''Progression of Animals'' (or ''On the Gait of Animals''; ; ) is one of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
's major
texts on biology. It gives details of
gait
Gait is the pattern of Motion (physics), movement of the limb (anatomy), limbs of animals, including Gait (human), humans, during Animal locomotion, locomotion over a solid substrate. Most animals use a variety of gaits, selecting gait based on s ...
and movement in various kinds of animals, as well as speculating over the structural homologies among living things.
[Hall, Brian, Fins into Limbs: Evolution, Development, and Transformation, University of Chicago Press (2007), p. 1]
Aristotle sets out to "discuss the parts which are useful to animals for their movement from place to place, and consider why each part is of the nature which it is, and why they possess them, and further the differences in the various parts of one and the same animal and in those of animals of different species compared with one another" (704a1-4). ''Progression of Animals'' illustrates Aristotle's teleological approach to animal biology.
Texts and translations
*
* Greek text and English translation by E.S. Forster (
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...
, ''Aristotle Parts of Animals, Movement of Animals, Progression of Animals,'' 1937)
archive.org* ''On the Gait of Animals'', translated by
A. S. L. Farquharson, Oxford, 1912
Google BooksAdelaide (HTML)
*
by Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire
References
Works by Aristotle
Zoology books
{{zoology-book-stub