using them for their natural purpose, but for locomotion.
For a detailed account of the several parts of these animals, of
their position and their differences, those parts being also
included which distinguish the sexes, reference must be made to the
treatises on Anatomy and to the Researches concerning Animals.
9
We come now to the Cephalopoda. Their internal organs have already
been described with those of other animals. Externally there is the
trunk of the body, not distinctly defined, and in front of this the
head surrounded by feet, which form a circle about the mouth and
teeth, and are set between these and the eyes. Now in all other
animals the feet, if there are any, are disposed in one of two ways;
either before and behind or along the sides, the latter being the plan
in such of them, for instance, as are bloodless and have numerous
feet. But in the Cephalopoda there is a peculiar arrangement,
different from either of these. For their feet are all placed at
what may be called the fore end. The reason for this is that the
hind part of their body has been drawn up close to the fore part, as
is also the case in the turbinated Testacea. For the Testacea, while
in some points they resemble the Crustacea, in others resemble the
Cephalopoda. Their earthy matter is on the outside, and their fleshy
substance within. So far they are like the Crustacea. But the
general plan of their body is that of the Cephalopoda; and, though
this is true in a certain degree of all the Testacea, it is more
especially true of those turbinated species that have a spiral
shell. Of this general plan, common to the two, we will speak
presently. But let us first consider the case of quadrupeds and of
man, where the arrangement is that of a straight line. Let A at the
upper end of such a line be supposed to represent the mouth, then B
the gullet, and C the stomach, and the intestine to run from this C to
the excremental vent where D is inscribed. Such is the plan in
sanguineous animals; and round this straight line as an axis are
disposed the head and so-called trunk; the remaining parts, such as
the anterior and posterior limbs, having been superadded by nature,
merely to minister to these and for locomotion.
In the Crustacea also and in Insects there is a tendency to a
similar arrangement of the internal parts in a straight line; the
distinction between these groups and the sanguineous animals depending
on differences of the external organs which minister to locomotion.
But the Cephalopoda and the turbinated Testacea have in common an
arrangement which stands in contrast with this. For here the two
extremities are brought together by a curve, as if one were to bend
the straight line marked E until D came close to Such, then, is the
disposition of the internal parts; and round these, in the
Cephalopoda, is placed the sac (in the Poulps alone called a head),
and, in the Testacea, the turbinate shell which corresponds to the
sac. There is, in fact, only this difference between them, that the
investing substance of the Cephalopoda is soft while the shell of
the Testacea is hard, nature having surrounded their fleshy part
with this hard coating as a protection because of their limited
power of locomotion. In both classes, owing to this arrangement of the
internal organs, the excrement is voided near the mouth; at a point
below this orifice in the Cephalopoda, and in the Turbinata on one
side of it.
Such, then, is the explanation of the position of the feet in the
Cephalopoda, and of the contrast they present to other animals in this
matter. The arrangement, however, in the Sepias and the Calamaries
is not precisely the same as in the Poulps, owing to the former
having no other mode of progression than by swimming, while the latter
not only swim but crawl. For in the former six of the feet are above
the teeth and small, the outer one on either side being the biggest;
while the remaining two, which make up the total weight, are below the
mouth and are the biggest of all, just as the hind limbs in quadrupeds
are stronger than the fore limbs. For it is these that have to support
the weight, and to take the main part in locomotion. And the outer two
of the upper six are bigger than the pair which intervene between them
and the uppermost of all, because they have to assist the lowermost
pair in their office. In the Poulps, on the other hand, the four
central feet are the biggest. Again, though the number of feet is
the same in all the Cephalopoda, namely eight, their length varies
in different kinds, being short in the Sepias and the Calamaries,
but greater in the Poulps. For in these latter the trunk of the body
is of small bulk, while in the former it is of considerable size;
and so in the one case nature has used the materials subtracted from
the body to give length to the feet, while in the other she has
acted in precisely the opposite way, and has given to the growth of
the body what she has first taken from the feet. The Poulps, then,
owing to the length of their feet, can not only swim but crawl,
whereas in the other genera the feet are useless for the latter mode
of progression, being small while the bulk of the body is
considerable. These short feet would not enable their possessors to
cling to the rocks and keep themselves from being torn off by the
waves when these run high in times of storm; neither would they
serve to lay hold of objects at all remote and bring them in; but,
to supply these defects, the animal is furnished with two long
proboscises, by which it can moor itself and ride at anchor like a
ship in rough weather. These same processes serve also to catch prey
at a distance and to bring it to the mouth. They are so used by both
the Sepias and the Calamaries. In the Poulps the feet are themselves
able to perform these offices, and there are consequently no
proboscises. Proboscises and twining tentacles, with acetabula set
upon them, act in the same way and have the same structure as those
plaited instruments which were used by physicians of old to reduce
dislocations of the fingers. Like these they are made by the
interlacing of their fibres, and they act by pulling upon pieces of
flesh and yielding substances. For the plaited fibres encircle an
object in a slackened condition, and when they are put on the
stretch they grasp and cling tightly to whatever it may be that is
in contact with their inner surface. Since, then, the Cephalopoda have
no other instruments with which to convey anything to themselves
from without, than either twining tentacles, as in some species, or
proboscises as in others, they are provided with these to serve as
hands for offence and defence and other necessary uses.
The acetabula are set in double line in all the Cephalopoda
excepting in one kind of poulp, where there is but a single row. The
length and the slimness which is part of the nature of this kind of
poulp explain the exception. For a narrow space cannot possibly
admit of more than a single row. This exceptional character, then,
belongs to them, not because it is the most advantageous
arrangement, but because it is the necessary consequence of their
essential specific constitution.
