Greco-Christian stream·Corpus Aristotelicum (Complete Works of Aristotle)·Movement of Animals (De Motu Animalium)

Source context

Theme

causal structure of voluntary animal locomotion — the role of desire, phantasia, and the unmoved mover in initiating bodily movement

Soul-faculty

Sentient Soul

Steiner

not engaged in the GA corpus

Cross-tradition

• Vedanta / Samkhya — iccha (will-desire) as initiator of actionCross-tradition congruence exists between Aristotle's analysis of orexis (desire) as the proximate mover of the animal body and the Samkhya-Vedantic category of iccha-shakti, where desire-will mediates between consciousness and gross motor action.
• Scholastic philosophy — appetitive faculty and the unmoved moverCross-tradition congruence appears in Aquinas's appropriation of Aristotle's unmoved mover schema, where the final cause (desired good) moves without itself being moved, structurally parallel to Aristotle's account of the soul's role in De Motu Animalium.

Movement of Animals

Περὶ Ζῴων Κινήσεως · De Motu Animalium · biology

[698a.1] whether one blew gently or so stoutly as to make a very great wind, and whether what were thrown or pushed were wind or something else, it is necessary in the first place to be supported upon one of one’s own members which is at rest and so to push, and in the second place for this member, either itself, or that of which it is a part, to remain at rest, fixing itself against something external to itself.1_ Now the man who is himself in the boat, if he pushes, fixing himself against the boat, very naturally does not move the boat, because what he pushes against should properly remain at rest. Nowwhat he is trying to move, and what he is fixing himself against is in his case the same. If, however, he pushes or pulls from outside he does move it, for the ground is no part of the boat.

[698a.3] Here we may ask the difficult question whether if something moves the whole heavens this mover must be immovable,? and moreover be no part of the heavens, nor in the heavens. For either it is moved itself and moves the heavens, in which case it must touch something immovable in order to create movement, and then this is no part of that which creates movement ; or if the mover is from the first immovable it will equally be no part of that which is moved. In this point at least they argue correctly who say 3 that as the Sphere is carried round in a circle no single part remains still, for then either the whole would necessarily stand still or its continuity be torn asunder ;* but they argue less well in supposing that the poles have a certain force, though conceived as having no magnitude, but as merely termini or points. For besides the fact that no such things have any substantial existence it is impossible for a single movement to be initiated by what is twofold ; ὅ and 1 Curiously enough he does not in this treatise give a general reason 8 οἱ λέγοντες, probably some of the Physicists (Pays. 1039 29). Possibly these were Pythagoreans (de Anim. 405° 32; de Caelo, 293” 33). The Sphere is that of the fixed stars (7762. xii. 8; ‘de Cae/o, ii. 6). * Cf. de Caelo, 290° 6. ANIMALIUM 3 6995 yet they make the poles two. From a review of these difficulties we may conclude that there is something so related to the whole of Nature, as the earth is to animals a5 and things moved by them. And the mythologists with their fable of Atlas? setting his feet upon the earth appear to have based the fable upon

[698a.30] intelligent grounds. They make Atlas a kind of diameter? twirling the heavens about the poles. Now as the earth remains still this would be reasonable enough, but their theory involves them in the position that the earth is no part of the universe. And further the force of that which initiates movement must be made equal to the force of that which remains at rest. For there is a definite quantity of

[698a.35] force or power by dint of which that which remains at rest does so, just as there is of force by dint of which that which initiates movement does so; and as there is a necessary proportion between opposite motions, so there is between absences of motion. Now equal forces are unaffected by one another, but are overcome by a superiority of force.

[699b.1] And so in their theory Atlas, or whatever similar power initiates movement from within, must exert no more force than will exactly balance the stability of the earth—other- wise the earth will be moved out of her place in the centre

[699b.5] of things. For as the pusher pushes so is the pushed pushed, and with equal force. But the prime mover moves that which is to begin with at rest, so that the power it exerts is greater, rather than equal and like to the power which produces absence of motion in that which is moved. And similarly* also the power of what is moved and so moves must be greater than the power of that which is moved but does not initiate movement. Therefore the force of the earth in its immobility will have to be as great as the force of the whole heavens, and of that which moves ’ Atlas, cf. Jet. 102320 (where the believers in Atlas are said to be poets and some physicists). Bacon approves A.’s ‘ very elegant inter- pretation’ of this ancient fable, de Aug. iv. 4. 2 Diameter, rather radius. The Greeks had no word except ἡ ἡμίσεια

[699a.1] the heavens. But if that is impossible,! it follows that the heavens cannot possibly be moved by any force of this kind inside them.

[699a.4] There is a further difficulty about the motions of the parts of the heavens? which, as akin to what has gone before, may be considered next. For if one could overcome by force of motion the immobility of the earth he would clearly move it away from the centre. And it is plain that the power from which this force would originate will not be infinite, for the earth is not infinite ® and therefore its weight is not. Now there are more senses than one of the word ‘ impossible ’.* When we say it is impossible to see a sound, and when we say it is impossible to see the men in the moon,° we use two senses of the word; the former is of necessity, the latter, though their nature is to be seen, cannot as a fact be seen by us. Now we suppose that the heavens are of necessity impossible to destroy and to dissolve,® whereas the result of the present argument would be to do away with this necessity. For it is natural and possible for a motion to exist greater than the force by dint of which the earth is at rest, or than that by dint of which Fire and Aether’ are moved. If then there are superior motions, these will be dissolved in succession by one another: and if there actually are not, but might possibly be (for the earth cannot be infinite ὃ because no body can possibly be infinite), there is a possibility ὃ of the heavens being dissolved. For what is the Earth by comparison with the universe. 3 Heavens, i.e. universe; cf. Bonitz, /zdex, 541° 56. oCE. PAYS. Ui. 5. © Ch Phys: 204" 43 de Anim, 422" 27: connected with the fiery element. (Cf. Aet. Plac. ii. 30; Diels, Doxographi, p. 361; and Galen, H7s¢. Phil. 70.) Some Stoics thought the souls of the departed dwelt here, ‘circa lunam (dormitio nostra) cum Endymionibus Stoicorum,’ Tert. de Anim. 55. It is merely an illustration here, due perhaps to a commentator. For animals in the moon cf. G.A. 76122. A.M. uses the sun’s rays to illustrate the point. 7 ἄνω σῶμα, i.e. the aether. Mich. takes it to mean οὐρανός in the limited sense. Cf. de Caelo, 27022 ; Meteor. 340” 6; de Mundo, 3928 5; G. A. 736° 29. ® Cf. Phys. iii. § 3 de Caelo, i. 12. ® Cf. Phys. 203” 30; de Caelo, i. 5. ANIMALIUM 4 ~ Gggh to prevent this coming to pass, unless it be impossible? And it is not impossible unless the opposite is necessary. 3° This difficulty, however, we will discuss elsewhere.’ . To resume, must there be something immovable and at rest outside of what is moved, and no part of it, or not? And must this necessarily be so also in the case of the universe? Perhaps it would be thought strange were the

