Notes, iv. 10. 237 



rest of the body. In consequence the middle point of the height of the body— which at 

 birth is situated about the umbilicus — becomes gradually lower until, in the adult male, 

 it is as low as the symphysis pubis" (Huxley's Verteb. p. 488). On the other hand, 

 every one is familiar with the preponderate length of a colt's legs as compared with that 

 of its body. Lastly, if one compares a kitten with a cat, one finds no such contrast of 

 proportions. 



11. Two of the mundane elements, earth and water, tend to fall downwards, the 

 remaining two, air and fire, to mount upwards. Cf. ii. i, Note i. Taking the passage 

 in the text by itself, it might be inferred that A. supposed the soul or vital principle to be 

 identical with heat, as did Democritus. But it was not so. Heat is elsewhere (ii. 7, 6) 

 said to be necessary for the operations of the soul, as its chief instrument, but not to be 

 the soul itself. So also fire (Z>. A. ii. 4, 12) is said not to be the true cause of growth 

 or nutrition, but only an assistant cause. Cf. i. I, Note 13, and ii. 6, Note 7. 



12. A. here takes man as the starting-point, and descends from him to inferior creatures 

 by a succession of small degradations. Elsewhere, however (iv. 5, and H. A. viii. i), 

 he follows the other course, and starting from the simplest organisms mounts upwards, 

 until a succession of superadded improvements brings him to man. In the absence of 

 any notion of the evolution of the more complex from the simpler species, one mode of 

 viewing the series was as good as the other. Lamarck, however, is not quite accurate 

 in stating {Phil. Zool. i. 8) that his predecessors, including Aristotle, had invariably in 

 their serial classifications inverted what he insisted was the natural order. 



13. Answers, that is to say, to the excretions of animals. Cf. ii. 3, Note 8 ; iv. 5, 

 Note 60. 



14. Cf. ii. 16, Note 13. That the function is superadded to the organ is A.'s usual 

 statement. Somewhat inconsistently, however, he says in one place (Z>. A. ii. 9, 3), 

 " Man has a far more accurate sense of touch than other animals. For which reason 

 he is also far more intelligent than they." Lastly, in another passage (Z?. G. iv. i, 32) 

 he adopts the more tenable position that organ and function are given together. 



15. The seeming impotence of man as compared with other animals has always been 

 a favourite topic. See for instance Shaftesbury, Moralists, 2, 4. The following passage 

 quoted by Sir C. Bell {Bridgewater Treat, p. 106) from Ray, is clearly an imitation of 

 Aristotle : "Some animals have horns, some hoofs, some teeth, some talons, some claws, 

 some spurs and beaks. Man hath none of these, but is weak and feeble and sent unarmed 

 into the world. Why, a hand with reason to use it supplies the use of all these." 



16. I have introduced the short clause in brackets to give logical sequence. Plato 

 represents the nails as useless to man, but as given to him by the Creator, because he 

 foresaw that human beings would be degraded into beasts, to whom nails would be of use. 

 Galen (De Usu part. i. 8) rejects both Plato's and Aristotle's explanations ; and, in answer 

 to A.'s view, objects, that the nails in men are clearly incapable of affording any 

 protection either against changes of temperature or against injuries. His own opinion 

 was that the nails were designed to support the yielding tips of the fingers and to render 

 them more serviceable in the prehension of small objects, which would otherwise slip 

 from them. The modern view is either somewhat similar to this, namely, that they 

 serve by their solidity to give a certain degree of firmness to the tips of the fingers, and 

 so enable them to perceive slight degrees of pressure more perfectly, so far agreeing in 

 function with the phalangeal bones and the tactile corpuscles (Kolliker, Hum. Micr. Anat. 

 p. 85) ; or is something hke the view of Plato, inverted, namely that man has them in a 

 rudimentary condition, because he has inherited them from predecessors in byegone ages, 

 to whom they were of use. 



