Generation of Animals
Aristotle
tr. A. Platt

"The definition [λόγος] and the final cause [τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα] are the same." (715a8-9) [PSA: thus the account of one's actions and life must spell out that for the sake of which one acts]

"[T]he business [ἔργον] of most animals is, you may say, nothing else than to produce young, as the business of a plant is to produce seed and fruit." (717a21-22)

"But the function [ἔργον] of the animal is not only to generate (which is common to all living things), but they all of them participate also in a kind of knowledge [γνῶσις], some more and some less, and some very little indeed. For they have sense-perception, and this is a kind of knowledge. (If we consider the value [τὸ τίμιον] of this we find that it is of great importance compared with the class of lifeless objects, but of little compared with the use of the intellect [φρόνησις].)" (731a30-35)

"Now some existing things are eternal and divine whilst others admit of both existence and non-existence. But that which is noble and divine is always, in virtue of its own nature, the cause of the better in such things as admit of being better or worse, and what is not eternal does admit of existence and non-existence, and can partake in the better and the worse. And soul is better than body, and the living, having soul, is thereby better than the lifeless which has none, and being is better than being, living than not living. These, then, are the reasons for the generation of animals. For since it is impossible that such a class of things as animals should be of an eternal nature, therefore that which comes into being is eternal in the only way possible. Now it is impossible for it to be eternal as an individual - for the substance of the things that are is in the particular; and if it were such it would be eternal - but it is possible for it as a species." (731b24-35)

"[I]n all products of nature or art, a thing is made by something actually existing out of that which is potentially such as the finished product.... For the art is the starting-point [ἀρχή] and form [εἶδος] of the product; only it exists in something else, whereas the movement of nature exists in the product itself, issuing from another nature which has the form in actuality [ἐνεργείᾳ]." (734b19-735a4)

"A thing existing potentially may be nearer [ἐγγυτέρω] or further [πορρωτέρω] from its realization [ἐνδέχεται] in actuality, just as a sleeping geometer is further away than one awake and the latter than one actually studying [θεωροῦντος]." (735a9-11)

"[A]n animal does not become at the same time an animal and a man or a horse or any other particular animal. For the end [τέλος = completion] is developed [γίνεται] last, and the peculiar character [ἴδιον] of the species is the end of the generation of each individual." (736b2-5)

"Plainly those principles whose activity is bodily cannot exist without a body, e.g. walking cannot exist without feet. For the same reason they cannot enter from outside.... It remains, then, for the reason alone so to enter [PSA: i.e., from the outside] and alone to be divine, for no bodily activity has any connexion with the activity of reason. Now it is true that the faculty of all kinds of soul seems to have a connexion with a matter different from and more divine than the so-called elements .... being analogous to the element of the stars." (736b23-737a1)

"[T]he products of art are made by means of the tools of the artist, or to put it more truly by means of their movement, and this is the activity [ἐνέργεια] of the art, and the art is the form [μορφή] of what is made in something else." (740b26-29)

"Thus there are three things: first, the end [τέλος], by which we mean that for the sake of which something else exists; secondly, the principle [ἀρχή = source] of movement and of generation, existing for the sake of the end (for that which can make and generate, considered simply as such, exists only in relation to [πρὸς] what is made and generated); thirdly, the useful [χρησίμου], that is to say what the end uses [χρῆται τὸ τέλος]." (742a28-32)

"Now in that which is immovable and unchanging the first principle [ἀρχή = source] is simply the essence of the thing [τὸ τί ἐστιν], but when we come to those things which come into being the principles are more than one, varying in kind and not all of the same kind; one of this number is the principle of movement...." (742b33-35)

"Nature seems to wish to implant in animals a sense of care [ἐπιμελητικήν] for their young: in the inferior animals this lasts only to the moment of giving birth; in others it continues till they are perfect [τελέωσιν]; in all that are more intelligent [φρονιμώτερα], during the bringing up of the young also. In those which have the greatest portion in intelligence we find familiarity [συνήτηεια] and love [φιλία] shown also towards the young when perfected, as with men and some quadrupeds...." (753a7-14)

"Such appears to be the truth about the generation of bees, judging from theory and from what are believed to be the facts about them; the facts, however, have not been sufficiently grasped; if ever they are, then credit must be given rather to observation than to theories, and to theories only if what they affirm agrees with the observed facts." (760b27-33)

"Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have." (761a2-5)

"For nothing comes into being out of the whole of anything, any more than in the products of art; if it did art would have nothing to do, but as it is in the one case art removes the useless material, in the other nature does so. Animals and plants come into being in earth and in liquid because there is water in earth, and air in water, and in all air is vital heat, so that in a sense all things are full of soul." (762a15-21)

"Now the peculiar [ἴδιον] and individual has always more force in generation. Coriscus is both a man and an animal, but his manhood is nearer to what is peculiar to him than is his animal-hood. In generation both the individual and the class are operative, but the individual is the more so of the two, for this is the substance [οὐσία]." (767b29-34)

"Now we must no longer suppose that the cause of these and all such phenomena is the same. For whenever things are not the product of nature in general nor yet charactistic of each separate kind, then none of these things is such as it is or is so developed for the sake of anything. The eye for instance exists for a final cause, but it is not blue for a final cause unless this condition be characteristic of the kind of animal. In fact in some cases this condition has no connexion with the account of the animal's essence, but we must refer the causes to the material and the motive principle on the view that these things come into being by necessity. For, as was said originally in the outset of our discussion, when we are dealing with definite and ordered products of nature, we must not say that each *is* of a certain quality because it *becomes* so, rather that they *become* so and so because they *are* so and so, for the process of becoming attends upon being and is for the sake of being, not vice versa. Past students of nature, however, took the opposite view. The reason for this is that they did not see that the causes were numerous, but only saw the material and efficient and did not distinguish even these, while they made no inquiry at all into the formal and final causes. Everything then exists for a final cause, and all those things which are included in the definition of each animal, or which either are for the sake of some end or are ends in themselves, come into being both through this cause and the rest." (778a29-778b13)

"Moreover the change from not being to being must pass through the intermediate condition [μεταξύ], and sleep seems to be in its nature such a condition, being as it were a boundary between living and not living, and the sleeper being neither altogether non-existent nor yet existent. For life most of all appertains to wakefulness [ἐγρηγορέναι], on account of sensation [αἴσθησις]." (778b27-32)

"For the principles [ἀρχαί = sources], though small in size, are great in potency [δυνάμει]; this, indeed, is what is meant by a principle, that it is itself the cause of many things without anything else being higher than it." (788a13-16) [PSA: this is similar to a statement EN X about νοῦς being small in bulk but great in power]

END