[699a.35] origin of movement inside. And to those who so conceive it the word of Homer? would appear to have been well spoken :

[700a.1] pull Zeus, highest of all, from heaven to the plain, no not even if ye toiled right hard ; come, all ye gods and goddesses! Set hands to the chain’; for that which is entirely immovable cannot possibly be moved by anything. And herein lies the solution® of the difficulty stated some time back, the possibility or impossibility of dissolving the system of the heavens, in that it depends from an original which is immovable. Now in the animal world there must be not only an immovable without, but also within* those things which move in place, and initiate their own movement. For one part of an animal must be moved, and another be at rest, and against this the part which is moved will support itself and be moved ; for example, if it move one of its parts ; for one τὸ part, as it were, supports itself against another part at rest.® But about things without life which are moved one might ask the question whether all contain in themselves both that which is at rest and that which initiates movement, and whether they ‘also, for instance fire, earth, or any other inanimate thing,® must support themselves against something

[700a.15] outside which is at rest. Or is this impossible and must it not be looked for rather’ in those primary causes by which 2 Iliad, viii. 21 (wrongly quoted more A. in order and words). Cf. Medz. xii. 8 ; Theophrastus, 7761. Br. 310 16 (Usener νῦ 17). 8 Mich. records a variant dvera for λύεται, which shows that a difficulty was felt. 4 Viz. ultimately the central part of the heart. ὅ Cf. ch. 1, supra; de Inc. Anim. passim. δ For a discussion of the movement of inorganic bodies cf. Phys. vill. 4; de Caelo, 311° 12. 7 Leg. ἀλλ᾽ ὑφ᾽ ὧν PI, Mich. (Leonicus, sed). 20 25 DE MOTU they are set in motion? For all things without life are moved by something other, and the origin of-all things so moved are things which move themselves. And out of these we have spoken! about animals (for they must all have in themselves that which is at rest, and without them that against which they are supported); but whether there is some higher and prime mover is not clear, and an origin of that kind involves a different discussion.2— Animals at any rate which move themselves are all moved supporting them- selves on what is outside them, even when they inspire and expire; for there is no essential difference between casting a great and a small weight, and this is what men do when they spit and cough and when they breathe in and breathe out.? But is it only in that which moves itself in place that 5 there must be a point at rest, or does this hold also of that which causes its own qualitative changes, and its own growth ? Now the question of original generation and decay is different ; for if there is, as we hold, a primary movement,® this would be the cause of generation and decay,® and probably of all the secondary movements too. And as in the universe, so in the animal world this is the primary movement, when the creature attains maturity ;7 and therefore it is the cause of growth, when the creature becomes ὃ the cause of its own growth, and the cause too of alteration. But® if this is not the primary movement then 1 ‘Mich. refers to 7. A., 1.¢. de Jvc. ch. 3, &c. 3 Ch. supra, ch, 2. 2 e.g. Met. xii. 8. 8 For respiration as movement cf. Phys. 243>12 (where πτύσις is held to be cognate). Marc. Antonin. Comm. ii. 2 (τὸ πνεῦμα) πάσης * j,e. does the aforesaid principle hold also of the two subordinate Cf. de Anim. 40610; Phys. viii. 7 ; AZet. 1069 12, τοϑ 85,32. 5 j.e. motion in place or translation; cf. Phys. viii. 7. et seq.; Generation and Decay are not properly motions though sometimes loosely termed such (cf. G..4.1. 4; de Anim. 406°12). They depend upon primary movements. ® Del. comma after φθορᾶς (with Leonicus),—[here as elsewhere the Berlin edition misprints the Latin version], and leg. τῶν ἄλλων δή. of the coming to be of the perfect creature, Phys. 261° 17). ANIMALIUM 5 700° the point at rest is not necessary. However, the earliest