In all these animals there is a fin, encircling the sac. In the
Poulps and the Sepias this fin is unbroken and continuous, as is
also the case in the larger calamaries known as Teuthi. But in the
smaller kind, called Teuthides, the fin is not only broader than in
the Sepias and the Poulps, where it is very narrow, but, moreover,
does not encircle the entire sac, but only begins in the middle of the
side. The use of this fin is to enable the animal to swim, and also to
direct its course. It acts, that is, like the rump-feathers in
birds, or the tail-fin in fishes. In none is it so small or so
indistinct as in the Poulps. For in these the body is of small bulk
and can be steered by the feet sufficiently well without other
assistance.
The Insects, the Crustacea, the Testacea, and the Cephalopoda,
have now been dealt with in turn; and their parts have been described,
whether internal or external.
10
We must now go back to the animals that have blood, and consider
such of their parts, already enumerated, as were before passed over.
We will take the viviparous animals first, and, we have done with
these, will pass on to the oviparous, and treat of them in like
manner.
The parts that border on the head, and on what is known as the
neck and throat, have already been taken into consideration. All
animals that have blood have a head; whereas in some bloodless
animals, such as crabs, the part which represents a head is not
clearly defined. As to the neck, it is present in all the Vivipara,
but only in some of the Ovipara; for while those that have a lung also
have a neck, those that do not inhale the outer air have none. The
head exists mainly for the sake of the brain. For every animal that
has blood must of necessity have a brain; and must, moreover, for
reasons already given, have it placed in an opposite region to the
heart. But the head has also been chosen by nature as the part in
which to set some of the senses; because its blood is mixed in such
suitable proportions as to ensure their tranquillity and precision,
while at the same time it can supply the brain with such warmth as
it requires. There is yet a third constituent superadded to the
head, namely the part which ministers to the ingestion of food. This
has been placed here by nature, because such a situation accords
best with the general configuration of the body. For the stomach could
not possibly be placed above the heart, seeing that this is the
sovereign organ; and if placed below, as in fact it is, then the mouth
could not possibly be placed there also. For this would have
necessitated a great increase in the length of the body; and the
stomach, moreover, would have been removed too far from the source
of motion and of concoction.
The head, then, exists for the sake of these three parts; while
the neck, again, exists for the sake of the windpipe. For it acts as a
defence to this and to the oesophagus, encircling them and keeping
them from injury. In all other animals this neck is flexible and
contains several vertebrae; but in wolves and lions it contains only a
single bone. For the object of nature was to give these animals an
organ which should be serviceable in the way of strength, rather
than one that should be useful for any of the other purposes to
which necks are subservient.
Continuous with the head and neck is the trunk with the anterior
limbs. In man the forelegs and forefeet are replaced by arms and by
what we call hands. For of all animals man alone stands erect, in
accordance with his godlike nature and essence. For it is the function
of the god-like to think and to be wise; and no easy task were this
under the burden of a heavy body, pressing down from above and
obstructing by its weight the motions of the intellect and of the
general sense. When, moreover, the weight and corporeal substance
become excessive, the body must of necessity incline towards the
ground. In such cases therefore nature, in order to give support to
the body, has replaced the arms and hands by forefeet, and has thus
converted the animal into a quadruped. For, as every animal that walks
must of necessity have the two hinder feet, such an animal becomes a
quadruped, its body inclining downwards in front from the weight which
its soul cannot sustain. For all animals, man alone excepted, are
dwarf-like in form. For the dwarf-like is that in which the upper part
is large, while that which bears the weight and is used in progression
is small. This upper part is what we call the trunk, which reaches
from the mouth to the vent. In man it is duly proportionate to the
part below, and diminishes much in its comparative size as the man
attains to full growth. But in his infancy the contrary obtains, and
the upper parts are large, while the lower part is small; so that
the infant can only crawl, and is unable to walk; nay, at first cannot
even crawl, but remains without motion. For all children are dwarfs in
shape, but cease to be so as they become men, from the growth of their
lower part; whereas in quadrupeds the reverse occurs, their lower
parts being largest in youth, and advance of years bringing
increased growth above, that is in the trunk, which extends from the
rump to the head. Thus it is that colts are scarcely, if at all, below
full-grown horses in height; and that while still young they can touch
their heads with the hind legs, though this is no longer possible when
they are older. Such, then, is the form of animals that have either
a solid or a cloven hoof. But such as are polydactylous and without
horns, though they too are of dwarf-like shape, are so in a less
degree; and therefore the greater growth of the lower parts as
compared with the upper is also small, being proportionate to this
smaller deficiency.
Dwarf-like again is the race of birds and fishes; and so in fact, as
already has been said, is every animal that has blood. This is the
reason why no other animal is so intelligent as man. For even among
men themselves if we compare children with adults, or such adults as
are of dwarf-like shape with such as are not, we find that, whatever
other superiority the former may possess, they are at any rate
deficient as compared with the latter in intelligence. The
explanation, as already stated, is that their psychical principle is
corporeal, and much impeded in its motions. Let now a further decrease
occur in the elevating heat, and a further increase in the earthy
matter, and the animals become smaller in bulk, and their feet more
numerous, until at a later stage they become apodous, and extended
full length on the ground. Then, by further small successions of
change, they come to have their principal organ below; and at last
their cephalic part becomes motionless and destitute of sensation.
