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PRELUDE TO CHAPTER IV.
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