[700a.35] growth and alteration in the living creature arise through another and by other channels,! nor can anything possibly 700° be the cause of its own generation and decay, for the mover must exist before the moved, the begetter before the begotten,? and nothing is prior to itself. 6 Now whether the soul is moved or not, and how it is moved if it be moved, has been stated before in our treatise 5 concerning it. And since all inorganic things are moved by some other thing—and * the manner of the movement of the first and eternally moved, and how the first mover moves it, has been determined before in our Metaphysics,® it remains to inquire how the soul moves the body, and το what is the origin of movement in a living creature. For, if we except the movement of the universe, things with life are the causes of the movement of all else, that is of all that are not moved by one another by mutual impact. And so all their motions have a term or limit, inasmuch as the move- ments of things with life have such. For all living things 15 both move and are moved with some object, so that this is the term of all their movement, the end, that is, in view. Now we see that the living creature is moved by intellect, imagination, purpose, wish, and appetite. And all these are reducible to mind and desire. For both imagination’? and sensation are on common ground® with mind, since all 20. three are faculties of judgement ® though differing according to distinctions stated elsewhere.!° Will, however, impulse," movements, depending on the primary, will a fortiord require a point of rest’. 1 Viz. the embryo is nourished, the child suckled by the movement of its parent’s blood, or by her changes of position. * Cf. G.A. 735° 13; de Anim. 416°17; Met. 1073 3. * Cf. de Anim. i. . 3-5, li. 4, iii. g-end. by ‘ desire’, ἐπιθυμία by ‘appetite’. τ Cf. de Anim. 433° 9. 8 Perhaps there is a reference also to the heart as the seat of all these powers (cf. Parv. Nat. 469” 1). 9. Cf. de Anim. 426” το, 4328 16. : 10 Cf. de Anim. iii. 3. 11 1.6. θυμός. 25 DE MOTU and appetite, are all three forms of desire, while purpose? belongs both to intellect and to desire. Therefore the object of desire or of intellect ? first initiates movement, not, that is, every object of intellect, only the end in the domain of conduct. Accordingly among goods that which moves is a practical end, not the good in its whole extent. For it initiates movement only so far as something else is for its sake, or so far as it is the object of that which is for the sake of something else. And we must suppose that a seeming * good may take the room of actual good, and so may the pleasant, which is itself a seeming good.® From 30 these considerations it is clear that in one regard that which is eternally moved by the eternal mover is moved in the same way as every living creature, in another regard differently, and so while it is moved ® eternally, the move- ment of living creatures has a term.?’ Now the eternal beautiful, and the truly and primarily good (which is not at 35 one time good, at another time not good), is too divine and precious to be relative 8 toanything else. The prime mover? qo1 then moves, itself being unmoved, whereas desire and its faculty are moved and so move. But it is not necessary for the last in the chain of things moved to move something else ;1° wherefore it is plainly reasonable that motion in place should be the last of what happens in the region of things happening, since the living creature’! is moved and 1139 34. 8 Cf. de Anim. 433% 29. have anything prior to itself’), Perhaps Mich. had really ὥστ᾽ εἶναί τι πρότερον. Leon. ‘ quam ut illo quicquam sit prius’. The point is that the first good has nothing beyond to move it, cf. Phys. 260% 5 οὐδὲν πρότερον, Cf. de Caelo,i. 12. Bywater, Contributions, &c., p. 15. 91,6. the good aimed at or achieved in act. Cf. de Anim. 433? τό, 11 The last in the chain of causes and effects. ANIMALIUM 6 7or goes forward by reason of desire or purpose,’ when some 5 alteration has been set going on the occasion of sensation or imagination. 7 ~ But how is it that thought (viz. sense, imagination, and thought proper) is sometimes followed by action, some- times not ; sometimes by movement, sometimes not ? What happens seems parallel to the case of thinking and inferring about the immovable objects of science. There the end is the truth seen ? (for, when one conceives the two premisses, one at once conceives and comprehends the conclusion), but here the two premisses result in a conclusion which is an action—for example, one conceives that every man ought to walk, one is a man oneself: straightway ὃ one walks ; 15 or that, in this case, no man should walk, one is a man: straightway one remains at rest. And one so acts in the two cases provided that there is nothing in the one case to compel or in the other to prevent. Again, I ought to create a good, a house is good: straightway I make a house. I need a covering, a coat is a covering: I need a coat. What I need I ought to make, I need a coat: I make a coat. And the conclusion I must make a coat is an 20 action. And the action goes back to the beginning® or first step. If there is to be a coat, one must first have B, and if B then A, so one gets A to begin with. Now that the action® is the conclusion is clear. But the premisses of action’ are of two kinds, of the good and of the possible.® And as in some cases of speculative inquiry we suppress 25 one premise so here the mind does not stop to consider at all an obvious minor premise; for example if walking is 2 On the contrast between the Syllogisms of Science and of Practice see lVic. Eth. vii. 3. An explanation such as that before us is there described as φυσικῶς (cf. de Anim. 434918 ; Eud. Eth. 1227” 28). major premise (l.c. 1144 32). δ It is the same in art (ποίησὶς proper), 7761. 1032 6; Nic. Eth. 1112” 19, In this matter the spheres of ποιεῖν and πράττειν agree. what can be brought about by our own of our friends’ agency. 701% DE MOTU good for man, one does not dwell upon the minor ‘I am a man’. And so what we do without reflection, we do quickly. For when a man actualizes himself in relation to his object either by perceiving, or imagining or con- 30 ceiving it, what he desires he does at once.’ For the actualizing of desire is a substitute for inquiry or reflection. I want to drink, says appetite; this is drink, says sense or imagination or mind: straightway I drink. In this way living creatures are impelled to move and to act, and 35 desire is the last or immediate cause of movement, and desire arises after perception or after imagination and con- ception. And things that desire to act now create and now act under the influence of appetite or impulse or of desire or wish.” The movements of animals may be compared with those of automatic puppets,’ which are set going on the occasion of a tiny movement; the levers are released, and strike the twisted strings against one another ;* or with the toy

[701a.1] comma after ὀρέγεται (stc Mich.). A good instance would be what is now called ideomotor action. Cf. de Anim. 414° 2.

[701a.5] A natural illustration, much used by A. (cf. G. A. 734% 10; 7761. 9838 14) as it was later by the Stoic Emperor Marcus, and his great contemporary Galen (e.g. de Usu Part. K. iii. 48,262). Plato uses the θαύματα differently in the famous allegory of the cave, Rep. 514 B (cf. Leges, 782 B, &c.). The mechanism of strings in the simple toy which moved its members in answer toa pull from one governing cord (de Mundo, ch. 6), the xervis alienis mobile lignim of the Roman poet, developed into the true automata which seem to have been puppets dancing in answer to an elaborate hidden mechanism of strings, weights, and rollers. The dolls may be seen in any museum, but the automatic machinery is nowhere fully described. We may get some notion of it from the figures of surgical machines in medical MSS. (vid. Littré, Hzpp. iv, p. 305, Hipp. Artic. 74, Apoll. Cit. (Schéne) Tab. Xvli, xvili). For other automatic toys cf. de Anim. 416° 18; Parv. Nat. 46115; Pol. 125335; Plato, Euthyphro, 11 B; Meno, 97 Ὁ. of στρέβλαι is Clear, they are the strings which agitated the limbs, though the word is not used in Hippocrates. στρεβλοῦσθαι gets its sense in this way, and we may see a play upon the double meaning in Dio Philoponus (or Michael Eph.) in a gloss upon G. A. 7340 4 (Comm. in Arist. Graeca, xiv. 3, Ὁ. 77) explains that the νευροσπάστης or showman knocked one of the ξύλα and so released the mechanism, which then went off of itself, the various ξύλα somehow releasing one another : ANIMALIUM 7 7 gor? wagon. For the child mounts on it and moves it straight forward,! and then again it is moved in a circle owing to its 5 wheels being of unequal diameter (the smaller acts like a centre on the same principle as the cylinders”). Animals have parts of a similar kind, their organs, the sinewy tendons to wit and the bones ; the bones are like the wooden levers in the automaton, and the iron; the tendons are like the strings, for when these are tightened or released ὃ movement begins. However, in the automata and the toy τὸ wagon there is no change of quality, though if the inner wheels became smaller and greater by turns there would be the same circular movement set up. In an animal the same part has the power of becoming now larger and now

