The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (106 page)

2
     On the whole, forasmuch as certain of the lower animals also dream, it may be concluded that dreams are not sent by God, nor are they designed for this purpose [to reveal the future]. They have a divine aspect, however, for Nature [their cause] is divinely planned,
(15)
though not itself divine. A special proof [of their not being sent by God] is this: the power of foreseeing the future and of having vivid dreams is found in persons of inferior type, which implies that God does not send their dreams; but merely that all those whose physical temperament is, as it were, garrulous and excitable, see sights of all descriptions; for, inasmuch as they experience many movements of every kind, they just chance to have visions resembling objective facts,
(20)
their luck in these matters being merely like that of persons who play at even and odd. For the principle which is expressed in the gambler’s maxim: ‘If you make many throws your luck must change,’ holds good in their case also.

That many dreams have no fulfilment is not strange, for it is so too with many bodily symptoms and weather-signs, e. g.,
(25)
those of rain or wind. For if another movement occurs more influential than that from which, while [the event to which it was pointed was] still future, the given token was derived, the event [to which such token pointed] does not take place. So, of the things which ought to be accomplished by human agency, many, though well-planned, are by the operation of other principles more powerful [than man’s agency] brought to nought. For, speaking generally, that which
was
about to happen is not in every case what now is
happening
; nor is that which
shall
hereafter
be
identical with that which
is
now
going to
be. Still,
(30)
however, we must hold that the beginnings from which, as we said, no consummation follows, are
real
beginnings, and these constitute natural tokens of certain events, even though the events do not come to pass.

As for [prophetic] dreams which involve not such beginnings [sc. of future events] as we have here described, but such as are extravagant in times, or places, or magnitudes; or those involving beginnings which are not extravagant in any of these respects, while yet the persons who see the dream hold not in their own hands the beginnings [of the event to which it points]: unless the foresight which such dreams give is the result of pure coincidence, the following would be a better explanation of it than that proposed by Democritus,
(5)
who alleges ‘images’ and ‘emanations’ as its cause.
[464a]
As, when something
has caused motion in water or air, this [the portion moved] moves another [portion of water or air], and, though the cause has ceased to operate, such motion propagates itself to a certain point, though there the prime movent is not present; just so it may well be that a movement and a consequent sense-perception should reach sleeping souls from the objects from which Democritus represents images’ and ‘emanations’ as coming; that such movements,
(10)
in whatever way they arrive, should be more perceptible at night [than by day], because when proceeding thus in the daytime they are more liable to dissolution (since at night the air is less disturbed, there being then less wind); and that they shall be perceived within the body owing to sleep,
(15)
since persons are more sensitive even to slight sensory movements when asleep than when awake. It is these movements then that cause ‘presentations’, as a result of which sleepers foresee the future even relatively to such events as those referred to above. These considerations also explain why this experience befalls commonplace persons and not the most intelligent.
(20)
For it would have regularly occurred both in the daytime and to the wise had it been God who sent it; but, as we have explained the matter, it is quite natural that commonplace persons should be those who have foresight [in dreams]. For the mind of such persons is not given to thinking, but, as it were, derelict, or totally vacant, and, when once set moving, is borne passively on in the direction taken by that which moves it. With regard to the fact that some persons who are liable to derangement have this foresight,
(25)
its explanation is that their normal mental movements do not impede [the alien movements], but are beaten off by the latter. Therefore it is that they have an especially keen perception of the alien movements.

That certain persons in particular should have vivid dreams, e. g. that familiar friends should thus have foresight in a special degree respecting one another, is due to the fact that such friends are most solicitous on one another’s behalf. For as acquaintances in particular recognize and perceive one another a long way off,
(30)
so also they do as regards the sensory movements respecting one another; for sensory movements which refer to persons familiarly known are themselves more familiar. Atrabilious persons, owing to their impetuosity, are, when they, as it were, shoot from a distance, expert at hitting; while, owing to their mutability, the series of movements deploys quickly before their minds.
[464b]
For even as the insane recite, or con over in thought, the poems of Philaegides, e. g. the Aphrodite, whose parts succeed in order of similitude, just so do they [the ‘atrabilious’] go on and on stringing sensory movements together. Moreover, owing
to their aforesaid impetuosity,
(5)
one movement within them is not liable to be knocked out of its course by some other movement.

