their young;[1] for that which is born can only be born from a portion of the seed, and the rest of the seed becomes at first the nutriment of the root; and the plant begins to move[2] as soon as it is born. This, then, is the opinion which we ought to hold about the mingling of the male and female in plants, similar to that which we hold about817b animals. This process is the cause of plants under a certain disposition of circumstances; for in the case of an animal when the sexes mingle and afterwards separate a single offspring is produced from them both. But this is not the case with plants; when the sexes mingle, it is the forces of the sexes which mingle.[3] And if nature has mingled the male and the female together, she has followed the right course; and in plants the only operation which we find is the generation of fruits; and an animal is only separated at the times when it is not having sexual intercourse, and this separation is due to its multifarious activities and intellectual pursuits.
But there are some who hold that the plant is complete and perfect because of its possession of these two powers,[4] and because of the food which is adapted to feeding it, and the length of its existence and duration.[5] When it bears leaves and fruit its life will continue and its youth return to it. No excrement[6] will be produced from plants. A plant does not require sleep for many reasons, for it is placed and planted in the earth and attached to it and has no movement of itself, nor has it any definite bounds to its parts, nor does it possess sensation or voluntary motion, or a perfect soul; nay, it has only part of a soul.[7] Plants
- ↑ Cf. Empedocles (Diels, Vorsokr. fr. 79)
οὕτω δ᾽ ᾠοτοκεῖ μακρὰ δένδεα, πρῶτον ἐλαίας.
- ↑ i.e. in growth.
- ↑ The writer seems to be arguing that the process of sexual intercourse in plants and animals is radically the same; but while in animals the sexes are separated and have to come together for sexual intercourse, in plants the forces of the two sexes are combined, and the result of this combination is shown in the production of fruits. Following Meyer, the words commiscentur vires sexuum (8i7b 4) and postquam separati sunt (8i7b 7) have been omitted.
- ↑ i.e. male and female sex.
- ↑ Cf. de long, et brev. vit. 467a 6 ff.
- ↑ Superfluum=περίττωμα, P. A. 65O a 22.
- ↑ Partem partis animae, an Arabic turn of expression=aliquam partem animae.
