Year: 1911
Type: book
Abstract: DE PARTIBUS ANIMALIUMwith tlie attributes which they have in commoti in virtue of some common element of their nature, and proceed from this as a basis for the consideration of them separately?20 For genera that are quite distinet 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^he 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 overagain ; 25 for horse and dog and man present, each and ali, 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, 30 themselves identical but recurring in animals specifically distinet.(Very possibly also there may be other characters 639'' which, thoiigh they present specific ditferences, yet come under one and the same category.For instance, flying, swimming, walking, creeping, are plainly specifically dis- tinet, but yet are ali forms of animal progression.)We must, then, have some ciear understanding as to the manner 5 in which our investigation is to be conducted ; whether,I niean, 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 uncer- tainty 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 prelo sented by animals, and their several parts, proceed subse- quently to treat of the causes and the reason why ; or ought he to follow some other method ?And when these ^All of these, be it noted, as also the modes of progression mentioned a few sentences later on, were made subjects of special treatises by A. ^Reading ra crvfjijBf^qKOTa for toov cu/i.Se/Sj^Kdrcor.BOOK 1 .I 639'q uestions 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 tlie Reason, and the Reason forms the starting-15 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 20 the works of nature the good end and the final cause is stili more dominant than in works of art such as these, nor is necessity a factor with the same significance in them ali ; though almost all writers, while they try to refer their origin to this cause, do so wlthout distinguishing thevarious senses in which the term necessity is used.For there is absolute necessity, manifested in eternal phenomena ; and 25 there is hypothetical necessity, manifested in everything that is generated by nature as in everything that is produccd 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 and then that shall be produced, and first this and then that set in motion, and so on in continuous succession, 30 until the end and final resuit is reached, for the sake of which each prior thing is produccd 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 640'' they are in the theoretical Sciences f of which we have ^We might add, 'and in art.' ^A divides the Sciences into three groups {Metaph.E. i).Firstly, the Theoretical^which are purely intellectual and not concerned with action.In this are comprised Metaphysies, Physies, and Mathematies.Secondly the Practical ; and thirdiy, the Constructive or Artistic.DE PARTIBUS ANIMALIUM 640^s poken elsewhere.For in the latter the starting-point is that which is ; in the former that which is to be.P^or it is 5 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 trace back the series of necessary ante- cedents to a starting-point, of which you can say that, existing itself from eternity, it has determined their exist- ence as its consequent.These however, again, are matters IO that havc 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 hypo- thetical necessity is simply convertible, and what cause it is that determines this convertibilityd The Practical and the Artistic comprehend action as well as intelli- gence ; but differ from each other, in that the Practical have no other resuit than the action itself ; whereas the Constructive or Artistic, when the action is over, leave as its resuit a substantial product.The contrast in the text is between the theoretical and the con- structive Sciences ; among which latter, A. here inconsistently includes T] cfiva-LKi ] ;and the points of contrast are as follovvs.The theoretical philosopher starts from certain eternal facts or verities (r6 or)the mathematician for instance from his axioms -and proceeds to deduce from these those consequences which are linked to them by absolute necessity.The artist, on the other hand, or nature, the chief of artists, starts from an ideal conception, not yet existent in matter, but to be realized in the future (ro eVd/ifror).Starting from this, he reasons backwards through the antecedent steps that are necessary, if the conception is to be realized.The realization of my conception E, he says, requires first the realization of I) ; D is to be produced, there must previously be C ; C again requires B for its production ; and so farther and farther back, until he reaches a link in the chain of antecedents, let us say A, the material production of which is within his power.Here the ratiocination ceases, and construction begins. He produces A; then by means of A produces B, from B produces C, and so on, retracing his previous steps, until he reaches E, the con- ception of which was his starting-point, as its material realization is his end.