Aristotle 21 



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Of these works some, the names of which are placed here in 

 brackets, are clearly spurious in that they were neither written 

 by Aristotle nor are they in any form approaching that in 

 which they were cast by him. Yet all are of very considerable 

 antiquity and contain fragments of his tradition in a state of 

 greater or less corruption. In addition to works here enumerated 

 there are many others which are spurious in a yet further sense 

 in that they are merely fathered on Aristotle and contain no 

 trace of his spirit or method. Such, for example, is the famous 

 mediaeval work of oriental origin known as the Epistle of Aristotle 

 to Alexander. 



In a general way it may be stated that the physical works, 

 with which we are not here directly concerned, while they show 

 ingenuity, learning, and philosophical power, yet betray very 

 little direct and original observation. They have exerted 

 enormous influence in the past and for at least two thousand 

 years provided the usual physical conceptions of the civilized 

 world both East and West. After the Galilean revolution in 

 physics, however, they became less regarded and they are not 

 now highly esteemed by men of science. The biological works of 

 Aristotle, on the other hand, excited comparatively little interest 

 during the Middle Ages, but from the sixteenth century on they 

 have been very closely studied by naturalists. From the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, and especially as a result 

 of the work of Cuvier, Richard Owen, and Johannes Miiller, 

 Aristotle's reputation as a naturalist has risen steadily, and he is 

 now universally admitted to have been one of the very greatest 

 investigators of living nature. 



The philosophical bases of Aristotle's biology are mainly to 

 be found in the treatise On soul and in that On the generation 