Thus the animal becomes a plant, that has its upper parts downwards
and its lower parts above. For in plants the roots are the equivalents
of mouth and head, while the seed has an opposite significance, for it
is produced above it the extremities of the twigs.
The reasons have now been stated why some animals have many feet,
some only two, and others none; why, also, some living things are
plants and others animals; and, lastly, why man alone of all animals
stands erect. Standing thus erect, man has no need of legs in front,
and in their stead has been endowed by nature with arms and hands. Now
it is the opinion of Anaxagoras that the possession of these hands
is the cause of man being of all animals the most intelligent. But
it is more rational to suppose that his endowment with hands is the
consequence rather than the cause of his superior intelligence. For
the hands are instruments or organs, and the invariable plan of nature
in distributing the organs is to give each to such animal as can
make use of it; nature acting in this matter as any prudent man
would do. For it is a better plan to take a person who is already a
flute-player and give him a flute, than to take one who possesses a
flute and teach him the art of flute-playing. For nature adds that
which is less to that which is greater and more important, and not
that which is more valuable and greater to that which is less.
Seeing then that such is the better course, and seeing also that of
what is possible nature invariably brings about the best, we must
conclude that man does not owe his superior intelligence to his hands,
but his hands to his superior intelligence. For the most intelligent
of animals is the one who would put the most organs to use; and the
hand is not to be looked on as one organ but as many; for it is, as it
were, an instrument for further instruments. This instrument,
therefore,-the hand-of all instruments the most variously serviceable,
has been given by nature to man, the animal of all animals the most
capable of acquiring the most varied handicrafts.
Much in error, then, are they who say that the construction of man
is not only faulty, but inferior to that of all other animals;
seeing that he is, as they point out, bare-footed, naked, and
without weapon of which to avail himself. For other animals have
each but one mode of defence, and this they can never change; so
that they must perform all the offices of life and even, so to
speak, sleep with sandals on, never laying aside whatever serves as
a protection to their bodies, nor changing such single weapon as
they may chance to possess. But to man numerous modes of defence are
open, and these, moreover, he may change at will; as also he may adopt
such weapon as he pleases, and at such times as suit him. For the hand
is talon, hoof, and horn, at will. So too it is spear, and sword,
and whatsoever other weapon or instrument you please; for all these
can it be from its power of grasping and holding them all. In
harmony with this varied office is the form which nature has contrived
for it. For it is split into several divisions, and these are
capable of divergence. Such capacity of divergence does not prevent
their again converging so as to form a single compact body, whereas
had the hand been an undivided mass, divergence would have been
impossible. The divisions also may be used singly or two together
and in various combinations. The joints, moreover, of the fingers
are well constructed for prehension and for pressure. One of these
also, and this not long like the rest but short and thick, is placed
laterally. For were it not so placed all prehension would be as
impossible, as were there no hand at all. For the pressure of this
digit is applied from below upwards, while the rest act from above
downwards; an arrangement which is essential, if the grasp is to be
firm and hold like a tight clamp. As for the shortness of this
digit, the object is to increase its strength, so that it may be able,
though but one, to counterbalance its more numerous opponents.
Moreover, were it long it would be of no use. This is the
explanation of its being sometimes called the great digit, in spite of
its small size; for without it all the rest would be practically
useless. The finger which stands at the other end of the row is small,
while the central one of all is long, like a centre oar in a ship.
This is rightly so; for it is mainly by the central part of the
encircling grasp that a tool must be held when put to use.
No less skilfully contrived are the nails. For, while in man these
serve simply as coverings to protect the tips of the fingers, in other
animals they are also used for active purposes; and their form in each
case is suited to their office.
The arms in man and the fore limbs in quadrupeds bend in contrary
directions, this difference having reference to the ingestion of
food and to the other offices which belong to these parts. For
quadrupeds must of necessity bend their anterior limbs inwards that
they may serve in locomotion, for they use them as feet. Not but
what even among quadrupeds there is at any rate a tendency for such as
are polydactylous to use their forefeet not only for locomotion but as
hands. And they are in fact so used, as any one may see. For these
animals seize hold of objects, and also repel assailants with their
anterior limbs; whereas quadrupeds with solid hoofs use their hind
legs for this latter purpose. For their fore limbs are not analogous
to the arms and hands of man.
It is this hand-like office of the anterior limbs which explains why
in some of the polydactylous quadrupeds, such as wolves, lions,
dogs, and leopards, there are actually five digits on each forefoot,
though there are only four on each hind one. For the fifth digit of
the foot corresponds to the fifth digit of the hand, and like it is
called the big one. It is true that in the smaller polydactylous
quadrupeds the hind feet also have each five toes. But this is because
these animals are creepers; and the increased number of nails serves
to give them a tighter grip, and so enables them to creep up steep
places with greater facility, or even to run head downwards.
In man between the arms, and in other animals between the
forelegs, lies what is called the breast. This in man is broad, as one
might expect; for as the arms are set laterally on the body, they
offer no impediment to such expansion in this part. But in
quadrupeds the breast is narrow, owing to the legs having to be
extended in a forward direction in progression and locomotion.
