The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-09-29
with un gxpls6aAtff5o1-Fi it 6nH ee,,as.

Reasonable to his w mind.
HisrCerrors1of. mere statement re-
specting the body are numerdlsiShd
remarkable. he says, for ezSmple,
that the human kidney Is lobedssfhat
man has but eight ribs; that theheart
has only three chambers; thatzthe.
brain contains no blood; and that the
back part of tho human skull is emp
ty; all7of which are manifest errors :.
He supposed thatthe foodinthe stom-
ach was cooked by the heat of the body,
and that while it is cooking the liqui-
fed food stea7ns up into the heart,
where it is converted into blood. Ma
ture he says, being an economist, gives
the best part of the food to the noblest
parts of the body; as masters eat the
best lportions of an animal, the slaves
the inferior parts, and the dogs the
refuse. -'-r. ..T.
Since the interior of the. body is so
hot that food is cooked merely by the
natural heat, he felt it necessary to
explain why the body did hot get too
hot, and consume itself. This would
certainly be the case, he says, if we
did not continually inhale cool airl
Breathing is the cooling process; and
air alone, he adds, would answer the
purpose, because its hghtness enables
ffSto penetrate into many parts Of the.
f6ody which water could not enter.
He misstates many things which he
Ipould have verified with the utmost
ease. He says, for example, that a
man has more teeth than a woman,
and that the OK and the horse have
each a bone in its heart. Mice, he in
forms us, die if they drink in summer;
and all animals bitten by mad dogs go
mad, except man. He also says, that
Ihorses feeding in meadows suffer from
no disease except govt, which destroys
their hoofs, and that one sign of this
disease is the appearance of a deep
wrinkle beneath the nose. i' !" 'coA
He gives the following explanation
ofthe limbs of animals and men:
animals are. four9footed because
their souls are not powerful enough tc
carry the weight of their bodies in an
erect position. I Therefore all animals
in relation to>man are dwarfs; for
dwarfs are those which have the upper
parts large and the organs of progress
sion small. In man there is = proper
proportion between the trunk and the
limbs; but when newly born, the trunk
is large and the limbs small. Hence
infants crawl and cannot walk; at first
they cannot even crawl, nor move
alone, for all infants are dwarfs. On
the contrary, among quadrupeds the
under part is at first the larger but
as theyldevelope,I the uppeh part be-
comes the larger. Hence colts are lit
tie. if at all shorter than horses, and
when they are young they can touch
their heads with their hind feet, which
they cannot do as adults. Hence all
animals are less intelligent than man..
land among men children and dwarfs
are less intelligent than the adult and
well grown. The reason is, as before
stated, because the physical principle
is very difficult to move, and is corpo-
real"
Into such errors can the sablest of
men fall when they try 10 use their
minds before they have learned to use
their eyes. Aristotle loved to think,
but he was verse to the patient obser-
walton and the exact experiment by
which alone scientific knowledge is
gained. His works swarm with Gu
rious examples of ingenious reasoning,
founded more upon fancy that fact. l
will conclude with one more specimen.
"The hand" says he, els an instru-
ment. Nature, like a rational being
always bestows instruments on those
who can use them. Forit is better to
give a flute to a fute-player, than to
make a flute player of one who posses
ses a flute since the inferior ought to
be given to the greater and nobler,
and not the nobler and greater to the
inferior. If therefore it is better so,
md as nature always acts for the best
when possible, evidently man has
hands because he is the most GiAtelli-
gent, and is the most intelligent
because he has hands" a..''f
Upon such science as this the hui
man mind subsisted for fifteen humid
red years for such was the .overshad
owing greatness of Aristotle's fame
and such the yeneration felt by. schol
ars for everything written in Greek,
that it wa an act of great mental cour-
age, during all that long period, to
call in question any statement made
by the philosopher Of Stagira. |