ARISTOTLE

ON

THE PARTS OF ANIMALS

BEING THE FIRST BOOK OF HIS METAPHYSICS

TRANSLATED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,
BY
W. OGLE, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.
SOMETIME FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD

Præclare cum illo agitur, qui non mentiens dicit, quod ab Aristotele responsum est sciscitanti Alexandro, quo docente profiteretur se scientem: 'rebus,' inquit, 'ipsis, quæ non norunt mentiri.'--VARRO

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1882

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

THE biological treatises of Aristotle are more often quoted than read; and, it may be added, more often misquoted than quoted correctly. None perhaps have fared worse than the "De Partibus Animalium," which forms the central portion of that great trilogy, in which are set forth successively, the phenomena presented by animals in life, the causes that have determined their structure, and the process of their generation and development. The crabbed and obscure style in which this treatise is written, its corrupt text, and, generally, the difficulties of language have kept off the biologist, while the simple Aristotelian has been deterred by a subject-matter, as a rule alien to his tastes. Yet to both the treatise offers much of interest. In it the Aristotelian will find some of the best examples of his master's method; while the biologist can scarcely be void of curiosity as to the first serious attempt to assign its function to each separate part of the animal body. It has been hoped therefore that this volume may be welcome to both; offering to the one a faithful and intelligible rendering of the text, and to the other a body of notes, which have been made much fuller than would have been necessary, had they been meant for those only, who had already some acquaintance with physiology.

In neither part of this undertaking can I hope to have escaped many a blunder. It is indeed the consciousness of this that has caused me to keep the following sheets in my desk unpublished, though written many years ago. And even now, when I have been induced by friends to venture on publication, I do so with extreme diffidence and misgiving. Of this, however, I feel assured; that those persons, who are most competent to detect my shortcomings, will also be those most disposed to make full allowance for them. For they will best know, how difficult a task the preparation of a volume of this kind is in reality, easy and simple as it may seem to one who has never tried it.

THE TRANSLATOR

N.B.--The references in the introductory essays and in the notes are to Bekker's octavo edition of Aristotle, published by the Clarendon Press. At the bottom of each page of the translation there has been added a reference to the corresponding place in the Berlin quarto edition.

INTRODUCTION

How came these adaptations about, is a question coeval, we may be sure, with the first recognition of the adaptations themselves. The answers to it fell of old, as ever since, into two main divisions. One group of philosophers there was, who fancied that they found an adequate cause for the phenomena in the necessary operations of the inherent properties of matter; while another sought a solution in the intelligent action of a benevolent and foreseeing agent, whom they called God, or Nature, as the case might be. Look, for instance, said these latter, at the back-bone. See how marvellously it has been constructed to suit the animal's requirements; not made of one solid mass, as is the femur or the humerus, but subdivided into small pieces, so as to allow of the animal making such motions and bendings as it may require; while at the same time, in spite of its subdivision, so firmly bound together are its parts, as to supply a rigid support to the frame.¹ Or look again at the alimentary canal and at the blood-vessels. Each part requires a supply of matter for its due nourishment. What but foresight and intelligent purpose can have made these channels throughout the body to meet that necessity? Or see again your hand. Notice how admirably it is made; what an exquisite instrument for the purposes of an intelligent animal, and how useless for one without such mental capacity; and then consider that it is man, and man alone, that has been endowed with it. Is it possible not to discern a foreseeing intention in this limitation of the organ to the creature that alone can use it with advantage? In all this, said the materialist, you are mistaken. The foetus in its mother's womb is straitened for space, and forced to lie in a bent attitude. Its backbone gives way to the bendings, and is necessarily broken up into a series of short pieces.² The animal then makes the best use of it it may. As for the stomach, the intestines, and the blood-vessels,³ they are simply formed by the fluid in the animal substance, driven hither and thither by the motions of that substance,

¹ De Partibus ii. 9,4.

² De Partibus i. 1, 16.

³ De Partibus i. 1, 21.

Aristotle on the Parts of Animals
Translated, with introduction and notes by
W. Ogle

London
Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.
1882

First Internet Edition 1997

Rutgers University Libraries
QL41.A727 1882

Omnipædia Polyglotta
Francisco López Rodríguez
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