we must now investigate the qualities by which the parts of animals differ. i mean such qualities of the parts as blueness and blackness in the eyes, height and depth of pitch in the voice, and differences in colour whether of the skin or of hair and feathers. some such qualities are found to characterize the whole of a kind of animals sometimes, while in other kinds they occur at random, as is especially the case in man. further, in connexion with the changes in the time of life, all animals are alike in some points, but are opposed in others as in the case of the voice and the colour of the hair, for some do not grow grey visibly in old age, while man is subject to this more than any other animal. and some of these affections appear immediately after birth, while others become plain as age advances or in old age.
now we must no longer suppose that the cause of these and all such phenomena is the same. for whenever things are not the product of nature working upon the animal kingdom as a whole, nor yet characteristic of each separate kind, then none of these things is such as it is or is so developed for any final cause. the eye for instance exists for a final cause, but it is not blue for a final cause unless this condition be characteristic of the kind of animal. in fact in some cases this condition has no connexion with the essence of the animal’s being, but we must refer the causes to the material and the motive principle or efficient cause, on the view that these things come into being by necessity. for, as was said originally in the outset of our discussion, when we are dealing with definite and ordered products of nature, we must not say that each is of a certain quality because it becomes so, but rather that they become so and so because they are so and so, for the process of becoming or development attends upon being and is for the sake of being, not vice versa.
the ancient nature-philosophers however took the opposite view. the reason of this is that they did not see that the causes were numerous, but only saw the material and efficient and did not distinguish even these, while they made no inquiry at all into the formal and final causes.
everything then exists for a final cause, and all those things which are included in the definition of each animal, or which either are means to an end or are ends in themselves, come into being both through this cause and the rest. but when we come to those things which come into being without falling under the heads just mentioned, their course must be sought in the movement or process of coming into being, on the view that the differences which mark them arise in the actual formation of the animal. an eye, for instance, the animal must have of necessity (for the fundamental idea of the animal is of such a kind), but it will have an eye of a particular kind of necessity in another sense, not the sense mentioned just above, because it is its nature to act or be acted on in this or that way.
these distinctions being drawn let us speak of what comes next in order. as soon then as the offspring of all animals are born, especially those born imperfect, they are in the habit of sleeping, because they continue sleeping also within the mother when they first acquire sensation. but there is a difficulty about the earliest period of development, whether the state of wakefulness exists in animals first, or that of sleep. since they plainly wake up more as they grow older, it is reasonable to suppose that the opposite state, that of sleep, exists in the first stages of development. moreover the change from not being to being must pass through the intermediate condition, and sleep seems to be in its nature such a condition, being as it were a boundary between living and not living, and the sleeper being neither altogether non-existent nor yet existent. for life most of all appertains to wakefulness, on account of sensation. but on the other hand, if it is necessary that the animal should have sensation and if it is then first an animal when it has acquired sensation, we ought to consider the original condition to be not sleep but only something resembling sleep, such a condition as we find also in plants, for indeed at this time animals do actually live the life of a plant. but it is impossible that plants should sleep, for there is no sleep which cannot be broken, and the condition in plants which is analogous to sleep cannot be broken.
it is necessary then for the embryo animal to sleep most of the time because the growth takes place in the upper part of the body, which is consequently heavier (and we have stated elsewhere that such is the cause of sleep). but nevertheless they are found to wake even in the womb (this is clear in dissections and in the ovipara), and then they immediately fall into a sleep again. this is why after birth also they spend most of their time in sleep.
when awake infants do not laugh, but while asleep they both laugh and cry. for animals have sensations even while asleep, not only what are called dreams but also others besides dreams, as those persons who arise while sleeping and do many things without dreaming. for there are some who get up while sleeping and walk about seeing just like those who are awake; these have perception of what is happening, and though they are not awake, yet this perception is not like a dream. so infants presumably have sense-perception and live in their sleep owing to previous habit, being as it were without knowledge of the waking state. as time goes on and their growth is transferred to the lower part of the body, they now wake up more and spend most of their time in that condition. children continue asleep at first more than other animals, for they are born in a more imperfect condition than other animals that are produced in anything like a perfect state, and their growth has taken place more in the upper part of the body.
the eyes of all children are bluish immediately after birth; later on they change to the colour which is to be theirs permanently. but in the case of other animals this is not visible. the reason of this is that the eyes of other animals are more apt to have only one colour for each kind of animal; e.g. cattle are dark-eyed, the eye of all sheep is pale, of others again the whole kind is blue or grey-eyed, and some are yellow (goat-eyed), as the majority of goats themselves, whereas the eyes of men happen to be of many colours, for they are blue or grey or dark in some cases and yellow in others. hence, as the individuals in other kinds of animals do not differ from one another in the colour, so neither do they differ from themselves, for they are not of a nature to have more than one colour. of the other animals the horse has the greatest variety of colour in the eye, for some of them are actually heteroglaucous; this phenomenon is not to be seen in any of the other animals, but man is sometimes heteroglaucous.
why then is it that there is no visible change in the other animals if we compare their condition when newly born with their condition at a more advanced age, but that there is such a change in children? we must consider just this to be a sufficient cause, that the part concerned has only one colour in the former but several colours in the latter. and the reason why the eyes of infants are bluish and have no other colour is that the parts are weaker in the newly born and blueness is a sort of weakness.
