For after the animal has been produced does this something
perish or does it remain in it? But nothing of the kind appears to
be in it, nothing which is not a part of the whole plant or animal.
Yet, on the other hand, it is absurd to say that it perishes after
making either all the parts or only some of them. If it makes some
of the parts and then perishes, what is to make the rest of them?
Suppose this something makes the heart and then perishes, and the
heart makes another organ, by the same argument either all the parts
must perish or all must remain. Therefore it is preserved and does not
perish. Therefore it is a part of the embryo itself which exists in
the semen from the beginning; and if indeed there is no part of the
soul which does not exist in some part of the body, it would also be a
part containing soul in it from the beginning.
How, then, does it make the other parts? Either all the parts, as
heart, lung, liver, eye, and all the rest, come into being together or
in succession, as is said in the verse ascribed to Orpheus, for
there he says that an animal comes into being in the same way as the
knitting of a net. That the former is not the fact is plain even to
the senses, for some of the parts are clearly visible as already
existing in the embryo while others are not; that it is not because of
their being too small that they are not visible is clear, for the lung
is of greater size than the heart, and yet appears later than the
heart in the original development.
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