The most skilful interpreter of dreams is he who has the faculty of observing resemblances. Any one may interpret dreams which are vivid and plain. But, speaking of ‘resemblances’, I mean that dream presentations are analogous to the forms reflected in water,
(10)
as indeed we have already stated. In the latter case, if the motion in the water be great, the reflexion has no resemblance to its original, nor do the forms resemble the real objects. Skilful, indeed, would he be in interpreting such reflexions who could rapidly discern, and at a glance comprehend, the scattered and distorted fragments of such forms, so as to perceive that one of them represents a man, or a horse,
(15)
or anything whatever. Accordingly, in the other case also, in a similar way, some such thing as this [blurred image] is all that a dream amounts to; for the internal movement effaces the clearness of the dream.

The questions, therefore, which we proposed as to the nature of sleep and the dream, and the cause to which each of them is due, and also as to divination as a result of dreams, in every form of it, have now been discussed.

   
CHAPTER

  
1.
   Of generation, spontaneous and hereditary.

  
1.
   Of the psychology of animals; of the principle of continuity in the scale of organisms; and of the definition of plant and animal.

  
1.
   Of the psychology of animals; of the psychological differentiation of the sexes; of the sympathy and antipathy of various animals one to another; and of the habits of the elephant.

1
     
[538b]
As to the parts internal and external that all animals are furnished withal, and further as to the senses, to voice, and sleep, and the duality of sex,
(30)
all these topics have now been touched upon.
[539a]
It now remains for us to discuss, duly and in order, their several modes of propagation.

These modes are many and diverse, and in some respects are alike, and in other respects are unlike to one another. As we carried on our previous discussion genus by genus, so we must attempt to follow the same divisions in our present argument; only that whereas in the former case we started with a consideration of the parts of man,
(5)
in the present case it behooves us to treat of man last of all because he involves most discussion. We shall commence, then, with testaceans,
(10)
and then proceed to crustaceans, and then to the other genera in due order; and these other genera are, severally, molluscs, and insects, then fishes viviparous and fishes oviparous, and next birds; and afterwards we shall treat of animals provided with feet, both such as are oviparous and such as are viviparous; and we may observe that some quadrupeds are viviparous, but that the only viviparous biped is man.
(15)

Now there is one property that animals are found to have in common with plants. For some plants are generated from the seed of plants, whilst other plants are self-generated through the formation of some elemental principle similar to a seed; and of these latter plants some derive their nutriment from the ground, whilst others grow inside other plants, as is mentioned, by the way,
(20)
in my treatise on Botany. So with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.
(25)

In animals where generation goes by heredity, wherever there is duality of sex generation is due to copulation. In the group of fishes,
however, there are some that are neither male nor female, and these, while they are identical generically with other fish, differ from them specifically; but there are others that stand altogether isolated and apart by themselves. Other fishes there are that are always female and never male,
(30)
and from them are conceived what correspond to the wind-eggs in birds. Such eggs, by the way, in birds are all unfruitful; but it is their nature to be independently capable of generation up to the egg-stage, unless indeed there be some other mode than the one familiar to us of intercourse with the male; but concerning these topics we shall treat more precisely later on.
[539b]
In the case of certain fishes, however, after they have spontaneously generated eggs, these eggs develop into living animals; only that in certain of these cases development is spontaneous, and in others is not independent of the male; and the method of proceeding in regard to these matters will be set forth by and by,
(5)
for the method is somewhat like to the method followed in the case of birds. But whensoever creatures are spontaneously generated, either in other animals, in the soil, or on plants, or in the parts of these, and when such are generated male and female, then from the copulation of such spontaneously generated males and females there is generated a something—a something never identical in shape with the parents,
(10)
but a something imperfect. For instance, the issue of copulation in lice is nits; in flies, grubs; in fleas, grubs egg-like in shape; and from these issues the parent-species is never reproduced, nor is any animal produced at all, but the like nondescripts only.

