RENAISSANCE 83 



of the Renaissance, the Humanists, made over to the writers of antiquity. 

 Aristotle was regarded by them with, if possible, still greater respect than 

 by the mediaeval professors, the only difference being that now one had ac- 

 cess to the original writings of the master and could interpret them without 

 the restriction which the Church had formerly laid upon them. There was 

 no possibility, then, of any new conception of nature and its phenomena 

 developing in this direction. But fortunately there were other points of de- 

 parture for this development. 



The fantastic speculations of neo-Platonism about infinity, and the al- 

 chemistic experimental science of the Arabs, formed the bases for a number 

 of attempts at an explanation of nature unfettered by Church dogmas and 

 scholastic systems, while, on the other hand, the great geographical dis- 

 coveries, as well as the newly-found classical authors, offered ideas for special 

 investigations in the sphere of biology which led to results far beyond those 

 of either Aristotle or Galen. The Renaissance period, therefore, was for the 

 science of biology a period of restless seeking and collecting, yielding results 

 which the succeeding age utilized for the purpose of making a complete 

 revaluation of the whole conception of nature common to the people of an- 

 tiquity and the Middle Ages. It would seem most convenient, then, first of 

 all to give a brief summary of the new philosophical speculations to which 

 the Renaissance gave rise, and then to examine in detail the results which 

 were achieved during that period by the science of biology. 



