Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten Books — Aristotle — John Shaqi
Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten Books
Aristotle · en
1. Some parts of animals are simple, and these can be divided into like
parts, as flesh into pieces of flesh; others are compound, and cannot
be divided into like parts, as the hand cannot be divided into hands,
nor the face into faces. Of these some are not only called parts, but
members, such as those which, though entire in themselves, are made up
of other parts, as the head and the leg, the hand and the entire arm,
or the trunk; for these parts are both entire in themselves, and made
up of other parts.
2. All the compound parts also are made up of simple parts, the hand,
for example, of flesh, and sinew, and bone. Some animals have all these
parts the same, in others they are different from each other. Some of
the parts are the same in form, as the nose and eye of one man is the
same as the nose and eye of another man, and flesh is the same with
flesh, and bone with bone. In like manner we may compare the parts of
the horse, and of other animals, those parts, that is, which are the
same in species, for the whole bears the same relation to the whole as
the parts do to each other. And in animals belonging to the same class,
the parts are the same, only they differ in excess or defect. By class,
I mean such as bird or fish, for all these differ if either compared
with their own class or with another, and there are many forms of birds
and fishes.
3. Nearly all their parts differ in them according to the opposition
of their external qualities, such as colour or shape, in that some are
more, others are less affected, or sometimes in number more or less,
or in size greater and smaller, or in any quality which can be included
in excess or defect. For some animals have a soft skin, in others the
skin is shelly; some have a long bill, as cranes, others a short one;
some have many feathers, others very few; some also have parts which
are wanting in others, for some species have spurs, others have none;
some have a crest, others have not. But, so to say, their principal
parts and those which form the bulk of their body, are either the same,
or vary only in their opposites, and in excess and defect.
4. By excess and defect I mean the greater and the less. But some
animals agree with each other in their parts neither in form, nor in
excess and defect, but have only an analogous likeness, such as a bone
bears to a spine, a nail to a hoof, a hand to a crab's claw, the scale
of a fish to the feather of a bird, for that which is a feather in
the birds is a scale in the fish. With regard then to the parts which
each class of animal possesses, they agree and differ in this manner,
and also in the position of the parts. For many animals have the same
parts, but not in the same position, as the mammæ which are either
pectoral or abdominal. But of the simple parts some are soft and moist,
others hard and dry.