Aristotle THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

128 pages - You are on Page 35

In the case of the ovipara, as the crocodile and the lizard and the like, both pairs of legs, fore and hind, bend forwards, with a slight swerve on one side. The flexion is similar in the case of the multipeds; only that the legs in between the extreme ends always move in a manner intermediate between that of those in front and those behind, and accordingly bend sideways rather than backwards or forwards. But man bends his arms and his legs towards the same point, and therefore in opposite ways: that is to say, he bends his arms backwards, with just a slight inclination inwards, and his legs frontwards. No animal bends both its fore-limbs and hind-limbs backwards; but in the case of all animals the flexion of the shoulders is in the opposite direction to that of the elbows or the joints of the forelegs, and the flexure in the hips to that of the knees of the hind-legs: so that since man differs from other animals in flexion, those animals that possess such parts as these move them contrariwise to man.

Birds have the flexions of their limbs like those of the quadrupeds; for, although bipeds, they bend their legs backwards, and instead of arms or front legs have wings which bend frontwards.

The seal is a kind of imperfect or crippled quadruped; for just behind the shoulder-blade its front feet are placed, resembling hands, like the front paws of the bear; for they are furnished with five toes, and each of the toes has three flexions and a nail of inconsiderable size. The hind feet are also furnished with five toes; in their flexions and nails they resemble the front feet, and in shape they resemble a fish's tail.

The movements of animals, quadruped and multiped, are crosswise, or in diagonals, and their equilibrium in standing posture is maintained crosswise; and it is always the limb on the right-hand side that is the first to move. The lion, however, and the two species of camels, both the Bactrian and the Arabian, progress by an amble; and the action so called is when the animal never overpasses the right with the left, but always follows close upon it.

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