The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  All other animals may, with very few exceptions, be comprehended within four [15] genera: to wit, molluscs, crustaceans, testaceans, and insects. Of these, the mollusc, the crustacean, and the insect have all the senses; for they have both27 smell and taste. As for insects, both winged and wingless, they can detect the presence of scented objects afar off, as for instance bees and cnipes detect the presence of honey [20] at a distance; and they do so recognizing it by smell. Many insects are killed by the smell of brimstone; ants leave their ant-hills if powdered origanum and brimstone is scattered round them; and most insects may be banished with burnt hart’s horn, or [25] better still by the burning of the gum styrax. The cuttle-fish, the octopus, and the crayfish may be caught by bait. The octopus, in fact, clings so tightly to the rocks that it cannot be pulled off, but remains attached even when being cut; and yet, if you apply fleabane to the creature, it drops off at the very smell of it. The facts are [535a1] similar in regard to taste. For the food that insects go in quest of is of diverse kinds, and they do not all delight in the same flavours; for instance, the bee never settles on anything rotten, but on things sweet; and the gnat settles only on acid substances [5] and not on sweet. The sense of touch, as has been remarked, is common to all animals. Testaceans have the senses of smell and taste—as is plain from the use of baits, e.g. in the case of the purple-fish; for this creature is enticed by putrefying baits, which it perceives and is attracted to from a great distance. The proof that it [10] possesses a sense of taste is the same; for whenever an animal is attracted to a thing by perceiving its smell, it is sure to like the taste of it. Further, all animals furnished with a mouth derive pleasure or pain from the touch of sapid juices.

  With regard to sight and hearing, we cannot make statements with thorough [15] confidence or on clear evidence. However, the razor-fish, if you make a noise, appears to burrow in the sand, and to hide himself deeper when he hears the approach of the iron rod (for the animal juts a little out of its hole, while the greater part of the body remains within),—and scallops, if you present your finger near their open valves, close them tight again as though they could see what you were [20] doing. Furthermore, when fishermen are laying bait for neritae, they always get to leeward of them, and never speak a word while so engaged, believing that the animal can smell and hear; and they assure us that, if any one speaks aloud, the creature makes efforts to escape. With regard to testaceans, of the walking species the urchin appears to have the least developed sense of smell; and, of the stationary species, the ascidian and the barnacle. [25]

  So much for the organs of sense in the general run of animals. We now proceed to treat of voice.

  9 · Voice and sound are different from one another; and language differs from voice and sound. The fact is that no animal can give utterance to voice except [30] by the action of the pharynx, and consequently such animals as are devoid of lung have no voice; and language is the articulation of voice by the tongue. Thus, the voice and larynx can emit vowel sounds; consonantal sounds are made by the tongue and the lips; and out of these language is composed. Consequently, animals that [535a1] have no tongue at all or that have a tongue not freely detached, have no language; although they may be enabled to make sounds by other organs than the tongue.

  Insects, for instance, have no voice and no language, but they can emit sound by internal air, though not by the emission of air; for no insects are capable of respiration. But some of them make a humming noise, like the bee and the other [5] winged insects; and others are said to sing, as the cicada. And all these latter insects make their sounds by means of the membrane that is underneath the hypozoma—those insects, that is to say, whose body is thus divided; as for instance, one species of cicada, which makes the sound by means of the friction of the air. Flies and bees, and the like, produce their special noise by opening and shutting their wings in the act of flying; for the noise made is by the friction of the internal air. The noise made [10] by grasshoppers is produced by rubbing with their ‘paddles’.

  No mollusc or crustacean can produce any natural voice or sound. Fishes can produce no voice, for they have no lungs, nor windpipe and pharynx; but they emit [15] certain sounds and squeaks, which is what is called their ‘voice’, as the gurnard, and the sciaena (for these fishes make a grunting kind of noise) and the caprus in the river Achelous, and the chalcis and the cuckoo-fish; for the chalcis makes a sort of piping sound, and the cuckoo-fish makes a sound greatly like the cry of the cuckoo, and is named from the circumstance. The apparent voice in all these fishes is a [20] sound caused in some cases by a rubbing motion of their gills, which are prickly, or in other cases by internal parts about their bellies; for they all have air inside them, by rubbing and moving which they produce the sounds. Some of the selachia seem to squeak.

  But in these cases the term ‘voice’ is inappropriate; the more correct expression [25] would be ‘sound’. For the scallop, when it goes along supporting itself on the water, which is called ‘flying’, makes a whizzing sound; and so does the sea-swallow; for this fish flies in the air, clean out of the water, being furnished with fins broad and long. Just then as in the flight of birds the sound made by their wings is not voice, so [30] is it in the case of all these other creatures.

  The dolphin, when taken out of the water, gives a squeak and moans in the air, [536a1] but these noises do not resemble those above mentioned. For this creature has a voice, for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe; but its tongue is not loose, nor has it lips, so as to give utterance to an articulate sound.

