54 Greek Biology 



inextricably linked and there is no clear demarcation between 

 them. 



This is at least his theoretical view. But besides being 

 a philosopher by choice he was a supreme naturalist by his 

 natural endowments and he cannot suppress his love for nature 

 and his capacity for observation. We see Aristotle the naturalist 

 at his greatest as a direct observer or when reasoning directly 

 about the observations that he has made. When he disregards 

 his own observations and begins to erect theories on the observa- 

 tions or the views of others, he becomes weaker and less 

 comprehensible. 



3. After Aristotle 



ALL Aristotle's surviving biological works refer primarily to 

 the animal creation. His work on plants is lost or rather has 

 survived as the merest corrupted fragment. We are fortunate, 

 however, in the possession of a couple of complete works by 

 his pupil and successor Theophrastus (372-287), which may not 

 only be taken to represent the Aristotelian attitude towards the 

 plant world, but also give us an inkling of the general state of 

 biological science in the generation which succeeded the master. 



These treatises of Theophrastus are in many respects the 

 most complete and orderly of all ancient biological works that 

 have reached our time. They give an idea of the kind of 

 interest that the working scientist of that day could develop 

 when inspired rather by the genius of a great teacher than by 

 the power of his own thoughts. Theophrastus is a pedestrian 

 where Aristotle is a creature of wings, he is in a relation to 

 the master of the same order that the morphologists of the 

 second half of the nineteenth century were to Darwin. For 

 a couple of generations after the appearance of the Origin of 

 Species in 1859 tne industry and ability of naturalists all over 

 the world were occupied in working out in detail the structure 



