(Nor yet even if it were not produced by generation.
Why should it not have sensation? Because it were better so either for
the body or for the soul? But clearly it would not be better for
either: the absence of sensation will not enable the one to think
better or the other to exist better.) Therefore no body which is not
stationary has soul without sensation.
But if a body has sensation, it must be either simple or compound.
And simple it cannot be; for then it could not have touch, which is
indispensable. This is clear from what follows. An animal is a body
with soul in it: every body is tangible, i.e. perceptible by touch;
hence necessarily, if an animal is to survive, its body must have
tactual sensation. All the other senses, e.g. smell, sight, hearing,
apprehend through media; but where there is immediate contact the
animal, if it has no sensation, will be unable to avoid some things
and take others, and so will find it impossible to survive. That is
why taste also is a sort of touch; it is relative to nutriment,
which is just tangible body; whereas sound, colour, and odour are
innutritious, and further neither grow nor decay. Hence it is that
taste also must be a sort of touch, because it is the sense for what
is tangible and nutritious.
Both these senses, then, are indispensable to the animal, and it
is clear that without touch it is impossible for an animal to be.
All the other senses subserve well-being and for that very reason
belong not to any and every kind of animal, but only to some, e.
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