PARTS OF ANIiMALS, IV. x. 



locomotion is effected. In man, the size of the trunk 

 is proportionate to the lo\ver portions, and as a man 

 grows up it becomes much smaller in proportion. 

 In infancy the reverse is found : the upper portion is 

 large and the lower is small (and that is why infants 

 cannot walk but crawl about, and at the very be- 

 ginning cannot even crawl, but remain where they 

 are). In other words, all children are dΛvarfs. Now, 

 in man, as time proceeds, the lower portion grows : 

 Not so with the quadruped animals : their lower 

 portion is biggest at the beginning, and as time 

 proceeds the top portion grows (i.e. the trunk, the 

 portion between the head and the seat). Thus foals 

 are quite or almost as high as horses, and at that age a 

 foal can touch its head with its hind leg, but not when 

 it is older."^ What has been said holds good of the 

 animals that have solid hoofs or cloven. The poly- 

 dactylous, hornless animals are indeed dwarf-like 

 too, but not so markedly, and so the growth of their 

 lower portions compared Avith the upper is propor- 

 tionate to the smaller deficiency. 



The whole groups of birds and fishes are dwarf-like ; 

 indeed, so is every animal with blood in it, as I have 

 said. This is why all animals are less intelligent than 

 man. Even among human beings, children, when 

 compared with adults, and dwarf adults when com- 

 pared with others, may have some characteristics in 

 which they are superior, but in intelligence, at any 

 rate, they are inferior. And the reason, as afore- 

 said, is that in very many of them the principle of the 

 soul is sluggish and corporeal. And if the heat which 



« These observations are entirely correct. Cf. Ogle's 

 quotation ad loc. from T. H. Huxley. See also Hist. an. 

 500 b 26 ff. 



369 



