Aristotle ON THE PARTS OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by W. Ogle.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

144 pages - You are on Page 39

Now in some animals this supporting substance is situated within the body, while in some of the bloodless species it is placed on the outside. The latter is the case in all the Crustacea, as the Carcini (Crabs) and the Carabi (Prickly Lobsters); it is the case also in the Testacea, as for instance in the several species known by the general name of oysters. For in all these animals the fleshy substance is within, and the earthy matter, which holds the soft parts together and keeps them from injury, is on the outside. For the shell not only enables the soft parts to hold together, but also, as the animal is bloodless and so has but little natural warmth, surrounds it, as a chaufferette does the embers, and keeps in the smouldering heat. Similar to this seems to be the arrangement in another and distinct tribe of animals, namely the Tortoises, including the Chelone and the several kinds of Emys. But in Insects and in Cephalopods the plan is entirely different, there being moreover a contrast between these two themselves. For in neither of these does there appear to be any bony or earthy part, worthy of notice, distinctly separated from the rest of the body. Thus in the Cephalopods the main bulk of the body consists of a soft flesh-like substance, or rather of a substance which is intermediate to flesh and sinew, so as not to be so readily destructible as actual flesh. I call this substance intermediate to flesh and sinew, because it is soft like the former, while it admits of stretching like the latter. Its cleavage, however, is such that it splits not longitudinally, like sinew, but into circular segments, this being the most advantageous condition, so far as strength is concerned. These animals have also a part inside them corresponding to the spinous bones of fishes. For instance, in the Cuttle-fishes there is what is known as the os sepiae, and in the Calamaries there is the so-called gladius. In the Poulps, on the other hand, there is no such internal part, because the body, or, as it is termed in them, the head, forms but a short sac, whereas it is of considerable length in the other two; and it was this length which led nature to assign to them their hard support, so as to ensure their straightness and inflexibility; just as she has assigned to sanguineous animals their bones or their fish-spines, as the case may be. To come now to Insects. In these the arrangement is quite different from that of the Cephalopods; quite different also from that which obtains in sanguineous animals, as indeed has been already stated. For in an insect there is no distinction into soft and hard parts, but the whole body is hard, the hardness, however, being of such a character as to be more flesh-like than bone, and more earthy and bone-like than flesh. The purpose of this is to make the body of the insect less liable to get broken into pieces.

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