Owing to this narrowness the mammae of quadrupeds are never placed
on the breast. But in the human body there is ample space in this
part; moreover, the heart and neighbouring organs require
protection, and for these reasons this part is fleshy and the mammae
are placed upon it separately, side by side, being themselves of a
fleshy substance in the male and therefore of use in the way just
stated; while in the female, nature, in accordance with what we say is
her frequent practice, makes them minister to an additional
function, employing them as a store-place of nutriment for the
offspring. The human mammae are two in number, in accordance with
the division of the body into two halves, a right and a left. They are
somewhat firmer than they would otherwise be, because the ribs in this
region are joined together; while they form two separate masses,
because their presence is in no wise burdensome. In other animals than
man, it is impossible for the mammae to be placed on the breast
between the forelegs, for they would interfere with locomotion; they
are therefore disposed of otherwise, and in a variety of ways. Thus in
such animals as produce but few at a birth, whether horned
quadrupeds or those with solid hoofs, the mammae are placed in the
region of the thighs, and are two in number, while in such as
produce litters, or such as are polydactylous, the dugs are either
numerous and placed laterally on the belly, as in swine and dogs, or
are only two in number, being set, however, in the centre of the
abdomen, as is the case in the lion. The explanation of this latter
condition is not that the lion produces few at a birth, for
sometimes it has more than two cubs at a time, but is to be found in
the fact that this animal has no plentiful supply of milk. For,
being a flesheater, it gets food at but rare intervals, and such
nourishment as it obtains is all expended on the growth of its body.
In the elephant also there are but two mammae, which are placed
under the axillae of the fore limbs. The mammae are not more than two,
because this animal has only a single young one at a birth; and they
are not placed in the region of the thighs, because they never
occupy that position in any polydactylous animal such as this. Lastly,
they are placed above, close to the axillae, because this is the
position of the foremost dugs in all animals whose dugs are
numerous, and the dugs so placed give the most milk. Evidence of
this is furnished by the sow. For she always presents these foremost
dugs to the first-born of her litter. A single young one is of
course a first-born, and so such animals as only produce a single
young one must have these anterior dugs to present to it; that is they
must have the dugs which are under the axillae. This, then, is the
reason why the elephant has but two mammae, and why they are so
placed. But, in such animals as have litters of young, the dugs are
disposed about the belly; the reason being that more dugs are required
by those that will have more young to nourish. Now it is impossible
that these dugs should be set transversely in rows of more than two,
one, that is, for each side of the body, the right and the left;
they must therefore be placed lengthways, and the only place where
there is sufficient length for this is the region between the front
and hind legs. As to the animals that are not polydactylous but
produce few at a birth, or have horns, their dugs are placed in the
region of the thighs. The horse, the ass, the camel are examples;
all of which bear but a single young one at a time, and of which the
two former have solid hoofs, while in the last the hoof is cloven.
As still further examples may be mentioned the deer, the ox, the goat,
and all other similar animals.
The explanation is that in these animals growth takes place in an
upward direction; so that there must be an abundant collection of
residual matter and of blood in the lower region, that is to say in
the neighbourhood of the orifices for efflux, and here therefore
nature has placed the mammae. For the place in which the nutriment
is set in motion must also be the place whence nutriment can be
derived by them. In man there are mammae in the male as well as in the
female; but some of the males of other animals are without them. Such,
for instance, is the case with horses, some stallions being
destitute of these parts, while others that resemble their dams have
them. Thus much then concerning the mammae.
Next after the breast comes the region of the belly, which is left
unenclosed by the ribs for a reason which has already been given;
namely that there may be no impediment to the swelling which
necessarily occurs in the food as it gets heated, nor to the expansion
of the womb in pregnancy.
At the extreme end of what is called the trunk are the parts
concerned in the evacuation of the solid and also of the fluid
residue. In all sanguineous animals with some few exceptions, and in
all Vivipara without any exception at all, the same part which
serves for the evacuation of the fluid residue is also made by
nature to serve in sexual congress, and this alike in male and female.
For the semen is a kind of fluid and residual matter. The proof of
this will be given hereafter, but for the present let it taken for
granted. (The like holds good of the menstrual fluid in women, and
of the part where they emit semen. This also, however, is a matter
of which a more accurate account will be given hereafter. For the
present let it be simply stated as a fact, that the catamenia of the
female like the semen of the male are residual matter. Both of them,
moreover, being fluid, it is only natural that the parts which serve
for voidance of the urine should give issue to residues which resemble
it in character.) Of the internal structure of these parts, and of the
differences which exist between the parts concerned with semen and the
parts concerned with conception, a clear account is given in the
book of Researches concerning Animals and in the treatises on Anatomy.
Moreover, I shall have to speak of them again when I come to deal with
Generation. As regards, however, the external shape of these parts, it
is plain enough that they are adapted to their operations, as indeed
of necessity they must be. There are, however, differences in the male
organ corresponding to differences in the body generally. For all
animals are not of an equally sinewy nature. This organ, again, is the
only one that, independently of any morbid change, admits of
augmentation and of diminution of bulk. The former condition is of
service in copulation, while the other is required for the advantage
of the body at large. For, were the organ constantly in the former
condition, it would be an incumbrance. The organ therefore has been
formed of such constituents as will admit of either state. For it is
partly sinewy, partly cartilaginous, and thus is enabled either to
contract or to become extended, and is capable of admitting air.
All female quadrupeds void their urine backwards, because the
position of the parts which this implies is useful to them in the
act of copulation. This is the case with only some few males, such
as the lynx, the lion, the camel, and the hare. No quadruped with a
solid hoof is retromingent.
The posterior portion of the body and the parts about the legs are
peculiar in man as compared with quadrupeds. Nearly all these latter
have a tail, and this whether they are viviparous or oviparous. For,
even if the tail be of no great size, yet they have a kind of scut, as
at any rate a small representative of it. But man is tail-less. He
has, however, buttocks, which exist in none of the quadrupeds. His
legs also are fleshy (as too are his thighs and feet); while the
legs in all other animals that have any, whether viviparous or not,
are fleshless, being made of sinew and bone and spinous substance. For
all these differences there is, so to say, one common explanation, and
this is that of all animals man alone stands erect. It was to
facilitate the maintenance of this position that Nature made his upper
parts light, taking away some of their corporeal substance, and
using it to increase the weight of lithe parts below, so that the
buttocks, the thighs, and the calves of the legs were all made fleshy.
