4
Again, the boundaries by which living beings are naturally
determined are six in number, superior and inferior, before and
behind, right and left. Of these all living beings have a superior and
an inferior part; for superior and inferior is in plants too, not only
in animals. And this distinction is one of function, not merely of
position relatively to our earth and the sky above our heads. The
superior is that from which flows in each kind the distribution of
nutriment and the process of growth; the inferior is that to which the
process flows and in which it ends. One is a starting-point, the other
an end, and the starting-point is the superior. And yet it might be
thought that in the case of plants at least the inferior is rather the
appropriate starting-point, for in them the superior and inferior
are in position other than in animals. Still they are similarly
situated from the point of view of function, though not in their
position relatively to the universe. The roots are the superior part
of a plant, for from them the nutriment is distributed to the
growing members, and a plant takes it with its roots as an animal does
with its mouth.
Things that are not only alive but are animals have both a front and
a back, because they all have sense, and front and back are
distinguished by reference to sense. The front is the part in which
sense is innate, and whence each thing gets its sensations, the
opposite parts are the back.
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