[701a.15] smaller, and changing its form,* as the parts increase by warmth and again contract by cold and change their quality. This change of quality is caused by imaginations and sensa- (like a rack or surgical instrument) was of cylinders with strings wound round them, and with weights suspended (cf. συνείρεται in G. A. 741 9 referring to the rollers strung together) ; the cylinders had pegs (ξύλα) on them which in time (ἐφεξῆς) set other rollers going and so made the puppets dance on the table above. Aristotle alludes to the rollers, The point in both this and the following simile lies in the automatism of the body, and the manifest outward gestures which flow from a tiny internal initial motion, just as the prow swings through a wide circle on a small movement of the helm. point is the change of motion in a straight line to circular movement by the automatic action of the inner wheels, as well as the slight impulse given by the child. I have often seen children in old days jumping on such little carriages in the side streets of London and then swinging round in a circle. (The emendation was suggested indepen- dently by Mr. H. P. Richards and Mr. W. Ὁ. Ross.) Aristotle’s own use. I take it to refer to the cylinders of the automatic machine. St. Hilaire illustrates from comzca/l rollers which are used for crushing cement (but cf. Prod/. 913 38 where the cone is expressly κορυφῆς μενούσης). Mich. speaks vaguely of toy carriages with cylin- drical wheels, ‘ which babies drag along in their games—very pretty playthings for the colours lavished on them by painters’ ! * i.e. the body’s motions are produced physiologically (by alteration) and not mechanically. A change of temperature in the heart’s region causes an alteration in the tendons (νεῦρα) and._these pull the bones. In ch. 10 A. is gravelled by the difficulty of relating this physiological change to φορά or translation, in his system the necessarily primary motion (cf. notes to ch. 10; and Galen, referred to in 703 31 note). tions and by ideas. Sensations are obviously a form of change of quality, and imagination and conception have the same effect as the objects so imagined and conceived.

[701a.20] For in a measure the form conceived! be it of hot or cold or pleasant or fearful is like what the actual objects would be, and so we shudder and are frightened at a mere idea. Now all these affections involve changes of quality, and with those changes some parts of the body enlarge, others grow smaller. And it is not hard to see that a small

[701a.25] change occurring at the centre? makes great and numerous changes at the circumference, just as by shifting the rudder a hair’s breadth you get a wide deviation at the prow. And further,? when by reason of heat or cold or some kindred affection a change is set up in the region of the

[701a.30] heart, even in an imperceptibly small part* of the heart, it produces a vast difference in the periphery of the body,— blushing, let us say, or turning white, goose-skin and shivers and their opposites.° But to return, the object we pursue or avoid in the field 8 of action is, as has been explained, the original of move-

[701a.35] ment, and upon the conception and imagination of this there necessarily ὁ follows a change in the temperature of 1 Stecies tntelligibilis of later writers. 2 Viz. the heart (cf. ἢ 29 zzfra). For these small changes at or affect- ing the centre cf. de Anim. 403° 21 ; H..A.590°3; G. A.716” 3, 788° 11. 5 Del. full stop after πάθος. any motion at all to be there, where the thing moved is invisible; or the space it is moved in is (for the shortness of it) insensible ; yet that doth not hinder but that such motions are’; a favourite topic with Bacon, e.g. JV. O. ii. 6 ‘omnis actio naturalis transigitur per illa quae sunt minora quam ut sensum feriant’, and with Des Cartes, e.g. Princ. Phil. iv, cc1‘ At multas in singulis corporibus considero, quae nullo sensu percipiuntur: quod illi fortasse non probant, qui sensus suos pro mensura cognoscibilium sumunt’ et seq. For ships’ rudders cf. Mech. ch. 5 (lever principle). 5 Homer (//éad, N 279) gives a vivid description of the motions set up by fear. Such observations developed into the Prognostics or Symptoms of physicians (vid. Hipp. “χορ. et Ep~¢d. Book III) ; cf. Prob. 902» 37 ; the opposites are caused by θερμότης εὔκρατος, which their opposites ’ seems a gloss, cf. Mich. 115. 22. ® Des Cartes’ equivocal treatment of the Soul, and strong inclination to see automatism in bodily changes, present a remarkable contrast and parallel. (Vid. 77xaité des Passions, passim.) ANIMALIUM 8 701" the body. For what is painful we avoid, what is pleasing we pursue. We are, however, unconscious of what happens

[702a.1] in the minute parts :1 still anything painful or pleasing is generally speaking accompanied by a definite change of temperature? in the body. One may see this by con- sidering the affections. Blind courage and panic fears, erotic motions, and the rest of the corporeal affections, pleasant and painful, are all accompanied by a change of temperature, some in a particular member, others in the

[702a.5] body generally. So, memories and anticipations,’? using as it were the reflected images* of these pleasures and pains, are now more and now less causes of the same changes of temperature. And so we see the reason of nature’s handiwork® in the inward parts, and in the centres of movement of the organic members ; they change

[702a.10] from solid to moist, and from moist to solid, from soft to hard and vice versa. And so when these are affected in this way, and when besides the passive and active® have 1 Leon. apparently had λίαν λανθάνει, a variant not in E nor Y nor recorded in Bekker. The passage is out of place, but the sense is clear. Mich., with our reading, translates δέ as yap. ‘hypothetical’ school of Medicine ridiculed by Hippocrates (de antig. Med. ch. 13). In Des Cartes a purely hypothetical change in the ‘vital spirits’ is the analogue to these temperature changes. ‘The first germ of the doctrine of ‘animal spirit’ {ψυχικὸν πνεῦμα) is contained in ch. x, infra, andin G.A. It played a disproportionate part in subsequent physiology (e.g. in the Stoics and in Galen). For the bodily effects of heat and cold vid. P. A. 600” 28, 679? 25, 6928 23; zufra, 703815; G. A. 740? 32. anticipation of the future pleasures or pains’ (τὸ μὲν mpd τῶν ἡδέων * Viz. φαντάσματα, cf. Parv. Nat. 4508 13, either images, likenesses (Parv. Nat. 462° 11), called εἰκόνες (Parv. Nat. 451915; Plato, Phi. 398), and ζωγραφήματα (450% 27, Plato, ΑΖ. 40 A), or reflections (Parv. Nat. 4649), dream phantoms being like forms reflected in more or less troubled water (cf. Plato, 77m. 72 Β). The later Peripatetics called Design, is fond of calling Nature a cunning artificer, especially in his Nat. Hist. treatises. His language becomes coloured with enthusiasm in such passages as P. A. 645%9; de Inc. 711918; and G.A. 730” 27, 74323. Cf. Galen de Usu P. passim. Some have thought there was a special treatise so named, and similarly a treatise περὶ τροφῆς. On the interrelation of agent and patient cf. 702" DE MOTU the constitution we have many times described, as often as it comes to pass that one is active and the other passive, and neither of them falls short of the elements of its

