Ideas from On the Soul
By Aristotle
1678 ideas
Sample Ideas
- Within closely related bird kinds, such as cushats, individuals or subgroups may adopt different winter strategies, with some hiding and others migrating at the same time as swallows.
- The asp of Libya yields a preparation called the 'septic' drug from its body, which Aristotle presents as the sole known remedy for the bite of that same asp.
- Sepia lay their spawn near the shore on submerged structures such as sea‑weed, reeds, brushwood, twigs, or stones, and fishermen exploit this by placing faggots in the water to attract them, upon which the sepia deposit a long, continuous, vine‑tendril‑like rope of spawn that is expelled with difficulty.
- In purple murexes (porphyrae) and trumpet‑shells (ceryx), the spring ‘honeycomb’ they deposit is an excretion, not eggs; these structures dissolve, leaving minute young porphyrae on the ground, and such species appear more abundant where their kind previously lived.
- Well‑conditioned animals have a moderate amount of pure blood, neither overly abundant like recently drinking animals nor scanty as in excessively fat animals, because fat is bloodless and increases inversely with blood supply.
- Some infants that appear to be born dead are merely weak and bloodless because blood has drained into the umbilical cord and surrounding parts before it is tied, and experienced midwives can sometimes revive such children by squeezing the blood back from the cord into the child’s body.
- Early pregnancy produces characteristic bodily sensations and swellings—especially in the flanks and groin—which are more noticeable in thin women.
- Empedocles and Plato (in the Timaeus and On Philosophy) explain cognition by the principle that like is known by like, and accordingly construct the soul out of the same elements, forms, or numbers as the objects it knows.
- When bees inside the hive hang clustered together it signifies an intention to swarm, leading beekeepers to sprinkle the hive with sweet wine to prevent or manage this; it is also advisable to plant certain flowering plants and trees around hives and some beekeepers mark their bees by sprinkling them with flour.
- The eared owl and the common owl exhibit pronounced mimetic behavior that can be exploited by hunters, who catch them by dancing in front of them while an accomplice seizes the bird as it imitates the dancer’s gestures.