he
heart, which all blood-possessing animals have. From it comes the
arterial system which Nature has made hollow to contain the liquid
blood. The situation of the heart is a commanding one, being near the
middle and rather above than below, and rather towards the front than
the back. For Nature ever establishes that which is most honourable in
the most honourable places, unless some supreme necessity overrules.
We see this most clearly in the case of man; but the same tendency for
the heart to occupy the centre is seen also in {200} other animals,
when we regard only that portion of their body which is essential, and
the limit of this is at the place where superfluities are removed. The
limbs are arranged differently in different animals, and are not among
the parts essential to life; consequently animals may live even if
these are removed. . . . Anaxagoras says that man is the wisest of
animals because he possesses hands. It would be more reasonable to say
that he possesses hands because he is the wisest. For the hands are an
instrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted
to use it, just as a sensible man would. For it is more reasonable to
give a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some
flutes the art of playing them. To that which is the greater and
higher she adds what is less important, and not _vice versa_.
Therefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of
skills Nature assigned the hand, the instrument useful for the largest
number of purposes" (Arist. _De Part. An._ iv. p. 10).

[332]

And in the macrocosm, the visible and invisible world about us, the
same conception holds: "The existence of God is an eternally perfect
entelechy, a life everlasting. In that, therefore, which belongs to
the divine there must be an eternally perfect movement. Therefore the
heavens, which are as it were the body of the Divine, are in form a
sphere, of {201} necessity ever in circular motion. Why then is not
this true of every portion of the universe? Because there must of
necessity be a point of rest of the circling body at the centre. Yet
the circling body cannot rest either as a whole or as regards any part
of it, otherwise its motion could not be eternal, which by nature it
is. Now that which is a violation of nature cannot be eternal, but the
violation is posterior to that which is in accordance with nature, and
thus the unnatural is a kind of displa