[702a.15] essence,! straightway one acts and the other responds. And on this account thinking that one ought to go and going are virtually simultaneous, unless there be something else to hinder action.2, The organic parts are suitably prepared by the affections, these again by desire, and desire by imagination.? Imagination in its turn depends either

[702a.20] upon conception or sense-perception. And the simultaneity and speed are due to the natural correspondence of the active and passive. However, that which first moves the animal organism must be situate in a definite original. Now we have said that a joint is the beginning of one part of a limb, the end of another.t And so nature employs it sometimes as one, sometimes as two. When movement arises from a joint,

[702a.25] one of the extreme points must remain at rest, and the other be moved (for as we explained above the mover must support itself against a point at rest); accordingly, in the case of the elbow-joint, the last point of the forearm is moved but does not move anything, while, in the flexion, one point of the elbow, which lies in the whole forearm

[702a.30] that is being moved, is moved,® but there must also be a point which is unmoved, and this is our meaning when we speak of a point which is in potency one, but which becomes two in actual exercise. Now if the arm were the living animal, somewhere in its elbow-joint would be Parv. Nat. 46515; Physics, iii. 3; Meteor. iv; de Gen. ef Corr.i.9 ; G. A. 740» 21, 768 23. Metaphysic, ix. § (especially de Gen, et Corr. 3249; Met. 1047” 35). 1 Or ‘definition’. Cf. AZeZ, 1048% 2. 2 Cf. Met. 1048" 17. 4 Leg. ὅτι τοῦ μέν ἐστιν, Y, i.e. the elbow-joint is the end of the fore- arm, the beginning of the upper arm. The joint is ultimately two juxtaposed points (more accurately surfaces, de Anim. 43322); of these one is the original, the other the end of the extremity moved. In another sense the centre point is the middle of a line, and therefore both beginning and end (PAys. 220812, 262 21, &c.). This geometrical point is in potency two but in act one, the point here is potentially one, in act two, just because it is not a mathematical entity. Cf. de Anim. 427° Io. 5 Cf. supra, 698% 19. ANIMALIUM 8 702. situate the original seat of the moving soul. Since, how- ever, it is possible for a lifeless thing to be so. related to the hand as the forearm is to the upper (for example, when a man moves? a stick in his hand), it is evident that

[702a.35] the soul,? the original of movement, could not lie in either of the two extreme points, neither, that is, in the last point of the stick which is moved, nor in the original point which causes movement. For the stick too has an end point and 702” an originative point by reference to the hand.- Accordingly, this example shows that the moving original which derives from the soul is not in the stick; and if not, then not in the hand; for a precisely similar relation obtains between the hand‘ and the wrist, as between the wrist and the elbow. In this matter it makes no difference whether the part is a continuous part of the body or not ; the stick ® 5 may be looked at as a detached part of the whole. It follows then of necessity that the original cannot lie in any individual origin which is the end of another member, even though there may lie another part outside® the one in. question. For example, relatively to the end point of the stick the hand is the original, but the original of the hand’s movement is in the wrist. And so if the true original is not in the hand, because there is still something higher up,” neither is the true original in the wrist, for once Leal loosely of the wrist’s function, and nowhere considers the rotation of the hand, just as in de /nc. Anim. he treats only implicitly of the ankle, ignoring its rotation in human progression. If A. studied, as is almost certain, only a#zmal anatomy these movements would more easily escape him. spoken of as the original of bodily movement (cf. de Anim. 406 24, &c.). argument would fail. It is the end point where the stick meets the hand, the ‘ beginning’ or ‘ original’ is the point of the wrist which is at rest, hand being, as often, used for wrist (contrast H7..A. 493” 27). Mich. was puzzled and is more than usually unhappy in his explanation ; the confusion arises from a play upon ἀρχή, most characteristic of Aristotle (cf. 70217 note; Newman, Zhe Pol. of A. iv. 322). * Lit. extremity of the hand, viz. all the hand from the wrist (regarded as part of the hand) outwards; a popular use in Greek. 5 For the ‘ stick’ illustration cf. Phys. viii. 5. ὁ Viz. further from the centre of the organism, i.e. the heart. 7 Viz. higher up towards the shoulder—a local centre—and ultimately ν. AR. M.A. ς 702 DE MOTU more if the elbow is at rest! the whole part below it can be moved as a continuous whole. Now since the left and the right sides are symmetrical,’ 9 and these opposites are moved simultaneously,’ it cannot be that the left is moved by the right remaining stationary, 15 nor vice versa; the original must always be in what lies above both. Therefore, the original seat of the moving soul must be in that which lies in the middle, for of both extremes the middle is the limiting point ; and this is similarly related to the movements from above [and below, | those that is from the head, and ὅ to the bones which spring 20 from the spinal column, in creatures that have. a spinal column.® And this is a reasonable arrangement. For the senso- rium’ is in our opinion in the centre too; and so, if the region of the original of movement is altered in structure through sense-perception and thus changes, it carries with it the parts ὃ that depend upon it and they too are extended or contracted, and in this way the movement of the creature 25 necessarily follows. And the middle of the body must towards the heart. Cf. infra, 702515; and G. A. 788% 14 τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι μηθέν. Fr. 14018 13. ? Viz. if the lower arm and hand be held rigid, like the stick in the illustration ; similarly the ἀρχή is not in the elbow, nor yet in the shoulder. 3 τὸ ζῷον rather than ἡ ἀρχή is the implied subject. * Mich. violently turns ἅμα by κατὰ μέρος, confounding the argument. * Lit. ‘extreme’ (ἔσχατον) Of both extremes the middle is the extreme or limit point. The paradox is very Aristotelian ; cf. de Cae/o, P.A. 661% 11; Prob. 913° 36 ; Met. 1022%12; Mic. Eth. 1107%8. 654° 32, 12; Alex. de Anima, 97 |. 27), tds (sc. κινήσ εις) would imply a knowledge of the nervous system of the spine which only arose much later. The heart is also centrally situate in regard to the skeletal system, radiating from the ῥάχις. It is thus the centre of the bony and vascular, of the sensory as well as of the motor organization. heart is the original of sense apprehension, though some of the πόροι ® Viz. τὰ νεῦρα (chordae tendineae), the sinewy tendons that are con- ceived to move the limbs. The ἀρχαί or four local originals are the centres from which the limbs are moved (cf. de 71“. 7045 15). ANIMALIUM 9 702° needs be in potency one but in action more than one; for the limbs are moved simultaneously from the original seat of movement, and when one is at rest the other is moved. For example, in the line BAC,! B is moved, and A is the mover. There must, however, be a point at rest if one is to 30 move, the other to be moved. A (AE)? then being one in potency must be two in action, and so be a definite spatial magnitude not a mathematical point.2 Again, C may be moved simultaneously with B. Both the originals then in A must move and be moved, and so there must be something other than them which moves but is not moved. For otherwise, when the movement begins, the extremes, i.e. the originals, in A would rest upon one 35

[703a.1] another, like two men putting themselves back to back and so moving their legs. There must then be some one thing which moves both. This something is the soul, distinct from the spatial magnitude just described and yet located therein.° το Although from the point of view of the definition of movement—a definition which gives the cause—desire ® is A (cf. Parv. Nat. 45217; G. A. 7498, 761% 10), are lost, though substitutes appear in the margins of some MSS. According to Mich. the figure contemplated is δ΄ Ὁ Mich. speaks of A, or AE, as μέγεθός τι, so that A.’s Ε drawing may have been after the similitude of a pair A of compasses, E being the actual centre. On the central part of the heart cf. P. A. 666” 33. 2 AE in Mich.; cf. ABinS. 25; de Anim. 4021; De Incessu, 705 23 (note). A.M., lc. p. 343- B ς 5. This unity is properly the organ of soul, like Des Cartes’ pineal gland. He regarded this as the material centre of animal movement because it alone had no double in the brain (cf. de Anim. 406° 24, body to be moved 4y the soul but κατὰ ταύτην, as fire by its levity, or the artist by his art. are moved. Desire, then, is the formal cause or ground of move- ment, it remains to find the material cause. (Cf de Anim. 412° 20, ovews, f : C2 703° DE MOTU

[703a.5] the middle term or cause, and desire moves being moved,} still in the material animated body there must be some material? which itself moves being moved. Now that which is moved, but whose nature is not to initiate move- ment, is capable of being passive to an external force, while that which initiates movement must needs possess a kind of force and power. Now experience shows us that το animals do both possess connatural spirit * and derive power from this. (How this connatural spirit is maintained in the body is explained in other passages of our works.*) And this spirit appears to stand to the soul-centre or original in a relation analogous to that between the point in a joint which moves being moved and the unmoved.® Now since this centre is for some animals in the heart, in the rest in

[703a.15] a part analogous ® with the heart, we further see the reason for the connatural spirit being situate where it actually is found. The question whether the spirit remains always the same or constantly changes and is renewed, like the cognate question about the rest of the parts of the body, is better postponed.’ At ali events we see that it is well disposed * Aristotle heroically faces the difficulty of relating ἀλλοίωσις to φορά, since his general view of κίνησις involves the priority of translation to alteration. On this very obscure subject, consult among many pascages Meteor. 366% 1; de Anim. ii. 4; Parv. Nat. 474° 25 et seq.; G..A.728> 28, 735” 37, 730" 37, 741? 32, 7815 24, 789° 7. * The unnecessary assumption that this is a reference to περὶ πνεύματος, a later work, has been used as an argument against the genuineness of De Motu. The reference is the other way about, as will be seen from the opening words of de Sfirztu. The reference here is quite undetermined but we may compare de Anim. 416" 31; Parv. Nat. 456 15, 474>3; P.A.647"5, 651215. Mich. refers to περὶ τροφῆς, a work possibly contemplated by A., but if written soon lost (cf. 702" ΤΙ note). ΟΣ chs. 1 and 7 supra. The point.is here called with greater accuracy ‘moving and moved’. Cf. 702° 30 (note). 721 21,:739* 18. Ἷ Passages are scattered about the works on this question (vid. Bonitz, Index, 104” 16). The renewing agent is the blood, which generates by vital heat this ‘ spirit’ in the heart, and then by help of the lungs and the cold air from without acts and reacts upon the heart’s walls and so on the whole bodily frame. (Cf. P. A. ii. 3, iv. 4; 6. 4. ii. 6-7, ν. 43 i i i i ANIMALIUM Io 703° to excite movement and to exert power ;! and the functions

