:
Aristotle - On The Parts Of Animals
Atec Февраль 16 2008 20:01:06
Книга только для ознакомления
. The reason for dealing with them at all in this
part of the treatise, and classifying them with the homogeneous parts,
is that under one and the same name are confounded the entire organs
and the substances of which they are composed. But of all these
substances flesh and bone form the basis. Semen and milk were also
passed over when we were considering the homogeneous fluids. For the
treatise on Generation will afford a more suitable place for their
examination, seeing that the former of the two is the very
foundation of the thing generated, while the latter is its
nourishment.
10
Let us now make, as it were, a fresh beginning, and consider the
heterogeneous parts, taking those first which are the first in
importance. For in all animals, at least in all the perfect kinds,
there are two parts more essential than the rest, namely the part
which serves for the ingestion of food, and the part which serves
for the discharge of its residue. For without food growth and even
existence is impossible. Intervening again between these two parts
there is invariably a third, in which is lodged the vital principle.
As for plants, though they also are included by us among things that
have life, yet are they without any part for the discharge of waste
residue. For the food which they absorb from the ground is already
concocted, and they give off as its equivalent their seeds and fruits
: