132 HISTORICAL REVIEW. 



details; a one-sided treatment of science was not the object of this 

 great thinker. 



Aristotle contemplated animals as living organisms in all their 

 relations to the external world, according to their development, 

 structure, and vital phenomena, and he created a comparative Zoology, 

 which in several respects constitutes the basis of our science. The 

 distinction of animals into animals with blood (eVai/xa) and animals 

 ivithout blood (ai/at^a), which he in no wise used as a strictly 

 systematic conception, certainly depends, according to the meaning 

 of the word, upon an error, since all animals possess blood; and the 

 red colour can by no means be taken, as Aristotle believed, to be a 

 test of the presence of blood ; but as the possession of a bony verte- 

 bral column was put forward as a character of the animals provided 

 with blood, the two groups established by this distinction coincided 

 in their limits with the two great divisions of Vertebrates and 

 Invertebrates. 



The eight animal groups of Aristotle are the following : 



Animals with blood, Vertebrates 



(1) Viviparous animals (four-footed, ^WOTOKOVVTO. iv auTois), with 

 which as a special -yevos was placed the whale. 



(2) Birds (Spvifles). 



(3) Oviparous four-footed animals (rerpotTroSa rj aTroSa OJOTOKOWTO.). 



(4) Fishes (ix^'es). 



Animals without blood, Invertebrates 



(5) Soft animals du,aA.a/aa, Cephalopoda). 



(6) Soft animals with shells (/x,aXaKocrrpa/<a). 



(7) Insects (eVro/Aa). 



(8) Shelled animals (oo-TpaKoSep/xara, Echini, Snails, and Mussels). 

 After Aristotle, antiquity only possesses one zoological writer of 



note Pliny the elder to point to. He lived in the first century, 

 and, as is well-known, was killed in the great Eruption of Vesuvius 

 (79), while captain of the fleet. The natural history of Pliny deals 

 with the whole of nature, from the stars to animals, plants, and 

 minerals; it is, however, of no scientific value as an original work, 

 but is merely a compilation of facts collected from known sources, 

 and is not by any means implicitly to be trusted. Pliny borrowed 

 to a large extent from Aristotle, often understood him falsely, and 

 also accepted here and there as facts fable-, which had been rejected 

 by Aristotle. Without setting up a system of his own, he divided 

 animals according to the medium in which they lived into Land- 

 animals (Terrestria), Aquatic-animals (Aquatica), and Flying- 



