Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/92

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82
ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.
[BK. II.

designated after the object to which they tend, and as the object here is to generate another like itself, so the primal faculty may be set down as being generative of another like itself. That “by which nourished” has a twofold signification, as has that by which a vessel is steered, and which implies hand and rudder, of which the one only moves, while the latter both moves and is moved. It is necessary to nutrition that food should admit of being digested, and as it is heat which works out digestion, so all living creatures have heat.

It has thus then be shewn, although but superficially, what nutrition is; but the subject shall be further elucidated in other treatises upon the subject.