Read The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: Richard Mckeon
The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (112 page)
22
For the same reason the development of the embryo takes place in the female; neither the male himself nor the female emits semen into the male, but the female receives within herself the share contributed by both, because in the female is the material from which is made the resulting product.
[730b]
Not only must the mass of material exist there from which the embryo is formed in the first instance, but further material must constantly be added that it may increase in size.
(5)
Therefore the birth must take place in the female. For the carpenter must keep in close connexion with his timber and the potter with his clay, and generally all workmanship and the ultimate movement imparted to matter must be connected with the material concerned, as, for instance, architecture is
in
the buildings it makes.
From these considerations we may also gather how it is that the male contributes to generation.
(10)
The male does not emit semen at all in some animals, and where he does this is no part of the resulting embryo; just so no material part comes from the carpenter to the material, i. e. the wood in which he works, nor does any part of the carpenter’s art exist within what he makes, but the shape and the form are imparted from him to the material by means of the motion he sets up.
(15)
It is his hands that move his tools, his tools that move the material; it is his knowledge of his art, and his soul, in which is the form, that move his hands or any other part of him with a motion of some definite kind, a motion varying with the varying nature of the object made. In like manner, in the male of those animals which emit semen,
(20)
Nature uses the semen as a tool and as possessing motion in actuality, just as tools are used in the products of any art, for in them lies in a certain sense the motion of the art. Such, then, is the way in which these males contribute to generation.
(25)
But when the male does not emit semen, but the female inserts some part of herself into the male, this is parallel to a case in which a man should carry the material to the workman. For by reason of weakness in such males Nature is not able to do anything by any secondary means, but the movements imparted to the material are scarcely strong enough
when Nature herself watches over them. Thus here she resembles a modeller in clay rather than a carpenter, for she does not touch the work she is forming by means of tools,
(30)
but, as it were, with her own hands.
23
In all animals which can move about, the sexes are separated, one individual being male and one female, though both are the same in species, as with man and horse.
[731a]
But in plants these powers are mingled, female not being separated from male. Wherefore they generate out of themselves, and do not emit semen but produce an embryo, what is called the seed. Empedocles puts this well in the line: ‘and thus the tall trees oviposit; first olives …’ For as the egg is an embryo, a certain part of it giving rise to the animal and the rest being nutriment,
(5)
so also from a part of the seed springs the growing plant, and the rest is nutriment for the shoot and the first root.
In a certain sense the same thing happens also in those animals which have the sexes separate. For when there is need for them to generate the sexes are no longer separated any more than in plants,
(10)
their nature desiring that they shall become one; and this is plain to view when they copulate and are united, that one animal is made out of both.
It is the nature of those creatures which do not emit semen to remain united a long time until the male element has formed the embryo,
(15)
as with those insects which copulate. The others so remain only until the male has discharged from the parts of himself introduced something which will form the embryo in a longer time, as among the sanguinea. For the former remain paired some part of a day, while the semen forms the embryo in several days.
(20)
And after emitting this they cease their union.
And animals seem literally to be like divided plants, as though one should separate and divide them, when they bear seed, into the male and female existing in them.
In all this Nature acts like an intelligent workman. For to the essence of plants belongs no other function or business than the production of seed; since,
(25)
then, this is brought about by the union of male and female, Nature has mixed these and set them together in plants, so that the sexes are not divided in them. Plants, however, have been investigated elsewhere. But the function of the animal is not only to generate (which is common to all living things),
(30)
but they all of them participate also in a kind of knowledge, some more and some less, and some very little indeed. For they have sense-perception, and this is a kind of knowledge. (If we consider the value of
this we find that it is of great importance compared with the class of lifeless objects, but of little compared with the use of the intellect.
[731b]
For against the latter the mere participation in touch and taste seems to be practically nothing, but beside absolute insensibility it seems most excellent; for it would seem a treasure to gain even this kind of knowledge rather than to lie in a state of death and nonexistence.) Now it is by sense-perception that an animal differs from those organisms which have only life.
