Книга только для ознакомления
. For this arrangement is not only that
which makes the horns of the greatest service in fighting, but that
which causes them to be as little of an impediment as possible in
the other actions of life.
Such then are the reasons for which horns exist; and such the
reasons why they are present in some animals, absent from others.
Let us now consider the character of the material nature whose
necessary results have been made available by rational nature for a
final cause.
In the first place, then, the larger the bulk of animals, the
greater is the proportion of corporeal and earthy matter which they
contain. Thus no very small animal is known to have horns, the
smallest horned animal that we are acquainted with being the
gazelle. But in all our speculations concerning nature, what we have
to consider is the general rule; for that is natural which applies
either universally or generally. And thus when we say that the largest
animals have most earthy matter, we say so because such is the general
rule. Now this earthy matter is used in the animal body to form
bone. But in the larger animals there is an excess of it, and this
excess is turned by nature to useful account, being converted into
weapons of defence. Part of it necessarily flows to the upper
portion of the body, and this is allotted by her in some cases to
the formation of tusks and teeth, in others to the formation of horns
|