The character which she thus gave to the buttocks renders them at
the same time useful in resting the body. For standing causes no
fatigue to quadrupeds, and even the long continuance of this posture
produces in them no weariness; for they are supported the whole time
by four props, which is much as though they were lying down. But to
man it is no task to remain for any length of time on his feet, his
body demanding rest in a sitting position. This, then, is the reason
why man has buttocks and fleshy legs; and the presence of these fleshy
parts explains why he has no tail. For the nutriment which would
otherwise go to the tail is used up in the production of these
parts, while at the same time the existence of buttocks does away with
the necessity of a tail. But in quadrupeds and other animals the
reverse obtains. For they are of dwarf-like form, so that all the
pressure of their weight and corporeal substance is on their upper
part, and is withdrawn from the parts below. On this account they
are without buttocks and have hard legs. In order, however, to cover
and protect that part which serves for the evacuation of excrement,
nature has given them a tail of some kind or other, subtracting for
the purpose some of the nutriment which would otherwise go to the
legs. Intermediate in shape between man and quadrupeds is the ape,
belonging therefore to neither or to both, and having on this
account neither tail nor buttocks; no tail in its character of
biped, no buttocks in its character of quadruped. There is great
diversity of so-called tails; and this organ like others is
sometimes used by nature for by-purposes, being made to serve not only
as a covering and protection to the fundament, but also for other uses
and advantages of its possessor.
There are differences in the feet of quadrupeds. For in some of
these animals there is a solid hoof, and in others a hoof cloven
into two, and again in others a foot divided into many parts.
The hoof is solid when the body is large and the earthy matter
present in great abundance; in which case the earth, instead of
forming teeth and horns, is separated in the character of a nail,
and being very abundant forms one continuous nail, that is a hoof,
in place of several. This consumption of the earthy matter on the hoof
explains why these animals, as a rule, have no huckle-bones; a
second reason being that the presence of such a bone in the joint of
the hind leg somewhat impedes its free motion. For extension and
flexion can be made more rapidly in parts that have but one angle than
in parts that have several. But the presence of a huckle-bone, as a
connecting bolt, is the introduction as it were of a new
limb-segment between the two ordinary ones. Such an addition adds to
the weight of the foot, but renders the act of progression more
secure. Thus it is that in such animals as have a hucklebone, it is
only in the posterior and not in the anterior limbs that this bone
is found. For the anterior limbs, moving as they do in advance of
the others, require to be light and capable of ready flexion,
whereas firmness and extensibility are what are wanted in the hind
limbs. Moreover, a huckle-bone adds weight to the blow of a limb,
and so renders it a suitable weapon of defence; and these animals
all use their hind legs to protect themselves, kicking out with
their heels against anything which annoys them. In the cloven-hoofed
quadrupeds the lighter character of the hind legs admits of there
being a huckle-bone; and the presence of the huckle-bone prevents them
from having a solid hoof, the bony substance remaining in the joint,
and therefore being deficient in the foot. As to the polydactylous
quadrupeds, none of them have huckle-bones. For if they had they would
not be polydactylous, but the divisions of the foot would only
extend to that amount of its breadth which was covered by the
huckle-bone. Thus it is that most of the animals that have
huckle-bones are cloven-hoofed.
Of all animals man has the largest foot in proportion to the size of
the body. This is only what might be expected. For seeing that he is
the only animal that stands erect, the two feet which are intended
to bear all the weight of the body must be both long and broad.
Equally intelligible is it that the proportion between the size of the
fingers and that of the whole hand should be inverted in the case of
the toes and feet. For the function of the hands is to take hold of
objects and retain them by pressure; so that the fingers require to be
long. For it is by its flexed portion that the hand grasps an
object. But the function of the feet is to enable us to stand
securely, and for this the undivided part of the foot requires to be
of larger size than the toes. However, it is better for the
extremity to be divided than to be undivided. For in an undivided foot
disease of any one part would extend to the whole organ; whereas, if
the foot be divided into separate digits, there is not an equal
liability to such an occurrence. The digits, again, by being short
would be less liable to injury. For these reasons the feet in man
are many-toed, while the separate digits are of no great length. The
toes, finally, are furnished with nails for the same reason as are the
fingers, namely because such projecting parts are weak and therefore
require special protection.
11
We have now done with such sanguineous animals as live on land and
bring forth their young alive; and, having dealt with all their main
kinds, we may pass on to such sanguineous animals as are oviparous. Of
these some have four feet, while others have none. The latter form a
single genus, namely the Serpents; and why these are apodous has
been already explained in the dissertation on Animal Progression.
Irrespective of this absence of feet, serpents resemble the
oviparous quadrupeds in their conformation.
