On Animals (De Animalibus)

and they dare to blame their own poverty on the fault of the most wealthy language; those men, I think, are sufficiently refuted by M. Tullius [Cicero], when he asserts that the Roman language is not even surpassed by the Greek in the wealth of words. He exclaims, somewhat importunately indeed, "O the sometimes poor Greek language!" but not without cause, when some contend that nothing is lacking to the Greeks, and that many things are wanting to the Latins. But enough of these. However, as for the praise of Aristotle: although it is the custom of interpreters to praise more copiously the author whom they interpret, yet if I were to pursue this more broadly, I fear that the same objection might be raised against me as against him who wished to speak of the praises of Hercules among the Lacedaemonians: "Who would disparage Hercules, or think less well of him? Who would not count him among the immortal gods, honor him, observe him?"—"As you would wish to praise him," the Lacedaemonians added. For such is the estimation of Aristotle, such his authority among all mortals, that one would preach in vain of what genius, of what learning he was. By what artifice he determined for himself that any subject whatsoever should be explained, he handles; how great is the power of reasoning in him, how great the diligence in knowing and explaining things! M. Tullius, the ornament of Latium, praises him in such a way that, excepting Plato, he easily calls him the prince of philosophers; he excepts him whom he loves, but he praises him whom he judges to be the most learned. I set these things aside. It will perhaps not be irrelevant to have explained, as far as I can and as this place allows, the fruit of the books I have translated. For every method of philosophizing naturally resides here and dwells longest, having emerged—so to speak—from those first beginnings of nature (I speak of matter, form, end, agent, and motion); it exercises its powers here and most amply explains the manifold, varied, and admirable constitution of things; it pursues in order all the differences by which nature intended its living creatures to differ among themselves; it gathers the highest genera, it exposes the rest one by one; it divides genera into species, and describes the individual things, which in number are about five hundred, contained in these books; it proceeds, explaining each thing: how they arise, whether terrestrial or aquatic. Of what members they consist, by what foods they are nourished,