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ON THE NATURAL FACULTIES Book I
[p. 17]
PART 4
The so-called blood-making
Lit. haematopoietic. cf. p. 11, note 3.
faculty in the veins, then, as well as all the other faculties, fall within the category of relative concepts; primarily because the faculty is the cause of the activity, but also, accidentally, because it is the cause of the effect. But, if the cause is relative to something- for it is the cause of what results from it, and of nothing else- it is obvious that the faculty also falls into the category of the relative; and so long as we are ignorant of the true essence of the cause which is operating, we call it a faculty. Thus we say that there exists in the veins a blood-making faculty, as also a digestive
Lit. peptic.
faculty in the stomach, a pulsatile
Lit. sphygmic.
faculty in the heart, and in each of the other parts a special faculty corresponding to the function or activity of that part. If, therefore, we are to investigate methodically the number and kinds of faculties, we must begin with the effects; for each of these effects comes from a certain activity, and each of these again is preceded by a cause.
PART 5
The effects of Nature, then, while the animal is still being formed in the womb, are all the different parts of its body; and after it has been born, an effect in which all parts share is the progress of each to its full size, and thereafter its maintenance of itself as long as possible.
The activities corresponding to the three effects mentioned are necessarily three- one to each-
