420 HISTORY OF ZOOLOGY. 



distribution of the events in the history of botany was founded, ii 

 Cuvier's representation of the history of ichthyology offers to us obvi- 

 ously a distribution almost identical. 



We shall find that this is so ; that we have, in zoology as in 

 botany, a period of unsystematic knowledge ; a period of misapplied 

 erudition; an epoch of the discovery of fixed characters; a period in 

 which many systems were put forward ; a struggle of an artificial and 

 a natural method ; and a gradual tendency of the natural method to a 

 manifestly physiological character. A few references to Cuvier's his- 

 tory will enable us to illustrate these and other analogies. 



Period of Unsystematic Knowledge. It would be easy t; collect a 

 number of the fabulous stories of early times, which formed a portion 

 of the imaijinary knowledge of men concerning animals as well as 

 plants. But passing over these, we come to a long period and a great 

 collection of writers, who, in various ways, and with various degrees 

 of merit, contributed to augment the knowledge which existed con- 

 cerning fish, while as yet there was hardly ever any attempt at a clas- 

 sification of that province of the animal kingdom. Among these 

 writers, Aristotle is by far the most important. Indeed he earned on 

 his zoological researches under advantages which rarely fall to the lot 

 of the naturalist ; if it be true, as Athenseus and Pliny state, 1 that 

 Alexander gave him sums which amounted to nine hundred talents, 

 to enable him to collect materials for his history of animals, and put 

 at his disposal several thousands of men to be employed in hunting, 

 fishing, and procuring information for him. The works of his on 

 Natural History which remain to us are, nine Books Of the History 

 of Animals ; four, On the Parts of Animals / five, On the Generation 

 of Animals ; one, On the Going of Animals; one, Of the Sensations, 

 and the Organs of them ; one, On Sleeping and WaJceng one, On 

 the Motion of Animals one, On the Length and Shortness of Life ; 

 one, On Youth and Old Age ; one, On Life and Death ; one, On 

 Respiration. The knowledge of the external and internal conforma- 

 tion of animals, their habits, instincts, and uses, which Aristotle dis- 

 plays in these works, is spoken of as something wonderful even to 

 the naturalists of our own time. And he may be taken as a sufficient 

 representative of the whole of the period of which we speak ; for he 

 is, says Cuvier," not only the first, but the only one of the ancients 

 ivho has treated of the natural history of fishes (the province to which 



' Ouv. Hist. Nat. des Poisons, i. 13. 2 Cuv. p. 18. 



