1. 5. 17 



representations of them were attractive, because they disclose the 

 mimetic skill of the painter or sculptor, and the original realities 

 themselves were not more interesting, to all at any rate who have 

 eyes to discern the reason that presided over their formation. 

 We therefore must not recoil with childish aversion from the 

 examination of the humbler animals. Every realm of nature is 

 marvellous : and as Heraclitus, when the strangers who came to 

 visit him found him warming himself at the furnace in the kitchen, 

 is reported to have bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even 

 in that kitchen divinities were present, so we should venture on the 

 study of every kind of animal without distaste ; for each and all will 

 reveal to us something natural and something beautiful. Absence 

 of hap-hazard and conduciveness of everything to an end are to be 

 found in Nature's works in the highest degree, and the resultant 

 end of her generations and combinations is a form of the beautiful. 



If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal 

 kingdom an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the 

 study of man. For no one can look at the primordia of the 

 human frame — blood, flesh, bones, vessels, and the like — without 

 much repugnance.^ Moreover, in every inquiry, the examination 

 of material elements and instruments is not to be regarded as 

 final, but as ancillary to the conception of the total form. Thus 

 the true object of architecture is not bricks mortar or timber, 

 but the house ; and so the principal object of natural philosophy 

 is not the material elements, but their composition, and the totality 

 of the form to which they are subservient, and independently of 

 which they have no existence. 



The course of exposition must be first to state the attributes 

 common to whole groups of animals, and then to attempt to 

 give their explanation. Many groups, as already noticed, present 

 absolutely common attributes, that is to say, absolutely identical 

 affections, and absolutely identical organs, feet, feathers, scales, and 

 the like ; while in other groups the affections and organs are 

 only so far identical as that they are analogous. For instance, 

 some groups have lungs, others have no lung, but an organ 

 analogous to a lung in its place ; some have blood, others have 

 no blood, but a fluid analogous to blood, and with the same 

 office. To treat of the common attributes in connexion with each 

 individual group would involve, as already suggested, useless 

 iteration. So much for this topic. 



645 b. 2 



