OUTLINE OF BIOLOGICAL PROGRESS 1 1 



Alexander the Great. Like other scholars of his time, he 

 covered a wide range of subjects; we have mention, indeed, 

 of about three hundred works of his composition, many of 

 which are lost. He wrote on philosophy, metaphysics, psy- 

 chology, politics, rhetoric, etc., but it was in the domain of 

 natural history that he attained absolute pre-eminence. 



His Position in the Development of Science. — It is mani- 

 festly unjust to measure Aristotle by present standards; we 

 must keep always in mind that he was a pioneer, and that 

 he lived in an early day of science, when errors and crudities 

 were to be expected. His greatest claim to eminence in the 

 history of science is that he conceived the things of importance 

 and that he adopted the right method in trying to advance 

 the knowledge of the natural universe. In his program 

 of studies he says : "First we must understand the phenomena 

 of animals; then assign their causes; and, finally, speak of 

 their generation." His position in natural history is fre- 

 quently misunderstood. One of the most recent writers on 

 the history of science, Henry Smith Williams, pictures him 

 entirely as a great classifier, and as the founder of systematic 

 zoology. While it is true that he was the founder of sys- 

 tematic zoology, as such he did not do his greatest service 

 to natural history, nor does the disposition to classify repre- 

 sent his dominant activity. In all his work classification is 

 made incidental and subser^^ient to more important considera- 

 tions. His observations upon structure and development, 

 and his anticipation of the idea of organic evolution, are the 

 ones upon which his great fame rests. He is not to be remem- 

 bered as a man of the type of Linnaeus; rather is he the fore- 

 runner of those men who looked deeper than Linnaeus into 

 the structure and development of animal life — the mor- 

 j)hologists. 



Particular mention of his classification of animals will 

 be found in the chapter on Linnaeus, while in what follows 



