Now that with which the ancient writers, who first philosophized
about Nature, busied themselves, was the material principle and the
material cause. They inquired what this is, and what its character;
how the universe is generated out of it, and by what motor
influence, whether, for instance, by antagonism or friendship, whether
by intelligence or spontaneous action, the substratum of matter
being assumed to have certain inseparable properties; fire, for
instance, to have a hot nature, earth a cold one; the former to be
light, the latter heavy. For even the genesis of the universe is
thus explained by them. After a like fashion do they deal also with
the development of plants and of animals. They say, for instance, that
the water contained in the body causes by its currents the formation
of the stomach and the other receptacles of food or of excretion;
and that the breath by its passage breaks open the outlets of the
nostrils; air and water being the materials of which bodies are
made; for all represent nature as composed of such or similar
substances.
But if men and animals and their several parts are natural
phenomena, then the natural philosopher must take into consideration
not merely the ultimate substances of which they are made, but also
flesh, bone, blood, and all other homogeneous parts; not only these,
but also the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, foot; and must
examine how each of these comes to be what it is, and in virtue of
what force.
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