  [5] Of animals which are furnished with tongue and lung, the oviparous quadrupeds28 produce a voice, but a feeble one; in some cases, a shrill piping sound, like the serpent; in others, a thin faint cry;29 in others, a low hiss, like the tortoise. The formation of the tongue in the frog is exceptional. The front part of the tongue, which in other animals is detached, is tightly fixed in the frog as it is in all fishes; but [10] the part towards the pharynx is freely detached and folded and it is with this that it makes its peculiar croak. The croaking that goes on in the water is the call of the males to the females at rutting time; for all animals have a special cry for mating [15] and copulation as is observed in the case of goats, swine, and sheep. [The frog makes its croaking noise by putting its under jaw on a level with the surface of the water and extending its upper jaw. The tension is so great that the upper jaw becomes transparent, and the animal’s eyes shine through the jaw like lamps; for the commerce of the sexes takes place usually in the night time.]30

  [20] Birds can utter voiced sounds; and such of them can articulate best as have the tongue flat, and also such as have thin delicate tongues. In some cases, the male and the female utter the same note; in other cases, different notes. The smaller birds are more vocal and given to chirping than the larger ones; but in the pairing season [25] every species of bird becomes particularly vocal. Some of them call when fighting, as the quail, others cry when challenging to combat, as the partridge, or when victorious, as the cock. In some cases males and females sing alike, as is observed in [30] the nightingale, only that the female stops singing when brooding or rearing her young; in other birds, the males sing alone; in fact, with fowls and quails, the female does not sing.

  [536b1] Viviparous quadrupeds utter voiced sounds of different kinds, but they have no language. In fact, this is peculiar to man. For while whatever has language has voice, not everything that has voice has language. Men that are born deaf are in all [5] cases also dumb; that is, they can make vocal sounds, but they cannot speak. Children, just as they have no control over other parts, so have no control, at first, over the tongue; but it is so far imperfect, and only detaches itself by degrees, so that in the interval children for the most part lisp and stutter.

  Vocal sounds and modes of language differ according to locality. Vocal sounds [10] are characterized chiefly by their pitch, whether high or low, and the kinds of sound do not differ within the same genus; but articulate sound, that one might r
easonably designate language, differs both in various animals, and also in the same species according to diversity of locality; as for instance, some partridges cackle, and some [15] make a shrill twittering noise. Of little birds, some sing a different note from the parent birds, if they have been removed from the nest and have heard other birds singing; and a mother-nightingale has been observed to give lessons in singing to a young bird, thus suggesting that language is not natural in the same way as voice [20] but can be artificially trained. Men have the same voice, but they differ from one another in language.

  The elephant makes a vocal sound of a wind-like sort by the mouth alone, unaided by the trunk, just like the sound of a man panting or sighing; but, if it employ the trunk as well, the sound produced is like that of a hoarse trumpet.

  10 · With regard to the sleeping and waking of animals, all creatures that [25] are red-blooded and provided with legs give sensible proof that they go to sleep and that they waken up from sleep; for all animals that are furnished with eyelids shut them up when they go to sleep. Furthermore, it would appear that not only do men dream, but horses also, and dogs, and oxen, and sheep, and goats, and all [30] viviparous quadrupeds; and dogs show their dreaming by barking in their sleep. With regard to oviparous animals we cannot be sure that they dream, but most undoubtedly they sleep. And the same may be said of water animals, such as fishes, molluscs, crustaceans, to wit crayfish and the like. These animals sleep without [537a1] doubt, although their sleep is of very short duration. The proof of their sleeping cannot be got from the condition of their eyes—for none of these creatures are furnished with eyelids—but can be obtained only from their motionless repose.

  [Apart from the irritation caused by lice and what are called fleas, fish are met [5] with in a state so motionless that one might easily catch them by hand; and, as a matter of fact, these little creatures, if the fish remain long in one position, will attack them in myriads and devour them. For they are found in the depths of the sea, and are so numerous that they devour any bait made of fish’s flesh if it be left [10] long on the ground at the bottom; and fishermen often draw up a sort of ball of them, all clinging on to the bait.]31

  But it is from the following facts that we may more reasonably infer that fishes sleep. Very often it is possible to take a fish off its guard so far as to catch hold of it or to give it a blow unawares; and all the while the fish is quite still but for a slight [15] motion of the tail. And it is quite obvious that the animal is sleeping, from its movements if any disturbance be made during its repose; for it moves just as you would expect in a creature suddenly awakened. Further, owing to their being asleep, fish may be captured by torchlight. The watchmen in the tunny-fishery often take [20] advantage of the fish being asleep to envelop them in a circle of nets; and it is quite obvious that they were thus sleeping by their lying still and allowing the glistening under-parts of their bodies to become visible, while the capture is taking place. They sleep in the night-time more than during the day; and so soundly at night that you may cast the net without making them stir. Fish, as a general rule, sleep close to the ground, or to the sand or to a stone at the bottom, or after concealing themselves [25] under a rock or the ground. Flat fish go to sleep in the sand; and they can be distinguished by the outlines of their shapes in the sand, and are caught in this position by being speared with pronged instruments. The basse, the gilthead, the mullet, and fish of the like sort are often caught in the daytime by the prong owing to their having been surprised when sleeping; for it is scarcely probable that such [30] fish could be pronged while awake. The selachia sleep at times so soundly that they may be caught by hand. The dolphin and the whale, and all such as are furnished [537b1] with a blow-hole, sleep with the blow-hole over the surface of the water, and breathe through the blow-hole while they keep up a quiet flapping of their fins; indeed, some have actually heard the dolphin snoring.

