32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



read old bonks, those who want to find old ideas may read books 

 that are new. The cynical suGjfi^estion this adage conceals puts 

 the philosophical stnchmt on his guard. He knows he is the 

 heritor of ardent scholar-natnralists who castigated the recovered 

 chissics with such aid as scraps of Semitic erudition might afford. 



The Arab naturalist of the XI. Century, like his Teuton 

 successor of the XA^l., based his system of nature on a Greek 

 foundation. But he could not always consult the original source. 

 His iuimediate authority often was some Aramaic conirnentarv. 

 The Arab may be pardoned if he considered such commentaries 

 complete. They referred to a region which once beheld that 

 singular marvel — a monarch who was also a student of natural 

 history. The fame of that ruler was great, 'for he was wiser than 

 all men.' 'He spake of trees — he spake also of beasts, and of 

 fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.' 



Nevertheless, when the Arab philosopher of Damascus felt 

 satisfied as to the identity of the species under his observation 

 with those intended by the Syrian translator of a Greek text, the 

 Arab philosopher of Cordova remained less assured. Nor could 

 either be certain that the species of an Aramaic scholiast were 

 those of the Greek author. 



The European scholar who, five centuries later, resumed the 

 old task, had direct access to Greek authoritv. With naive 

 confidence he essayed to find the plants of Hellas in his native 

 land. If Greek indications did not fit his species so much the 

 worse for these indications. The finding of a new hemisphere did 

 not at first shake western confidence. It uas long assumed that 

 a plant met with in one of the Indies ought to occur in both. 

 We know now that this is not always the case, and this knowledge 

 has mode us realize that our best hope of understnnding the 

 plants mentioned by Greek authors comes from careful search 

 within the limits of the old Byzantine provinces. This discovery 

 has had another result. It has led the modern philosophical 

 student to consult the ancient texts and has taught him that the 

 outlook of the Greek naturalist was at times wonderfully like his 

 own. This, however, is a matter which concerns the science of 

 natural history as an entity free from such complications as any 

 influence on or by the business of life may induce. 



When that influence is take)i into account we find that studies 

 in the ])rovince of natural history whose care is the structure and 

 functions of animals and plants as vital mechanisms, owe their 

 origin to the practice of husbandry, and have in turn reacted 

 beneficially upon that indispensable industry. They have done 

 more than tliis ; they have brought wild nature within the 

 domain of rural economy by extending to the forest and the steppe 

 those principles which find their practical expression in rotation, 

 selection and breeding. 



Studies in the province of natural history whose concern is 

 witli the liabits, characters and occurrence of animals and plants 



