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. For the process of evolution is for the sake of the thing
Anally evolved, and not this for the sake of the process.
Empedocles, then, was in error when he said that many of the
characters presented by animals were merely the results of
incidental occurrences during their development; for instance, that
the backbone was divided as it is into vertebrae, because it
happened to be broken owing to the contorted position of the foetus in
the womb. In so saying he overlooked the fact that propagation implies
a creative seed endowed with certain formative properties. Secondly,
he neglected another fact, namely, that the parent animal
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. For the same result as is produced by art may occur
spontaneously. Spontaneity, for instance, may bring about the
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 result to be produced before its
realization in the material
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