  [5] Molluscs sleep like fishes, and crustaceans also. It is plain also that insects sleep; for there can be no mistaking their condition of motionless repose. In the bee the fact of its being asleep is very obvious; for at night-time bees are at rest and cease to hum. But the fact that insects sleep may be very well seen in the case of [10] common everyday creatures; for not only do they rest at night-time from dimness of vision (for all hard-eyed creatures see but indistinctly), but even if a lighted candle be presented they continue sleeping quite as soundly.

  [15] Of all animals man is most given to dreaming. Children and infants do not dream, but in most cases dreaming comes on at the age of four or five years. Instances have been known of men and women that have never dreamed at all; in cases of this kind, it has been observed that when a dream occurs in advanced life it [20] is followed by bodily change leading to death for some and to debility for others.

  So much then for sensation and for the phenomena of sleeping and awakening.

  11 · Some animals are divided into male and female, but others are not so [25] divided, but can only be said in a comparative way to bring forth young and to be pregnant. In animals that live confined to one spot there is no duality of sex; nor is there such, in fact, in any testaceans. In molluscs and in crustaceans we find male and female: and, indeed, in all animals furnished with feet and blood, whether biped [30] or quadruped; in short, in all such as by copulation engender either live young or egg or grub. In the several genera, with however certain exceptions, there either absolutely is or absolutely is not a duality of sex. Thus, in quadrupeds the duality is universal, while the absence of such duality is universal in testaceans, and of these [538a1] creatures, as with plants, some individuals are fruitful and some are not.

  But among insects and fishes, some cases are found wholly devoid of this duality of sex. For instance, the eel is neither male nor female, and can engender nothing. In fact, those who assert that eels are at times found with hair-like or [5] worm-like or seaweed-like objects within them, make only random assertions from not having carefully noticed the locality of such attachments. For no animal of this kind is ever viviparous unless previously oviparous; and none was ever yet seen with an egg. And animals that are viviparous have their young in the womb and closely attached, and not in the belly; for, if the embryo were kept in the belly, it would be [10] subjected to the process of digestion like ordinary food. When people rest duality of sex in the eel on the assertion that the head of the male is bigger and longer, and the head of the female smaller and more snubbed, they are taking diversity of species for diversity of sex.

  There are certain fish that are named capon-fish, and fish of this description [15] are found in fresh water, as the carp and the balagrus. This sort of fish never has either roe or milt; but they are hard and fat all over, and are furnished with a small gut; and these fish are regarded as of excellent quality.

  Again, just as in testaceans and in plants there is what bears and engenders, but not what impregnates, so is it, among fishes, with the psetta, the erythrinus, and [20] the channe; for these fish are in all cases found furnished with eggs.

  As a general rule, in red-blooded animals furnished with feet and not oviparous, the male is larger and longer-lived than the female (except with the mule, where the female is longer-lived and bigger than the male); whereas in [25] oviparous and vermiparous creatures, as in fishes and in insects, the female is larger than the male; as for instance, with the serpent, the venom-spider, the gecko, and the frog. The same difference in size of the sexes is found in fishes, as, for instance, in the smaller selachia, in the greater part of the gregarious species, and in all that live in and about rocks. The fact that the female is longer-lived than the male is [538b1] clear from the fact that female fishes are caught older than males. Furthermore, in all animals the upper and front parts are better, stronger, and more thoroughly equipped in the male than in the female, whereas the hinder and underparts are [5] more delicate than those of the females. And this statement is applicable to man and to all vivipara that have feet. Again, the female is less muscular and
less compactly jointed, and more thin and delicate in the hair—that is, where hair is found; and, where there is no hair, less strongly furnished in some analogous substance. And the female is more flaccid in texture of flesh, and more knock- kneed, [10] and the shin-bones are thinner; and the feet are more delicate in such animals as are furnished with feet. And with regard to voice, the female in all animals that are vocal has a thinner and sharper voice than the male; except with cattle, for the lowing of the cow has a deeper note than that of the bull. With regard [15] to organs of defence and offence, such as teeth, tusks, horns, spurs, and the like, these in some species the male possesses and the female does not; as, for instance, the hind has no horns, and where the cock-bird has a spur the hen is entirely destitute of the organ; and in like manner the sow is devoid of tusks. In other species [20] such organs are found in both sexes, but are more perfectly developed in the male; as, for instance, the horn of the bull is more powerful than the horn of the cow.