In all these animals there is a head with its component parts; its
presence being determined by the same causes as obtain in the case
of other sanguineous animals; and in all, with the single exception of
the river crocodile, there is a tongue inside the mouth. In this one
exception there would seem to be no actual tongue, but merely a
space left vacant for it. The reason is that a crocodile is in a way a
land-animal and a water-animal combined. In its character of
land-animal it has a space for a tongue; but in its character of
water-animal it is without the tongue itself. For in some fishes, as
has already been mentioned, there is no appearance whatsoever of a
tongue, unless the mouth be stretched open very widely indeed; while
in others it is indistinctly separated from the rest of the mouth. The
reason for this is that a tongue would be of but little service to
such animals, seeing that they are unable to chew their food or to
taste it before swallowing, the pleasurable sensations they derive
from it being limited to the act of deglutition. For it is in their
passage down the gullet that solid edibles cause enjoyment, while it
is by the tongue that the savour of fluids is perceived. Thus it is
during deglutition that the oiliness, the heat, and other such
qualities of food are recognized; and, in fact, the satisfaction
from most solid edibles and dainties is derived almost entirely from
the dilatation of the oesophagus during deglutition. This sensation,
then, belongs even to animals that have no tongue, but while other
animals have in addition the sensations of taste, tongueless animals
have, we may say, no other satisfaction than it. What has now been
said explains why intemperance as regards drinks and savoury fluids
does not go hand in hand with intemperance as regards eating and solid
relishes.
In some oviparous quadrupeds, namely in lizards, the tongue is
bifid, as also it is in serpents, and its terminal divisions are of
hair-like fineness, as has already been described. (Seals also have
a forked tongue.) This it is which accounts for all these animals
being so fond of dainty food. The teeth in the four-footed Ovipara are
of the sharp interfitting kind, like the teeth of fishes. The organs
of all the senses are present and resemble those of other animals.
Thus there are nostrils for smell, eves for vision, and ears for
hearing. The latter organs, however, do not project from the sides
of the head, but consist simply of the duct, as also is the case in
birds. This is due in both cases to the hardness of the integument;
birds having their bodies covered with feathers, and these oviparous
quadrupeds with horny plates. These plates are equivalent to scales,
but of a harder character. This is manifest in tortoises and river
crocodiles, and also in the large serpents. For here the plates become
stronger than the bones, being seemingly of the same substance as
these.
These animals have no upper eyelid, but close the eye with the lower
lid In this they resemble birds, and the reason is the same as was
assigned in their case. Among birds there are some that can not only
thus close the eye, but can also blink by means of a membrane which
comes from its corner. But none of the oviparous quadrupeds blink; for
their eyes are harder than those of birds. The reason for this is that
keen vision and far-sightedness are of very considerable service to
birds, flying as they do in the air, whereas they would be of
comparatively small use to the oviparous quadrupeds, seeing that
they are all of troglodytic habits.
Of the two separate portions which constitute the head, namely the
upper part and the lower jaw, the latter in man and in the
viviparous quadrupeds moves not only upwards and downwards, but also
from side to side; while in fishes, and birds and oviparous
quadrupeds, the only movement is up and down. The reason is that
this latter movement is the one required in biting and dividing
food, while the lateral movement serve to reduce substances to a pulp.
To such animals, therefore, as have grinder-teeth this lateral
motion is of service; but to those animals that have no grinders it
would be quite useless, and they are therefore invariably without
it. For nature never makes anything that is superfluous. While in
all other animals it is the lower jaw that is movable, in the river
crocodile it is exceptionally the upper. This is because the feet in
this creature are so excessively small as to be useless for seizing
and holding prey; on which account nature has given it a mouth that
can serve for these purposes in their stead. For that direction of
motion which will give the greater force to a blow will be the more
serviceable one in holding or in seizing prey; and a blow from above
is always more forcible than one from below. Seeing, then, that both
the prehension and the mastication of food are offices of the mouth,
and that the former of these two is the more essential in an animal
that has neither hands nor suitably formed feet, these crocodiles will
derive greater benefit from a motion of the upper jaw downwards than
from a motion of the lower jaw upwards. The same considerations
explain why crabs also move the upper division of each claw and not
the lower. For their claws are substitutes for hands, and so require
to be suitable for the prehension of food, and not for its
comminution; for such comminution and biting is the office of teeth.
In crabs, then, and in such other animals as are able to seize their
food in a leisurely manner, inasmuch as their mouth is not called on
to perform its office while they are still in the water, the two
functions are assigned to different parts, prehension to the hands
or feet, biting and comminution of food to the mouth. But in
crocodiles the mouth has been so framed by nature as to serve both
purposes, the jaws being made to move in the manner just described.
Another part present in these animals is a neck, this being the
necessary consequence of their having a lung. For the windpipe by
which the air is admitted to the lung is of some length. If,
however, the definition of a neck be correct, which calls it the
portion between the head and the shoulders, a serpent can scarcely
be said with the same right as the rest of these animals to have a
neck, but only to have something analogous to that part of the body.
It is a peculiarity of serpents, as compared with other animals allied
to them, that they are able to turn their head backwards without
stirring the rest of the body. The reason of this is that a serpent,
like an insect, has a body that admits of being curled up, its
vertebrae being cartilaginous and easily bent. The faculty in question
belongs then to serpents simply as a necessary consequence of this
character of their vertebrae; but at the same time it has a final
cause, for it enables them to guard against attacks from behind. For
their body, owing to its length and the absence of feet, is ill-suited
for turning round and protecting the hinder parts; and merely to
lift the head, without the power of turning it round, would be of no
use whatsoever.
The animals with which we are dealing have, moreover, a part which
corresponds to the breast; but neither here nor elsewhere in their
body have they any mammae, as neither has any bird or fish. This is
a consequence of their having no milk; for a mamma is a receptacle for
milk and, as it were, a vessel to contain it. This absence of milk
is not peculiar to these animals, but is common to all such as are not
internally viviparous. For all such produce eggs, and the nutriment
which in Vivipara has the character of milk is in them engendered in
the egg. Of all this, however, a clearer account will be given in
the treatise on Generation. As to the mode in which the legs bend, a
general account, in which all animals are considered, has already been
given in the dissertation on Progression. These animals also have a
tail, larger in some of them, smaller in others, and the reason for
this has been stated in general terms in an earlier passage.
