PARTS OF ANIMALS, IV. x. 



raises the organism up wanes still further while the 

 earthy matter waxes,*^ then the animals' bodies wane, 

 and they will be many-footed ; and finally they lose 

 their feet altogether and lie full length on the ground. 

 Proceeding a little further in this way, they actually 

 have their principal part down below, and finally the 

 part which answers to a head comes to have neither 

 motion nor sensation ; at this stage the creature 

 becomes a plant, and has its upper parts below and its 

 nether parts aloft ; for in plants the roots have the 

 character and value of mouth and head, whereas the 

 seed counts as the opposite,^ being produced in the 

 upper part of the plant on the ends of the twigs. 



We have now stated why it is that some animals 

 have two feet, some many, some none at all ; why 

 some creatures are plants and some animals ; and 

 why man is the only one of the animals that stands 

 upright. And since man stands upright, he has no 

 need of legs in front ; instead of them Nature has 

 given him arms and hands. Anaxagoras indeed 

 asserts that it is his possession of hands that makes 

 man the most intelligent of the animals ; but surely 

 the reasonable point of view is that it is because he 

 is the most intelligent animal that he has got hands. 

 Hands are an instrument ; and Nature, like a sen- 

 sible human being, always assigns an organ to the 

 animal that can use it (as it is more in keeping to 

 give flutes to a man who is already a flute-player 

 than to provide a man who possesses flutes with the 

 skill to play them) ; thus Nature has provided that 

 which is less as an addition to that which is greater 

 and superior ; not vice versa. We may conclude, then, 

 that, if this is the better way, and if Nature always does 

 the best she can in the circumstances, it is not true 



, 371 



