On The Gait Of Animals   

inferior; in respect to place bipeds have their superior part

corresponding to the part of the universe; quadrupeds, polypods, and

footless animals to the intermediate part, and plants to the inferior.

The reason is that these have no power of locomotion, and the superior

part is determined relatively to the nutriment, and their nutriment is

from the earth. Quadrupeds, polypods, and footless animals again

have their superior part corresponding to the intermediate, because

they are not erect. Bipeds have theirs corresponding to the superior

part of the universe because they are erect, and of bipeds, man par

excellence; for man is the most natural of bipeds. And it is

reasonable for the starting points to be in these parts; for the

starting-point is honourable, and the superior is more honourable than

the inferior, the front than the back, and the right than the left. Or

we may reverse the argument and say quite well that these parts are

more honourable than their opposites just because the

starting-points are in them.

6



The above discussion has made it clear that the original of movement

is in the parts on the right. Now every continuous whole, one part

of which is moved while the other remains at rest must, in order to be

able to move as a whole while one part stands still, have in the place

where both parts have opposed movements some common part which

connects the moving parts with one another. Further in this common

part the original of the motion (and similarly of the absence of

motion) of each of the parts must lie.

Clearly then if any of the opposite pairs of parts (right and

left, that is, superior and inferior, before and behind) have a

movement of their own, each of them has for common original of its

movements the juncture of the parts in question.

Now before and behind are not distinctions relatively to that

which sets up its own motion, because in nature nothing has a movement