GENERATION OF ANIMALS, II. vi. 



This concludes our discussion about the eyes. We 

 have said how they are formed, and why, and what 

 is the reason that they are the last of all the parts to 

 be articulated. 



Each of the remaining parts is formed out of the 

 nourishment. The most honourable ones, those 

 which have a share in the supreme controlUng prin- 

 ciple, are formed out of the first of the nourishment," 

 which has been concocted and is purest ; the " neces- 

 >-ary " parts,* which exist for the sake of those just 

 mentioned, are formed out of inferior nourishment, 

 out of the lea^ings and the residues. Like a good 

 housekeeper. Nature is not accustomed to throw 

 anything away if something useful can be made out 

 of it. In housekeeping the best of the food available 

 is reserved for the freemen ; the residue left over 

 from this as well as the inferior food goes to the 

 servants, and the worst of all goes to the domestic 

 animals. Here then is an instance of a mind, external 

 to them, acting so as to pro\ide for their groA\'th. In 

 the same way Nature is at work \Wthin the creatures 

 themselves that are being formed, and constructs 

 flesh '^ and the bodily parts of the other sense-organs 

 out of the purest of the material, whereas out of the 

 residues she constructs bones and sinews and hair, 

 and also nails and hoofs and all such things, which 

 means that they have to wait till Nature has some 

 residue to hand, and that is why they are the last 

 to be constructed. 



The bones, then, are formed during the first stage Bones, etc. 

 of construction out of the seminal residue, and as the 

 animal grows they grow too. Their gro^^i:h is derived 

 from the natural nourishment, which is the same as 

 that which suppHes the supreme parts ; only they 



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