Of all oviparous animals that live on land there is none so lean
as the Chamaeleon. For there is none that has so little blood. The
explanation of this is to be found in the psychical temperament of the
creature. For it is of a timid nature, as the frequent changes it
undergoes in its outward aspect testify. But fear is a
refrigeration, and results from deficiency of natural heat and
scantiness of blood. We have now done with such sanguineous animals as
are quadrupedous and also such as are apodous, and have stated with
sufficient completeness what external parts they possess, and for what
reason they have them.
12
The differences of birds compared one with another are differences
of magnitude, and of the greater or smaller development of parts. Thus
some have long legs, others short legs; some have a broad tongue,
others a narrow tongue; and so on with the other parts. There are
few of their parts that differ save in size, taking birds by
themselves. But when birds are compared with other animals the parts
present differences of form also. For in some animals these are hairy,
in others scaly, and in others have scale-like plates, while birds are
feathered.
Birds, then, are feathered, and this is a character common to them
all and peculiar to them. Their feathers, too, are split and
distinct in kind from the undivided feathers of insects; for the
bird's feather is barbed, these are not; the bird's feather has a
shaft, these have none. A second strange peculiarity which
distinguishes birds from all other animals is their beak. For as in
elephants the nostril serves in place of hands, and as in some insects
the tongue serves in place of mouth, so in birds there is a beak,
which, being bony, serves in place of teeth and lips. Their organs
of sense have already been considered.
All birds have a neck extending from the body; and the purpose of
this neck is the same as in such other animals as have one. This
neck in some birds is long, in others short; its length, as a
general rule, being pretty nearly determined by that of the legs.
For long-legged birds have a long neck, short-legged birds a short
one, to which rule, however, the web-footed birds form an exception.
For to a bird perched up on long legs a short neck would be of no
use whatsoever in collecting food from the ground; and equally useless
would be a long neck, if the legs were short. Such birds, again, as
are carnivorous would find length in this part interfere greatly
with their habits of life. For a long neck is weak, and it is on their
superior strength that carnivorous birds depend for their subsistence.
No bird, therefore, that has talons ever has an elongated neck. In
web-footed birds, however, and in those other birds belonging to the
same class, whose toes though actually separate have flat marginal
lobes, the neck is elongated, so as to be suitable for collecting food
from the water; while the legs are short, so as to serve in
swimming. The beaks of birds, as their feet, vary with their modes
of life. For in some the beak is straight, in others crooked;
straight, in those who use it merely for eating; crooked, in those
that live on raw flesh. For a crooked beak is an advantage in
fighting; and these birds must, of course, get their food from the
bodies of other animals, and in most cases by violence. In such birds,
again, as live in marshes and are herbivorous the beak is broad and
flat, this form being best suited for digging and cropping, and for
pulling up plants. In some of these marsh birds, however, the beak
is elongated, as too is the neck, the reason for this being that the
bird get its food from some depth below the surface. For most birds of
this kind, and most of those whose feet are webbed, either in their
entirety or each part separately, live by preying on some of the
smaller animals that are to be found in water, and use these parts for
their capture, the neck acting as a fishing-rod, and the beak
representing the line and hook.
The upper and under sides of the body, that is of what in quadrupeds
is called the trunk, present in birds one unbroken surface, and they
have no arms or forelegs attached to it, but in their stead wings,
which are a distinctive peculiarity of these animals; and, as these
wings are substitutes for arms, their terminal segments lie on the
back in the place of a shoulder-blade.
The legs are two in number, as in man; not however, as in man,
bent outwards, but bent inwards like the legs of a quadruped. The
wings are bent like the forelegs of a quadruped, having their
convexity turned outwards. That the feet should be two in number is
a matter of necessity. For a bird is essentially a sanguineous animal,
and at the same time essentially a winged animal; and no sanguineous
animal has more than four points for motion In birds, then, as in
those other sanguineous animals that live and move upon the ground,
the limbs attached to the trunk are four in number. But, while in
all the rest these four limbs consist of a pair of arms and a pair
of legs, or of four legs as in quadrupeds, in birds the arms or
forelegs are replaced by a pair of wings, and this is their
distinctive character. For it is of the essence of a bird that it
shall be able to fly; and it is by the extension of wings that this is
made possible. Of all arrangements, then, the only possible, and so
the necessary, one is that birds shall have two feet; for this with
the wings will give them four points for motion. The breast in all
birds is sharp-edged, and fleshy. The sharp edge is to minister to
flight, for broad surfaces move with considerable difficulty, owing to
the large quantity of air which they have to displace; while the
fleshy character acts as a protection, for the breast, owing to its
form, would be weak, were it not amply covered.
Below the breast lies the belly, extending, as in quadrupeds and
in man, to the vent and to the place where the legs are jointed to the
trunk.
Such, then, are the parts which lie between the wings and the
legs. Birds like all other animals, whether produced viviparously or
from eggs, have an umbilicus during their development, but, when the
bird has attained to fuller growth, no signs of this remain visible.
The cause of this is plainly to be seen during the process of
development; for in birds the umbilical cord unites with the
intestine, and is not a portion of the vascular system, as is the case
in viviparous animals.
