On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 4
The opening paragraphs of this chapter are both obscure and apparently contradictory; for while it is suggested that it might be well, in order to comprehend faculties or functions, first to study the energies or organs from which they emanate, yet the inquiry reverts to nutrition as a fact; without reference, that is, either to vital processes or to food. We may assume that Aristotle was unacquainted with the rudimentary forms and development of the corporeal organs, and yet, judging from this exordium, he seems to have perceived that every part must advance from a nascent state to its perfected condition; and thus he has suggested the teaching of developmental anatomy. As the inquiry proceeds, we are reminded of the obscurity or inaccuracy of language, in portraying the impressions upon and the functions, so to say, of the sentient organs even now the external object is, with us, in common parlance, a sensible object; sensation, besides its own sense, implies casual feelings from within; sight signifies both faculty and function; and nourishment is food as well as digestion. It is somewhat, perhaps, objectionable that Aristotle should have bound up, so to say, the generative with the nutritive function, seeing how they differ both in the periods of development and duration; they are equally necessary, no doubt, to nature's design, but still they are neither contemporaneous nor identical. With respect to spontaneous generation here alluded to Aristotle[1] admitted its possibility, and for obvious reasons, in the case of eels; and, although he denied that all mullets (τοὺς κεστρεῖς φύεσθαι πάντας) are so reproduced, yet he believed that some of the species spring forth (φύεται) from the mud and sand on the sea-shore; and thus it is evident, he continues, that some creatures, not being derived from others, may be the product of spontaneous generation. This opinion upon reproduction prevailed for many ages, and even yet, perhaps, notwithstanding the advancement of science, it may not be altogether discredited.
- ↑ Hist. Ani. vi. 14. 14. 15. 3.