SECT, i] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 85 



now for that which remaineth (quoth he and therewith he laughed) 

 I will sing unto those that be skilfull and of understanding one holy 

 and sacred sentence taken out of the deepe secrets of Orpheus, which 

 not onely importeth this much, that the cgge was before the henne, 

 but also attributeth and adjudgeth to it the right of eldership and 

 priority of all things in the world, as for the rest, let them remaine 

 unspoken of in silence (as Herodotus saith) for that they bee exceeding 

 divine and mysticall, this onely will I speake by the way; that the 

 world containing as it doth so many sorts and sundry kinds of living 

 creatures, there is not in manner one, I dare well say, exempt from 

 being engendred of an egge, for the egge bringeth forth birdes and 

 foules that fiie, fishes an infinit number that swimme, land creatures, 

 as lizards, such as live both on land and water as crocodiles, those 

 that bee two-footed, as the bird, such as are footlesse, as the serpent, 

 and last of all, those that have many feet, as the unwinged locust. 

 Not without great reason therefore is it consecrated to the sacred 

 ceremonies and mysteries of Bacchus as representing that nature 

 which produceth and comprehendeth in itselfe all things". This 

 emphatic passage looks at first sight as if it was a statement of 

 the Harveian doctrine omne vivum ex ovo. But the fact that no 

 mammals are mentioned makes this improbable. Firmus then sits 

 down and Senecius opposes him with the well-worn argument that 

 the perfect must precede the imperfect, laying stress also on the 

 occurrence of spontaneous, i.e. eggless, generation, and on the fact 

 that men could find no "row" in eels. Three hundred years later, 

 Ambrosius Macrobius handled the question again (see Whittaker), 

 and the progress in embryological knowledge could be strikingly 

 shown by the difference in treatment. It would be an interesting 

 study to make a detailed comparison of them. 



1-6. Galen 



Another fifty years brings us to Galen of Pergamos, second in 

 greatness among ancient biologists, though in spite of his multi- 

 tudinous writings he does not quite take this high rank in embiyology. 

 That knowledge of the development of the foetus was at this time 

 specially associated with Peripatetic tradition appears from a remark 

 of Lucian of Samosata, Galen's contemporary. In the satire called, 

 The Auction of the Philosophies, Hermes, the auctioneer, referring to the 

 Peripatetic who is being sold, says, "He will tell you all about the 



