GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



soul with its distinguishing properties. The 

 motor or efficient cause must be subordinate to 

 the final cause, and never the reverse. 



To illustrate by a famous instance: " Stand- 

 ing thus erect, man has no need of legs in 

 front, and in their stead has been endowed by 

 nature with arms and hands. Now it is the 

 opinion of Anaxagoras that the possession of 

 these hands is the cause of man being of all 

 animals the most intelligent. But it is more 

 rational to suppose that his endowment with 

 hands is the consequence rather than the 

 cause of his superior intelligence. For the 

 hands are instruments or organs, and the in- 

 variable plan of nature in distributing the 

 organs is to give each to such animal as can 

 make use of it; nature acting in this matter as 

 any prudent man would do. , . . We must con- 

 clude that man does not owe his superior in- 

 telligence to his hands, but his hands to his 

 superior intelligence." ** 



Modern biology finds other factors entering 

 this problem, which is part of a large cont'-o- 

 versy still. Our biologists might not decide 

 for Aristotle here, yet would be well disposed 

 toward another deduction which he drew from 

 his teleological creed: aberrant or occasional 



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