174 ANNIVERSAEY ADDRESS 



this hour no systematic view of animated beings has been attempted 

 the principles of which have not been adapted from his ' History 

 of Animals.' Aristotle flourished some 350 years before the 

 Christian era. He was a private tutor in the house of Philip of 

 Macedon, and Alexander the Great was his pupil. Alexander, who 

 had a turn for Natural History, testified his appreciation of the 

 pains bestowed on his education by providing a few hundred (some 

 writers say thousand) men to travel into distant countries to collect 

 specimens and make observations for the great work he had in 

 contemplation. I need not say that as men possessed of neither 

 intellect nor education were sent forth to make observations, the 

 result was not always reliable, and numberless fables which appear 

 in Aristotle's works may be attributed to the reports brought him 

 by such agents. Alexander did not confine his patronage to the 

 provision of collectors of information — he defrayed the cost of 

 publication of his master's writings — no trifling sum. It is recorded 

 to have been 800 talents, an enormous sum, the value of a talent 

 in our money being variously estimated at from £200 to £600, 

 which proves that publishing 2000 years ago was an expensive, 

 and, no doubt, a profitable business, as it now is. The book, how- 

 ever, is bulky. My own copy, a folio, splendidly bound, contains 

 more than 3000 pages closely printed. I shall not inflict any 

 extracts upon you, but, as I said, the system laid down by Aristotle 

 has been that adopted by all succeeding writers, and he may be 

 regarded as the father of Natural History, as Herodotus is of 

 History. 



More than 300 years later flourished Pliny, the great Eoman 

 naturalist, who lost his life in the pursuit of the study. He was, 

 as you know, overwhelmed in the ashes which destroyed Pompeii, 

 whilst investigating too closely the dreadful eruption of Vesuvius. 

 Pliny worked on the lines of his great predecessor, reducing his 

 generalities to more concrete and specific form, and producing a 

 work of the greatest interest and value. Of course, in a book 

 written in an age so remote, many grave errors occur, either 

 from incorrect information or too hasty observation. A chapter in 

 Aristotle, entitled " De mirabilibus," and which title might have 

 raised suspicion in Pliny's mind, was to a great extent adopted, and 

 the wonders recorded in it repeated and amplified. His own 

 writings, too, display a capacity for swallowing the marvellous 

 which could hardly be exceeded. "Yet," he writes, "it is really 

 wonderful to what a length the credulity of these Greeks will go. 

 There is nothing so absurd that one Greek will not tell nor another 

 believe." After which he gravely relates of the basilisk, that it is 



