Page:Greek Biology and Medicine.djvu/88

 GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE cause is still more dominant than in works of art." So it constitutes the nature of the animal or the nature of an organ more than the -material of its body or the necessary pro- cesses of its growth or natural formation do/° [Yet] " in order of time, the material and the generative process must necessarily be an- terior to the being that is generated; but in logical order the definitive character and form of each being precedes the material." " But Nature flies from the infinite," says Aristotle in consonance with his Greek tem- perament, and, thinking of the literally un- ending confusion that would result if parents did not produce offspring of the same kind with themselves, he says: "for the infinite is un- ending or imperfect, and Nature ever seeks an end." " So universal Nature, or Nature in the large, and so the nature of the individual animal. As for the natural philosopher, he would be but a crude teleologist, with but a crude notion of the working of final cause, that is, of plan and purposeful utility, did he not find this plan and use in every detail of the animal structure. Since the soul, or life, or the full living functioning is the end or object of each [66]