[703a.20] of movement are thrusting and pulling.? Accordingly, the organ of movement must be capable of expanding * and con- tracting ; and this is precisely the characteristic of spirit. It contracts and expands naturally, and so is able to pull and to thrust from one and the same cause, ex- hibiting gravity compared with the fiery® element, and levity by comparison with the opposites of fire. Now that a5 which is to initiate movement without change of structure must be of the kind described, for the elementary bodies? Alex. de or 94.17; Galen, de Usu Part. K. iii. 496, de Usu Resp. Κ. iv. 502. 1 φαίνεται, a reference perhaps to holding the breath when a weight is lifted. A., like gymnastic teachers to-day, supposed it gave power (cf. de Anim. 4218 3; Parv. Nat. 45615; G.A. 775" 3). ἕλξις, vid. Phys. 2435 16, 243°16. Movement, it must be remembered, is not contemplated in abstraction from bodies, but taken in the sense of movement communicated by force to body. The emendation seems certain from Mich.’s words quoted below and from I ‘tractiua et pulsiua’. ἀβίαστος is a word only found i in Antoninus (Comm. iii. 16, &c.) and Alex. Aphr. The sense is ‘naturally’ (αὐτο- λομένων is omitted by EY. Mich., probably following an older com- Aristotle seems to have conceived the contraction of the spirit as giving a pull (ἑλκτική), and its expansion as loosening the sinews, whereas Des Cartes thought the vital spirits blew up the muscles and so shortened and broadened them. A. probably was thinking of such a similitude as that of an inflated wineskin or bladder, having in mind the familiar Greek mode of reducing a dislocation of the thigh by blowing up a wineskin ; cf. Hipp. Art. 77 (Littré, iv. 310), where ἰσχύς and ἀναγκάζειν are used of the force so applied to the injured member. For the doctrine cf. de Anim. 403° 31 where ὄρεξις from a physicist’s 653° 31; and for a parallel treatment of the mechanism of respiration, PA 666” 15. We may compare also the later Stoic notions of Bia ‘respondens elemento stellarum,’ Harvey, 7reatise on Generation. ὁ Called θερμὸς ἀήρ in G. A. 7361; vital heat is not ordinary heat, and πνεῦμα a. is conceived as a nice balance between the fiery and the aery. For its volatile nature cf. G. 4.735” 34; 744° 33.2 and for the language τὰ φυσικὰ σώματα, viz. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, cf. de Cae/o, 703° DE MOTU prevail over one another in a compound body by dint of disproportion ; the light is overcome and kept down by the heavier, and the heavy kept up by the lighter. We have now explained what the part is which is moved when the soul originates movement in the body, and what is the reason for this. And the animal organism must be conceived after the similitude of a well-governed common- wealth.!| When order is once established in it there is no more need of a separate monarch to preside over each several task. The individuals each play their assigned part as it is ordered, and one thing follows another in its 5 accustomed order. So in animals there is the same order- liness—nature taking the place of custom—and each part naturally doing his own work as nature has composed them.? There is no need then of a soul in each part, but she resides in a kind of central governing place of the body, and the remaining parts live by continuity of natural structure, and play the parts Nature would have them play. 3 w 708 So much then for the voluntary movements of animal II bodies, and the reasons for them. These bodies, however, display in certain members involuntary movements too, but most often non-voluntary movements.? By involuntary I mean motions of the heart * and of the privy member ;° for often upon an image arising and without express mandate of the reason these parts are moved. By non-voluntary I nn seat of government is termed ἀκρόπολις. In Wic. Eth. 1113%8 the com- parison is with the Homeric monarchy, in Po/. 1254” 5 the relation of soul and body is that of master to slave (δεσποτικήῆ)ὴ. The simile is worked out elaborately in de Mundo, 40014 et seq. For the Stoic view vid. Seneca, Epist. Mor. 113. 23. Galen, de Usu P. Κα. iii. 268. Galen, de Placitis, vii. 4(K. v. 611) states the conflicting views about πνεῦμα. Does it pass through the body, or does a message go from the brain and produce alteration in the local nerves, or does the brain act by force without matter? This last view he illustrates from the power of the sun, who stays in his own seat and yet warms and brightens the atmosphere. de Anim. 416° 16. 3 Cf.the division of actsinto voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary, Nic. th. ii. τ: 4 Palpitation, cf. Parv. Nat. 4760 22, 479» 19, 480° 14; P.A.669% 20 (πήδησις connected with éeAmis). δ᾽ Cf. de Anim. 43228; P.A. 666" 17. ANIMALIUM 11 mean sleep and waking and respiration,’ and other similar organic movements. For neither imagination nor desire is properly mistress of any of these; but since the animal body © must undergo natural changes of quality,? and when the parts are so altered some must increase and others decrease, the body must straightway be moved and change with the changes that nature makes dependent upon one another. Now the causes of the movements are natural changes of temperature,® both those coming from outside the body, and those taking place within it.2 So the involuntary movements which occur in spite of reason in the aforesaid parts occur when a change of quality supervenes.® For conception and imagination, as we said above, produce the conditions necessary to affections, since they bring to bear the images or forms’ which tend to create these states. And the two parts aforesaid display this motion more conspicuously than the rest, because each is in ἃ sense a separate vital organism,’ the reason being that each contains vital moisture.® In the case of the heart the cause is plain, for?° the heart is the seat of the senses, while an indication that the generative organ too is vital is that there flows from it the seminal potency, itself a kind of organism. contemplate here such semi-voluntary movements as winking (P. A. oof, ᾿ Ἂν ἐκ προαιρέσεως, and compare what is said of tickling in P. A. 73°. * Mich. puts a full stop after ἀλλοίωσιν, but the apodosis is καὶ ai mapa Fe > For effect of heat and cold cf. P. A. 679% 26; Prodi. ὥρα 37. αἱ θύραθεν, cf. Phys. 2535 15; P.A. 653° 1. ® Sleep, &c., are non-voluntary movements; we set ourselves upon going to sleep and then the changes occur, largely owing to heat generated in digestion. Similarly, A. argues (like Des Cartes), the involuntary movements are bye-products of natural changes. Cf. Parv. Nat. 455° 28 ; P. A. 653% 10. 7 τὰ yap εἴδη, cf. 701» 20, supra. 5.1 do not know any other references to this individuality of organs. For the heart cf. P.A. 6665 21,17; for the other member, Plato, 777. θάυματα emphasized this individuality of the αἰδοῖον, Hdt. ii. 48; Luc. de Dea Syria, Reitz, iii. 463. 15 703° DE MOTU ANIMALIUM Σὲ Again, it is a reasonable arrangement that the movements arise in the centre upon movements in the parts, and in the parts upon movements in the centre, and so reach one another. Conceive A to be the centre or starting-point.

