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Aristotle - On The Parts Of Animals
Atec Февраль 16 2008 20:01:06
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. For the
brain they assert to be the organ of sensation; and sensation, they
say, cannot penetrate to parts that are too thickly covered with
flesh. But neither part of this statement is true. On the contrary,
were the region of the brain thickly covered with flesh, the very
purpose for which animals are provided with a brain would be
directly contravened. For the brain would itself be heated to excess
and so unable to cool any other part; and, as to the other half of
their statement, the brain cannot be the cause of any of the
sensations, seeing that it is itself as utterly without feeling as any
one of the excretions. These writers see that certain of the senses
are located in the head, and are unable to discern the reason for
this; they see also that the brain is the most peculiar of all the
animal organs; and out of these facts they form an argument, by
which they link sensation and brain together. It has, however, already
been clearly set forth in the treatise on Sensation, that it is the
region of the heart that constitutes the sensory centre. There also it
was stated that two of the senses, namely touch and taste, are
manifestly in immediate connexion with the heart; and that as
regards the other three, namely hearing, sight, and the centrally
placed sense of smell, it is the character of their sense-organs which
causes them to be lodged as a rule in the head. Vision is so placed in
all animals
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