GENERATION OF ANIMALS 



(31) (F) Under the same category too must be placed the use 

 of the term Swa/xts in the remarkable discussion on 

 heredity in Book IV. This is admittedly a particular- 

 ized use of the term," and Aristotle carefully explains its 

 meaning when he first introduces it (767 b 2S if., q.v.). 

 But here too it is applied to special and distinctive char- 

 acteristics, be it those of genus, species, or individual, 

 and therefore this use of it stands in the same line of 

 succession as the meaning already described in §§ 24 fF. 

 As for the way in which Aristotle conceived these 

 Swa/i«? to operate, it is clear that, as they were present 

 both in the semen and in the menstrual fluid (see lor. 

 cit.) and gave rise to /fivTywet? (767 b 36), they must have 

 been closely associated with Soul and inherent in its 

 instrument pneuma. 



(32) It may be noted here that the physical substance con- Pneuma. 

 cerned throughout the theory of generation is pneuma 



(a substance " analogous to aitker," the " fifth element," 

 the " element of the stars "), with which Soul is " associ- 

 ated " ; and it is this pneuma which Soul charges with 

 a specific " movement " and uses as its " instrument " 

 in generation just as it does in locomotion, and as an 

 artist uses his instruments, to which he imparts " move- 

 ment," in order to create his works of art. (For fuller 

 details about pneuma, see App. B, and cf. % 45.) 



(33) Thus Swofu^, even at its most glorified, still retains the Continnity 

 marks of its descent from the historic Swa/xty of the '"l meaning 

 early medicine, for, although Soul-heat is something ° yncimxs. 

 different from the old depfiov and superior to it, neverthe- 

 less it is still depftov. And there is another respect in 



which its descent is still to be seen, though this time it 

 may be fortuitous and perhaps no more than a verbal 

 coincidence. This physical substance is the vehicle for 

 the activity of Form (eiSos) ; and in the Hippocratic 

 treatise tt. apxairjs iTp-pucrj^ each of the innumerable 

 physical substances known as 8wa/ici? had also been 

 called an eJSo?. 



(34) (G) We now come to the last and most tv'pically Aris- Dyna»ii» as 

 totelian of the meanings of bwafus : and although it is ".P"*^,"^' 



« And therefore I have felt justified in translating it " faculty " in 

 this sense, to avoid repeated reciurence of the Greek word transliterated. 

 It may perhaps l)e simply an extension of the meaning dealt with in 

 the last section but one. 



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