ARISTOTLE 



about these Causes as inferior to what he has to say 

 on other matters. It is, however, open to question 

 whether Aristotle would in fact have reached some 

 of his most valuable conclusions apart from his insist- 

 ence upon the pre-eminence of the Final Cause (any 

 more than Harvey might have discovered the circula- 

 tion of the blood unless he had tried to discover what 

 was the Final Cause of the valves in the veins) ; and 

 although Aristotle was of course ignorant of the 

 existence of spermatozoa and of the mammalian 

 ovum," and although he considered that the menstrual 

 fluid was the " matter " out of which the embryo was 

 formed, it is not so certain that he was quite as 

 wrong-headed as he is often said to be. 



Before coming to a conclusion, we must consider 

 what exactly Aristotle meant by Form and Matter 

 in this connexion. In the first place, we must realize 

 that the Form is not bare Form, nor is the Matter 

 bare Matter : this, indeed, is a fundamental doctrine 

 of Aristotle. Form is not found apart from Matter 

 (that was a Platonic view),* nor is Matter found which 

 is not to some extent " informed " ; and Aristotle 

 can say (end of Met. H) that Matter in its ultimate 

 stage is identical with Form (see Introd. § 17). At 

 any rate, the Matter with which we are concerned in 

 the generation of animals is far from being " un- 

 informed." Like the " residue " contributed by the 

 male, the " residue " contributed by the female is 

 " concocted blood " ; and, since blood is the " ulti- 

 mate nourishment " which maintains the upkeep of 



" Discovered by K. E. von Baer 5 there is a complete 

 facsimile of tils fundamental memoir De ovi mammalium et 

 hominis genesi (Leipzig, 1827) in Sarton's his, XVI (1931), 

 313 ff. 



