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Concept
Generation of Animals
Summary
The Generation of Animals (or On the Generation of Animals; Greek: Περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως (Peri Zoion Geneseos); Latin: De Generatione Animalium) is one of the biological works of the Corpus Aristotelicum, the collection of texts traditionally attributed to Aristotle (384 – 322BC). The work provides an account of animal reproduction, gestation and heredity.
Generation of Animals consists of five books, which are themselves split into varying numbers of chapters. Most editions of this work categorise it with Bekker numbers. In general, each book covers a range of related topics, however there is also a significant amount of overlap in the content of the books. For example, while one of the two principal topics covered in book I is the function of semen (gone, sperma), this account is not finalised until partway through book II.
Book I (715a - 731b)
Chapter 1 begins with Aristotle claiming to have already addressed the parts of animals, referencing the author's work of the same name. While this and possibly his other biological works, have addressed three of the four causes pertaining to animals, the final, formal, and material, the efficient cause has yet to be spoken of. He argues that the efficient cause, or "that from which the source of movement comes" can be addressed with an inquiry into the generation of animals. Aristotle then provides a general overview of the processes of reproduction adopted by the various genera, for instance most 'blooded' animals reproduce by coition of a male and female of the same species, but cases vary for 'bloodless' animals.
The reproductive organs of males and females are also investigated. Through chapters 2-5 Aristotle successively describes the general reproductive features common to each sex, the differences in reproductive parts among blooded animals, the causes of differences of testes in particular, and why some animals do not have external reproductive organs. The latter provides clear examples of Aristotle's teleological approach to causation, as it is applied to biology.
Official source
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