First, then, we must proceed to treat of ‘covering’ in regard to such animals as cover and are covered; and then after this to treat in due order of other matters,
(15)
both the exceptional and those of general occurrence. [Chapters 2–34 of Book V and Books VI and VII omitted.]

1
     
[588a]
We have now discussed the physical characteristics of animals and their methods of generation. Their habits and their modes of living vary according to their character and their food.

In the great majority of animals there are traces of psychical qualities or attitudes, which qualities are more markedly differentiated in the case of human beings.
(20)
For just as we pointed out resemblances in the physical organs, so in a number of animals we observe gentleness or fierceness, mildness or cross temper, courage or timidity, fear or confidence, high spirit or low cunning, and, with regard to intelligence, something equivalent to sagacity. Some of these qualities in
man, as compared with the corresponding qualities in animals,
(25)
differ only quantitatively: that is to say, a man has more or less of this quality, and an animal has more or less of some other; other qualities in man are represented by analogous and not identical qualities: for instance, just as in man we find knowledge, wisdom, and sagacity, so in certain animals there exists some other natural potentiality akin to these.
(30)
The truth of this statement will be the more clearly apprehended if we have regard to the phenomena of childhood: for in children may be observed the traces and seeds of what will one day be settled psychological habits, though psychologically a child hardly differs for the time being from an animal; so that one is quite justified in saying that, as regards man and animals, certain psychical qualities are identical with one another, whilst others resemble, and others are analogous to, each other.

[588b]
Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation,
(5)
nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie. Thus, next after lifeless things in the upward scale comes the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life as compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities.
(10)
Indeed, as we just remarked, there is observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So, in the sea, there are certain objects concerning which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable. For instance, certain of these objects are fairly rooted, and in several cases perish if detached; thus the pinna is rooted to a particular spot,
(15)
and the solen (or razor-shell) cannot survive withdrawal from its burrow. Indeed, broadly speaking, the entire genus of testaceans have a resemblance to vegetables, if they be contrasted with such animals as are capable of progression.

In regard to sensibility, some animals give no indication whatsoever of it, whilst others indicate it but indistinctly. Further, the substance of some of these intermediate creatures is fleshlike, as is the case with the so-called tethya (or ascidians) and the acalephae (or sea-anemones); but the sponge is in every respect like a vegetable.
(20)
And so throughout the entire animal scale there is a graduated differentiation in amount of vitality and in capacity for motion.

A similar statement holds good with regard to habits of life. Thus of plants that spring from seed the one function seems to be the reproduction of their own particular species, and the sphere of action with certain animals is similarly limited.
(25)
The faculty of reproduction,
then, is common to all alike. If sensibility be superadded, then their lives will differ from one another in respect to sexual intercourse through the varying amount of pleasure derived therefrom,
(30)
and also in regard to modes of parturition and ways of rearing their young. Some animals, like plants, simply procreate their own species at definite seasons; other animals busy themselves also in procuring food for their young, and after they are reared quit them and have no further dealings with them; other animals are more intelligent and endowed with memory, and they live with their offspring for a longer period and on a more social footing.
[589a]

The life of animals, then, may be divided into two acts—procreation and feeding; for on these two acts all their interests and life concentrate.
(5)
Their food depends chiefly on the substance of which they are severally constituted; for the source of their growth in all cases will be this substance. And whatsoever is in conformity with nature is pleasant, and all animals pursue pleasure in keeping with their nature. [Chapters 2–30 of Book VIII omitted.]