cooling. The mouth serves for both purposes, except in the case of fishes,[1] who get their cooling not by air through the lungs, but by water through the gills. The heart is placed in the middle region of the body, and is not only the seat of life, but also of intelligence; it is the first formed of all the parts. The brain is the coldest and wettest part of the body, and serves conjointly with the respiration in cooling down the fire of life. Three of the senses—sight, sound, and smell—are located in the brain; touch and taste reside in the heart, which also contains the “common sensorium,” or faculty of complex perceptions, such as figure, size, motion, and number. The heart makes the blood and sends it out by the “veins” to all parts of the body (of course Aristotle was unaware of the return of the blood to the heart, and therefore made no distinction between veins and arteries). Adequate warmth being the condition of life, the inhabitants of hot countries are longer-lived than those of cold countries; and men are longer-lived than women. But as cooling also is required, people with large heads, as a rule, live long.
It is hardly necessary to say that every opinion above mentioned is mistaken, and almost every statement of fact erroneous. Aristotle, however, is not solely responsible for the doctrines, for he doubtless inherited his ideas of anatomy and physiology from Hippocrates and his father Nicomachus, and, in short,
- ↑ Aristotle rejects the (true) opinion of Anaxagoras and Diogenes that fishes get air out of the water which they draw through their gills, and that they are suffocated when out of the water because the air comes to them in too large quantities.
