Mule
animal · 4 works · 4 mentions · 5 anchored passages
mule · any other animal
spoken of as
1 expressionthe mule1 mention
Adversus Hermogenem (Latin)
No one at the barber's has looked at a mule in place of a man — unless someone supposes that in this construction of the world, now disposed and adorned, formless and uncultivated Matter answers to it.
in the texts
Metaphysics
The hybrid offspring of a horse and an ass, used as Aristotle's example of generation that departs from the rule that a natural product shares the name and kind of its parent.
in natural productions (for man begets man), unless something happens contrary to nature, as when a horse sires a mule.
It contains the form potentially, and that from which the seed comes has in some sense the same name as the product (for we must not expect that all should have the same name in the sense that man is produced by man —since woman is also produced by man);
Vitae philosophorum
Creature invoked by Aristippus to mock a man boasting of his capacity to drink without becoming drunk.
To one who boasted that he could drink a great deal without getting drunk, his rejoinder was, And so can a mule.
Laws
An animal (exemplified by the mule) that may be tried and executed for killing a person, except in public competitions.
If a mule or any other animal murder anyone,— except when they do it when taking part in a public competition,—the relatives shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and so many of the land-stewards as are appointed by the relatives shall decide the case, and the convicted beast they shall kill and cast out beyond the borders of the country.
Adversus Hermogenem
Example animal in an analogy about mirrors reflecting only like things, used to argue the ordered world cannot mirror formless Matter.
No one at the barber's has looked at a mule in place of a man — unless someone supposes that in this construction of the world, now disposed and adorned, formless and uncultivated Matter answers to it.