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. For the
organs which are made out of these substances, and which are called by
the same names as the substances themselves, the organ hoof, for
instance, and the organ horn, are contrivances to ensure the
preservation of the animals to which they severally belong. In this
class too must be reckoned the teeth, which in some animals have but a
single function, namely the mastication of the food, while in others
they have an additional office, namely to serve as weapons; as is
the case with all animals that have sharp interfitting teeth or that
have tusks. All these parts are necessarily of solid and earthy
character; for the value of a weapon depends on such properties. Their
earthy character explains how it is that all such parts are more
developed in four-footed vivipara than in man. For there is always
more earth in the composition of these animals than in that of the
human body. However, not only all these parts but such others as are
nearly connected with them, skin for instance, bladder, membrane,
hairs, feathers, and their analogues, and any other similar parts that
there may be, will be considered farther on with the heterogeneous
parts. There we shall inquire into the causes which produce them,
and into the objects of their presence severally in the bodies of
animals. For, as with the heterogeneous parts, so with these, it is
from a consideration of their functions that alone we can derive any
knowledge of them
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