we must also gain a general notion about the difference in eyes, for what reason some are blue, some grey, some yellow, and some dark. to suppose that the blue are fiery, as empedocles says, while the dark have more water than fire in them, and that this is why the former, the blue, have not keen sight by day, viz. owing to deficiency of water in their composition, and the latter are in like condition by night, viz. owing to deficiency of fire — this is not well said if indeed we are to assume sight to be connected with water, not fire, in all cases. moreover it is possible to render another account of the cause of the colours, but if indeed the fact is as was stated before in the treatise on the senses, and still earlier than that in the investigations concerning soul — if this sense organ is composed of water and if we were right in saying for what reason it is composed of water and not of air or fire — then we must assume the water to be the cause of the colours mentioned. for some eyes have too much liquid to be adapted to the movement, others have too little, others the due amount. those eyes therefore in which there is much liquid are dark because much liquid is not transparent, those which have little are blue; (so we find in the sea that the transparent part of it appears light blue, the less transparent watery, and the unfathomable water is dark or deep-blue on account of its depth). when we come to the eyes between these, they differ only in degree.
we must suppose the same cause also to be responsible for the fact that blue eyes are not keen-sighted by day nor dark eyes by night. blue eyes, because there is little liquid in them, are too much moved by the light and by visible objects in respect of their liquidity as well as their transparency, but sight is the movement of this part in so far as it is transparent, not in so far as it is liquid. dark eyes are less moved because of the quantity of liquid in them. and so they see less well in the dusk, for the nocturnal light is weak; at the same time also liquid is in general hard to move in the night. but if the eye is to see, it must neither not be moved at all nor yet more than in so far as it is transparent, for the stronger movement drives out the weaker. hence it is that on changing from strong colours, or on going out of the sun into the dark, men cannot see, for the motion already existing in the eye, being strong, stops that from outside, and in general neither a strong nor a weak sight can see bright things because the liquid is acted upon and moved too much.
the same thing is shown also by the morbid affections of each kind of sight. cataract attacks the blue-eyed more, but what is called ‘nyctalopia’ the dark-eyed. now cataract is a sort of dryness of the eyes and therefore it is found more in the aged, for this part also like the rest of the body gets dry towards old age; but is an excess of liquidity and so is found more in the younger, for their brain is more liquid.
the sight of the eye which is intermediate between too much and too little liquid is the best, for it has neither too little so as to be disturbed and hinder the movement of the colours, nor too much so as to cause difficulty of movement.
not only the above-mentioned facts are causes of seeing keenly or the reverse, but also the nature of the skin upon what is called the pupil. this ought to be transparent, and it is necessary that the transparent should be thin and white and even, thin that the movement coming from without may pass straight through it, even that it may not cast a shade the liquid behind it by wrinkling (for this also is a reason why old men have not keen sight, the skin of the eye like the rest of the skin wrinkling and becoming thicker in old age), and white because black is not transparent, for that is just what is meant by ‘black’, what is not shone through, and that is why lanterns cannot give light if they be made of black skin. it is for these reasons then that the sight is not keen in old age nor in the diseases in question, but it is because of the small amount of liquid that the eyes of children appear blue at first.
and the reason why men especially and horses occasionally are heteroglaucous is the same as the reason why man alone grows grey and the horse is the only other animal whose hairs whiten visibly in old age. for greyness is a weakness of the fluid in the brain and an incapacity to concoct properly, and so is blueness of the eyes; excess of thinness or of thickness produces the same effect, according as this liquidity is too little or too much. whenever then nature cannot make the eyes correspond exactly, either by concocting or by not concocting the liquid in both, but concocts the one and not the other, then the result is heteroglaucia.
the cause of some animals being keen-sighted and others not so is not simple but double. for the word ‘keen’ has pretty much a double sense (and this is the case in like manner with hearing and smelling). in one sense keen sight means the power of seeing at a distance, in another it means the power of distinguishing as accurately as possible the objects seen. these two faculties are not necessarily combined in the same individual. for the same person, if he shades his eyes with his hand or look through a tube, does not distinguish the differences of colour either more or less in any way, but he will see further; in fact, men in pits or wells sometimes see the stars. therefore if any animal’s brows project far over the eye, but if the liquid in the pupil is not pure nor suited to the movement coming from external objects and if the skin over the surface is not thin, this animal will not distinguish accurately the differences of the colours but it will be able to see from a long distance (just as it can from a short one) better than those in which the liquid and the covering membrane are pure but which have no brows projecting over the eyes. for the cause of seeing keenly in the sense of distinguishing the differences is in the eye itself; as on a clean garment even small stains are visible, so also in a pure sight even small movements are plain and cause sensation. but it is the position of the eyes that is the cause of seeing things far off and of the movements in the transparent medium coming to the eyes from distant objects. a proof of this is that animals with prominent eyes do not see well at a distance, whereas those which have their eyes lying deep in the head can see things at a distance because the movement is not dispersed in space but comes straight to the eye. for it makes no difference whether we say, as some do, that seeing is caused by the sight going forth from the eye — on that view, if there is nothing projecting over the eyes, the sight must be scattered and so less of it will fall on the objects of vision and things at a distance will not be seen so well — or whether we say that seeing is due to the movement coming from the objects; for the sight also must see, in a manner resembling the movement. things at a distance, then, would be seen best if there were, so to say, a continuous tube straight from the sight to its object, for the movement from the object would not then be dissipated; but, if that is impossible, still the further the tube extends the more accurately must distant objects be seen.
let these, then, be given as the causes of the difference in eyes.