^(Cf.De G. et C. ii. 9-11.)The following is a brief abstract of A.'s views.The only motion capable of being eternal is motion in a circle ; and the only element endowed with a rotatory motion is the celestial aether.The heavenly bodies consist of this ; and they alone are individually eternal.The Divinity, however, wishing to give the things of earth as near an approach to eternity as is compatible with their being made of other elements than aether, caused their motions BOOK 1 .I 640Â nother niatter which must not be passcd over without consideratiori is, whether the proper subject of our exposi- tiori is tliat witli which the ancient writers concer'ned theni- selves, namely, what is the process of forriiation of each animal ; or whether it is not rather, what ar'e the characters of a given creature when formed.For there is no small differ'ence between these two views.The best cour^se appear's to be that we should follow the method already mentioned, and begin with the phenomena pr^esented by each group of animals, and, when this is done, proceed 15 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 piari of the house, or the house, has this and that form ; and because it has this and that form, therefore is its con- struction carried out in this or that manner.For the pi'ocess of evolution is for the sake of the thing finally evolved, and not this for the sake of the pi-ocess.Empedocles, then, was in error when he said that mariy of the cha-20 racters presented by animals were merely the results of incidental occurrences during their development ; for into be so affected by that of the celestial bodies as to simulate rotation in the only way possible, namely by a cyclical arrangement of their serial phenomena.Not only is this manifested in the periodicity of many phenomena {G. A. iv.ro.777^* 16), biit stili more in the successive stages of the evolution of organisms, these stagesbeing so arranged as to form a circle.Germ, foetus, infant, man, and then germ again, and so on in eternal succession.Thus a simulacrum of eternity is impressed on even perishable things in the only way possible for them {De An.ii. 4. 415^*4 ; G.A. ii.i. 731*^32) ; an eternity, however, which differs from that of the celestial bodies, in that it does not attach to the individual but to the species.For in the cyclegerm, foetus, man, same germ, but only a similar onc, in which the circle is completed.Each term in such a cycle is at once the antecedent and the consequent of ali the rest.Man necessarily presupposes germ, and germ as necessarily presupposes man.Any hypothetical proposi- tion then that States the nccessary relation of any two of the terms e. g. if there is to be a man there must necessarily be a germ--is capable of simple conversion-viz.if there is to be a germ there must necessarily be a man.By the ' propositions expressing hypothetical necessity and capable of simple conversion ' A. means, then, all those in which two stages in the cyclical evolution of an organism are placed as antecedent and con- sequent.By the ' cause which determines this ' he may mean either the action of the heavenly bodies upon terrestrial bodies ; or possibly, going a stage farther back, the purpose of the Divinity in the con- struction of the world. DE PARTIBUS ANIMALIUMstance, that the backbone was divided as it is into vertebrae, because it happened to be broken owing to the contoited position of the foetus in the womb.In so saying he over- looked the fact that propagation implies a Creative ^seed endowed vvith certain formative properties.Secondly, he neglected another fact, namely, that the parent animal 25 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.^P^orthe same resuit as is produced by art may occur sponta- neously.Spontaneity, for instance, may bring about the 30 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 resuit to be produced before its realization in the material.As with spontaneity, so with chance ; ^for BOOK I.I 640 this also produces the same resuit 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 in- cludes their presence, and because they are necessary con- ditions of his existence, or, if vve cannot quite say this, which 35 would be best of ali, 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 640 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 philo-5 sophized 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 in- stance, by antagonism or friendship, whether by intelligence or spontaneous action, the substratum of matter being assumed to have certain inseparable properties ; fi re, for instance, to have a hot nature, earth a cold one ; the former 10 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 outiets i of the nostrils ; air and water being the materiais of which agent acts with intention, though not with the intention of producing the resuit that actually occurs.It is called Spontaneity when the agent has no intention at all.It is the intermixture of semi-intenlion that gives force to the line revvnv k(h T^xvn rilynv.^For 2X0)9 2rt read on (Z).^Omitting on. DE PARTIBUS ANIMALIUM 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 the other 20 homogeneoLis parts ; not only these, but also the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, foot ;
Source: Clarendon Press eBooks
Authors: Aristotle., William Ogle
Language: French
Topic: History of Medicine Studies
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W643904522