70 Greek Biology 



is a ideologist ; and a teleologist of a kind whose views hap- 

 pened to fit in with the prevailing theological attitude of the 

 Middle Ages, whether Christian, Moslem, or Jewish. Accord- 

 ing to him everything which exists and displays activity in the 

 human body originates in and is formed by an intelligent being 

 and on an intelligent plan, so that the organ in structure and 

 function is the result of that plan. ' It was the Creator's infinite 

 wisdom which selected the best means to attain his beneficent 

 ends, and it is a proof of His omnipotence that he created every 

 good thing according to His design, and thereby fulfilled 

 His will.' ! 



After Galen there is a thousand years of darkness, and biology 

 ceases to have a history. The mind of the Dark Ages turned 

 towards theology, and such remains of Neoplatonic philosophy 

 as were absorbed into the religious system were little likely to 

 be of aid to the scientific attitude. One department of positive 

 knowledge must of course persist. Men still suffered from the 

 infirmities of the flesh and still sought relief from them. But 

 the books from which that advice was sought had nothing to 

 do with general principles nor with knowledge as such. They 

 were the most wretched of the treatises that still masqueraded 

 under the names of Hippocrates and Galen, mostly mere 

 formularies, antidotaries, or perhaps at best symptom lists. 

 And, when the depression of the western intellect had passed 

 its worst, there was still no biological material on which it 

 could be nourished. 



The prevailing interest of the barbarian world, at last 

 beginning to settle into its heritage of antiquity, was with 

 Logic. Of Aristotle there survived in Latin dress only the 

 Categories and the De inter pretatione, the merciful legacy of 

 Boethius, the last of the philosophers. Had a translation of 



1 A good instance of Galen's teleological point of view is afforded by his 

 classical description of the hand in the ircp\ \pfins TMV eV civBpwirov oxo/zan 

 fjiopiwvj On the uses of the parts of the body of wan, \. I. This passage is 

 available in English in a tract by Thomas Bellott, London, 1840. 