Some birds, again, are well adapted for flight, their wings being
large and strong. Such, for instance, are those that have talons and
live on flesh. For their mode of life renders the power of flight a
necessity, and it is on this account that their feathers are so
abundant and their wings so large. Besides these, however, there are
also other genera of birds that can fly well; all those, namely,
that depend on speed for security, or that are of migratory habits. On
the other hand, some kinds of birds have heavy bodies and are not
constructed for flight. These are birds that are frugivorous and
live on the ground, or that are able to swim and get their living in
watery places. In those that have talons the body, without the
wings, is small; for the nutriment is consumed in the production of
these wings, and of the weapons and defensive appliances; whereas in
birds that are not made for flight the contrary obtains, and the
body is bulky and so of heavy weight. In some of these heavy-bodied
birds the legs are furnished with what are called spurs, which replace
the wings as a means of defence. Spurs and talons never co-exist in
the same bird. For nature never makes anything superfluous; and if a
bird can fly, and has talons, it has no use for spurs; for these are
weapons for fighting on the ground, and on this account are an
appanage of certain heavy-bodied birds. These latter, again, would
find the possession of talons not only useless but actually injurious;
for the claws would stick into the ground and interfere with
progression. This is the reason why all birds with talons walk so
badly, and why they never settle upon rocks. For the character of
their claws is ill-suited for either action.
All this is the necessary consequence of the process of development.
For the earthy matter in the body issuing from it is converted into
parts that are useful as weapons. That which flows upwards gives
hardness or size to the beak; and, should any flow downwards, it
either forms spurs upon the legs or gives size and strength to the
claws upon the feet. But it does not at one and the same time
produce both these results, one in the legs, the other in the claws;
for such a dispersion of this residual matter would destroy all its
efficiency. In other birds this earthy residue furnishes the legs with
the material for their elongation; or sometimes, in place of this,
fills up the interspaces between the toes. Thus it is simply a
matter of necessity, that such birds as swim shall either be
actually web-footed, or shall have a kind of broad blade-like margin
running along the whole length of each distinct toe. The forms,
then, of these feet are simply the necessary results of the causes
that have been mentioned. Yet at the same time they are intended for
the animal's advantage. For they are in harmony with the mode of
life of these birds, who, living on the water, where their wings are
useless, require that their feet shall be such as to serve in
swimming. For these feet are so developed as to resemble the oars of a
boat, or the fins of a fish; and the destruction of the foot-web has
the same effect as the destruction of the fins; that is to say, it
puts an end to all power of swimming.
In some birds the legs are very long, the cause of this being that
they inhabit marshes. I say the cause, because nature makes the organs
for the function, and not the function for the organs. It is, then,
because these birds are not meant for swimming that their feet are
without webs, and it is because they live on ground that gives way
under the foot that their legs and toes are elongated, and that
these latter in most of them have an extra number of joints. Again,
though all birds have the same material composition, they are not
all made for flight; and in these, therefore, the nutriment that
should go to their tail-feathers is spent on the legs and used to
increase their size. This is the reason why these birds when they
fly make use of their legs as a tail, stretching them out behind,
and so rendering them serviceable, whereas in any other position
they would be simply an impediment.
In other birds, where the legs are short, these are held close
against the belly during flight. In some cases this is merely to
keep the feet out of the way, but in birds that have talons the
position has a further purpose, being the one best suited for
rapine. Birds that have a long and a thick neck keep it stretched
out during flight; but those whose neck though long is slender fly
with it coiled up. For in this position it is protected, and less
likely to get broken, should the bird fly against any obstacle.
In all birds there is an ischium, but so placed and of such length
that it would scarcely be taken for an ischium, but rather for a
second thigh-bone; for it extends as far as to the middle of the
belly. The reason for this is that the bird is a biped, and yet is
unable to stand erect. For if its ischium extended but a short way
from the fundament, and then immediately came the leg, as is the
case in man and in quadrupeds, the bird would be unable to stand up at
all. For while man stands erect, and while quadrupeds have their heavy
bodies propped up in front by the forelegs, birds can neither stand
erect owing to their dwarf-like shape, nor have anterior legs to
prop them up, these legs being replaced by wings. As a remedy for this
Nature has given them a long ischium, and brought it to the centre
of the body, fixing it firmly; and she has placed the legs under
this central point, that the weight on either side may be equally
balanced, and standing or progression rendered possible. Such then
is the reason why a bird, though it is a biped, does not stand
erect. Why its legs are destitute of flesh has also already been
stated; for the reasons are the same as in the case of quadrupeds.
In all birds alike, whether web-footed or not, the number of toes in
each foot is four. For the Libyan ostrich may be disregarded for the
present, and its cloven hoof and other discrepancies of structure as
compared with the tribe of birds will be considered further on. Of
these four toes three are in front, while the fourth points
backward, serving, as a heel, to give steadiness. In the long-legged
birds this fourth toe is much shorter than the others, as is the
case with the Crex, but the number of their toes is not increased. The
arrangement of the toes is such as has been described in all birds
with the exception of the wryneck. Here only two of the toes are in
front, the other two behind; and the reason for this is that the
body of the wryneck is not inclined forward so much as that of other
birds. All birds have testicles; but they are inside the body. The
reason for this will be given in the treatise On the Generation of
Animals.
13
Thus then are fashioned the parts of birds. But in fishes a still
further stunting has occurred in the external parts. For here, for
reasons already given, there are neither legs nor hands nor wings, the
whole body from head to tail presenting one unbroken surface. This
tail differs in different fishes, in some approximating in character
to the fins, while in others, namely in some of the flat kinds, it