The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher: Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on Physiognomy
Philosophy
The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher: Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on Physiognomy
Human beings; Mind and body; Reproduction
Q. Why doth a man gape when he seeth another do the same? A. It proceeds
from the imagination. And this is proved by the similitude of the ass,
who by reason of his melancholy, doth retain his superfluity for a long
time, and would neither eat nor piss unless he should hear another
doing the like.
_Of the Teeth._
Q. Why do the teeth only, amongst all ether bones, experience the sense
of feeling? A. That they may discern heat and cold, that hurt them,
which other bones need not.
Q. Why have men more teeth than women? A. By reason of the abundance of
heat and cold which is more in men than in women.
Q. Why do the teeth grow to the end of our life, and not the other
bones? A. Because otherwise they would be consumed with chewing and
grinding.
Q. Why do the teeth only come again when they fall, or be taken out, and
other bones being taken away, grow no more? A. Because other bones are
engendered of the humidity which is called radical, and so they breed in
the womb of the mother, but the teeth are engendered of nutritive
humidity, which is renewed and increased from day to day.
Q. Why do the fore-teeth fall in youth, and grow again, and not the
cheek teeth? A. From the defect of matter, and from the figure; because
the fore-teeth are sharp, and the others broad. Also, it is the office
of the fore-teeth to cut the meat, and therefore they are sharp; and
the office of the others to chew the meat, and therefore they are broad
in fashion, which is fittest for that purpose.
Q. Why do the fore-teeth grow soonest? A. Because we want them sooner in
cutting than the others in chewing.
Q. Why do the teeth grow black in human creatures in their old age? A.
It is occasioned by the corruption of the meat, and the corruption of
phlegm with a choleric humour.
Q. Why are colts' teeth yellow, and of the colour of saffron, when they
are young, and become white when they grow up? A. Because horses have
abundance of watery humours in them, which in their youth are digested
and converted into grossness; but in old age heat diminishes, and the
watery humours remain, whose proper colour is white.
Q. Why did nature give living creatures teeth? A. To some to fight with,
and for defence of their lives, as unto wolves and bears, unto some to
eat with, as unto horses, unto some for the forming of the voices, as
unto men.
Q. Why do horned beasts want their upper teeth? A. Horns and teeth are
caused by the same matter, that is, nutrimental humidity, and therefore
the matter which passeth into the horns turneth not into teeth,
consequently they want the upper teeth. And such beasts cannot chew
well; therefore, to supply the want of teeth, they have two stomachs,
from whence it returns and they chew it again, then it goes into the
other to be digested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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