(5)
But since, if it is a living animal, it must also live; therefore, when it is necessary for it to accomplish the function of that which has life, it unites and copulates, becoming like a plant, as we said before.
Testaceous animals, being intermediate between animals and plants, perform the function of neither class as belonging to both.
(10)
As plants they have no sexes, and one does not generate in another; as animals they do not bear fruit from themselves like plants; but they are formed and generated from a liquid and earthy concretion. However, we must speak later of the generation of these animals.
[Books II–V omitted.]
Translated by W. D. Ross
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1.
The advance from sensation through memory, experience, and art, to theoretical knowledge.
2.
Characteristics of ‘wisdom’ (philosophy).
3.
The successive recognition by earlier philosophers of the material, efficient, and final causes.
4.
Inadequacy of the treatment of these causes.
5.
The Pythagorean and Eleatic schools; the former recognizes vaguely the formal cause.
6.
The Platonic philosophy; it uses only the material and formal causes.
7.
The relation of the various systems to the four causes.
8.
Criticism of the pre-Platonic philosophers.
9.
Criticism of the doctrine of Ideas.
10.
The history of philosophy reveals no causes other than the four.
1.
General considerations about the study of philosophy.
2.
There cannot be an infinite series, nor an infinite variety of kinds, of causes.
3.
Different methods are appropriate to different studies.
1.
Sketch of the main problems of philosophy.
2.
Fuller statement of the problems:—
(i) Can one science treat of all the four causes?
(ii) Are the primary axioms treated of by the science of substance, and if not, by what science?
(iii) Can one science treat of all substances?
(iv) Does the science of substance treat also of its attributes?
(v) Are there any non-sensible substances, and if so, of how many kinds?
3.
(vi) Are the genera, or the constituent parts, of things their first principles?
(vii) If the genera, is it the highest genera or the lowest?
4.
(viii) Is there anything apart from individual things?
(ix) Is each of the first principles one in kind, or in number?
(x) Are the principles of perishable and of imperishable things the same?
(xi) Are being and unity substances or attributes?
5.
(xii) Are the objects of mathematics substances?
6.
(xiii) Do Ideas exist, as well as sensible things and the objects of mathematics?
(xiv) Do the first principles exist potentially or actually?
(xv) Are the first principles universal or individual?
1.
Our object is the study of being as such.
2.
We must therefore study primary being (viz. substance), unity and plurality, and the derivative contraries, and the attributes of being and of substance.
3.
We must study also the primary axioms, and especially the law of contradiction.
4.
Fatal difficulties involved in the denial of this law.
5.
The connexion of such denial with Protagoras’ doctrine of relativity; the doctrine refuted.
6.
Further refutation of Protagoras.
7.
The law of excluded middle defended.
8.
All judgments are not true, nor are all false; all things are not at rest, nor are all in motion.
Philosophical Lexicon.
1.
‘Beginning.’
2.
‘Cause.’
3.
‘Element.’
4.
‘Nature.’
5.
‘Necessary.’
6.
‘One.’ ‘Many.’
7.
‘Being.’
8.
‘Substance.’
9.
‘The same.’ ‘Other.’ ‘Different.’ ‘Like.’ ‘Unlike.’
10.
‘Opposite.’ ‘Contrary.’ ‘Other in species.’ ‘The same in species.’
11.
‘Prior.’ ‘Posterior.’
12.
‘Potency.’ ‘Capable.’ ‘Incapacity.’ ‘Possible.’ ‘Impossible.’
13.
‘Quantum.’
14.
‘Quality.’
15.
‘Relative.’
16.
‘Complete.’
17.
‘Limit.’
18.
‘That in virtue of which.’ ‘In virtue of itself.’
19.
‘Disposition.’
20.
‘Having’ or ‘habit’ (
).
21.
‘Affection.’
22.
‘Privation.’
23.
‘Have’ or ‘hold’ (
). ‘Be in.’
24.
‘From.’
25.
‘Part.’
26.
‘Whole.’ ‘Total.’ ‘All.’
27.
‘Mutilated.’
28.
‘Race’ or ‘genus’ (
). ‘Other in genus.’
29.
‘False.’
30.
‘Accident.’