On The Generation Of Animals
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Aristotle
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 377849
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 6
subject: animals
subject: semen
subject: nature
subject: male
subject: generation
subject: aristotle
subject: translated
subject: arthur
subject: platt
subject: book
subject: discussed
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
local mirror: aristotle-on-270.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: aristotle-on-270.htm
sort title: On The Generation Of Animals
full text: 350 BC ON THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS by Aristotle translated by Arthur Platt Book I 1 WE have now discussed the other parts of animals, both generally and with reference to the peculiarities of each kind, explaining how each part exists on account of such a cause, and I mean by this the final cause. There are four causes underlying everything: first, the final cause, that for the sake of which a thing exists; secondly, the formal cause, the definition of its essence (and these two we may regard pretty much as one and the same); thirdly, the material; and fourthly, the moving principle or efficient cause. We have then already discussed the other three causes, for the definition and the final cause are the same, and the material of animals is their parts of the whole animal the non-homogeneous parts, of these again the homogeneous, and of these last the so-called elements of all matter. It remains to speak of those parts which contribute to the generation of animals and of which nothing definite has yet been said, and to explain what is the moving or efficient cause. To inquire into this last and to inquire into the generation of each animal is in a way the same thing; and, therefore, my plan has united them together, arranging the discussion of these parts last, and the beginning of the question of generation next to them. Now some animals come into being from the union of male and female, i.e. all those kinds of animal which possess the two sexes. This is not the case with all of them; though in the sanguinea with few exceptions the creature, when its growth is complete, is either male or female, and though some bloodless animals have sexes so that they generate offspring of the same kind, yet other bloodless animals generate indeed, but not offspring of the same kind; such are all that come into being not from a union of the sexes, but from decaying earth and excrements. To speak generally, if we take all animals which change their locality, some by swimming, others…