[703a.30] The movements then arrive at the centre from each letter in the diagram ' we have drawn, and flow back again from the centre which is moved and changes, (for the centre is potentially ? multiple) the movement of B goes to B, that of C to ὦ, the movement of both to both; but from B to C$ the movements * flow by dint of going from B to A as to

[703a.35] a centre, and then from A to C as from a centre. Moreover® a movement contrary to reason sometimes does and sometimes does not arise in the organs on the occasion of the same ® thoughts; the reason is that some-

[704a.1] times the matter which is passive’ to the impressions is there in sufficient quantity and of the right quality and sometimes not. And so we have finished our account of the reasons ® for 704” the parts of each kind of animal, of the soul, and further of sense-perception, of sleep, of memory,’ and of movement in general; it remains to speak of animal generation. 2 δυνάμει---Οὴ6 would expect ἐνεργείᾳ (702% 31, &c.). The other and more ordinary sense of potentiality has slipped in here. places it. * Leg. semicolon after ἄμφω, a comma after I’, and delete δέ after τῷ (sic ET). 6 Leg. ταὐτά (τὰ αὐτά P). Cf. Bywater, Contributions, &c., N. E. vi. 4. 1140" 18. 8. Reasons, grounds or causes—cf. supra, 698" 4; G.A. γ828 22. ® This was the position of the Treatise in Mich.’s MSS. and is the place it occupies in E 5 and P. The traditional order of the two treatises was for de Jncessu to follow de Partibus immediately (as it now follows in U Yb), and for de Motu with de Gen. Anim. to be interposed amid the treatises often called Parva Naturalia or Minuta Naturalia. These two followed de Div. per Somnum (cf. Themistius, Parva Natu- valia) and preceded de long. et brev. Vitae. The equivocal position of ἔργοις, de Anim. 43320). We may compare Ptolemy’s list of the works, where it follows immediately after de Somno. Compare also the MS.end- ing of de Div. (omitted in Bekker) and the similar words in Themistius (p. 105 v.) and Mich. Eph. p. 103. (Vid. Note at end of de Jncessu.) animals for movement in place (locomotion) ; first, why each part is such as it is and to what end they possess them ; and second, the differences’ between these parts both in one and the same creature, and again by comparison of the parts of creatures of different species with one another. First then let us lay down how many questions we have to consider. The first is what are the fewest points of motion necessary to animal progression, the second why sanguineous animals have four points * and not more, but bloodless animals more than four, and generally why some animals are footless, others bipeds, others quadrupeds, others polypods, and why all have an even number of feet, if they have feet at all; why in fine the points on which progression depends are even in number. Next, why are man and bird bipeds, but fish footless ; and why do man and bird, though both bipeds, have an opposite curvature of the legs. For man bends his legs convexly,’ a bird has his bent concavely ; again, man bends the subject generally cf. Galen, de Usu Partium, iii. 2. of attachment of the limbs, cf. izfra, 712% 19. 8 Convexly and concavely, that is forwards and backwards (27. A. 498 6, &c.), or as it is sometimes expressed outwards and inwards (P. A. 693°3; G. A. 7289, where ἐντός is correct). The terms seem chosen in this treatise to avoid confusion with the fore and hind limbs and to be later in date than de Partibus (vid. P. A. 693" 35). Forwards and backwards are clear enough, since the front of an animal is deter~ πρόσθιον, infra, 71217, cf. 705516). The next step is to call these flexions outwards and inwards (ἔξω of man’s legs, P. A. 693° 3 εἴσω of a bird’s). Man is the norm, and his knees bend away from the centre of his figure or outwards, that is ἐπὶ τὴν περιφέρειαν towards the circum- ference. This somewhat equivocally is then treated as towards the convex, and ἐπὶ τὸ κοῖλον used as its opposite. The Americans have coined the barbarous words cephalads and caudads, i.e. headwards and tailwards, for a similar purpose. , WE have now to consider the parts which are useful [61 704 DE INCESSU his arms and legs in opposite directions, for he has his arms bent convexly, but his legs concavely. And a viviparous quadruped? bends his limbs in opposite directions to a man’s, and in opposite directions to one another; for he has his forelegs bent convexly, his hind legs concavely. 7°4 Again, quadrupeds which are not viviparous but oviparous ? have a peculiar curvature of the limbs laterally * away from the body. Again, why do quadrupeds move their legs criss-cross 4? We have to examine the reasons for all these facts, and others cegnate to them ; that the facts are such is clear

[704a.10] from our Natural History,® we have now to ask reasons for the facts. At the beginning of the inquiry we must postulate the principles® we are accustomed constantly to use for our 1 Except the elephant ; H. A. 49898 ; zufra, 712° 11. ? e.g. lizards. The flexion of Ovipara is said in H.A. 498" 15 to be forwards for both pairs of limbs, but z#/va, ch. 13, their flexion is con- sidered the same as that of Viviparous Quadrupeds except for the lateral inclination. A. speaks only superficially as he did not grasp the homo- logy of the parts of the limbs. In the case of lizards and crocodiles (as in frogs) the superficial appearance is that the forelegs bend backwards, the hind legs forwards, though in some positions both look backwards bent, never both forwards. The text of 7.4. 498815 seems therefore corrupted, though the general drift shows that A. there contrasted vivi- parous and oviparous quadrupeds in this regard (cf. 4988 23). * Cf. H. A. 490° 4 lit. diagonally, i.e. the normal contrary movement of a trotting horse’s feet, near fore with off hind (cf. zfra, ch. 14). In the trot the pairs come down exactly together. A. considers a galop forcé to be abnormal, not progression but jumping (cf. ch. 14). In A.A. 498" 6 he records another kind, the amble of the camel, as normal to it (and tothe lion!) In ch. 14 he does not seem to remember about the camel, which achieves what he there regards as dynamically impossible. 5 ἱστορία φυσική, cf. P..A. 650% 32, the original of our term Natural History. The reference is to the work called usually ai περὶ τῶν ζῴων ἱστορίαι, vid. H..A. 490” 4, 4985 3 seq.; cf. P. A. 6465 9. 5 Unfortunately A. instances only the principles of Purpose, and of Selection of the Best Possible (Bonitz, Judex, 836% 48) ; cf. Leibniz, ΟΖ. (ed. Erdmann) p. 106, ‘ Bien loin d’exclure les causes finales et la con- sidération d’un Etre agissant avec sagesse, c’est de 14 qu’il faut tout déduire en Physique.’ In the following few pages A. appeals also to : (2) Economy or Organic Equivalents, 710% 32, 716% 16,cf. P. 4. 652931, 658% 34, 694> 18 et passim, a species of Compensation, 27. A. 487 26, 504>7 et saepe. (3) Bilateral Symmetry, 710° 3, cf. P..A. 65631, 663%22, 6695 17, 6865 12. (4) Specialized Differentiation, viz. one organ for one primary pur- pose, 7068 18, cf. Po/. 1252°3, &c.

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