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Quotation from Meteorology by Aristotle
“What a thing is always determined by its function: a thing really is itself when it can perform its function; an eye, for instance, when it can see”
Meteorology, Book IV, Part 12, trans. E. W. Webster (1923)
From the closing discussion of flesh, bone and other homogeneous bodies, where a dead man's hand is said to be a hand only in name.
Citation: "What a thing is always determined by its function: a thing really is itself when it can perform its function; an eye, for instance, when it can see" — Aristotle, Meteorology, Book IV, Part 12, trans. E. W. Webster (1923). (id aristotle-meteorology-q11)
