10 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXVII, 



of various disconnected facts. There is, however, no coordination of the 

 facts observed, no valuation, and no subordination which would entitle his 

 observations to be considered as a body of scientific facts or doctrines. The 

 materials for science exist indeed, but in a very crude and imperfect condi- 

 tion." He distinguished homology from analogy in the abstract, but fre- 

 quently confused them in the concrete. He also adopted current erroneous 

 views, such for example as that all animals except the elephant differ from 

 man in the contrary flexures of the limbs, that the lion has no vertebrae but 

 only one bone in the neck (Gill, op. cit., p. 461). 



As to his supposed joreeminence as a systematist Gill concludes (op. cit., 

 p. 461) that he had very little appreciation of groups. "It requires no 

 penetrating acumen," says Gill, "to recognize man, the monkeys, the bats, 

 the t^'jiical ruminants and the t}']3ical ceteceans as distinct forms existent 

 in nature. But such are fair examples of the groups, for the appreciation 

 of which Aristotle has been so highly lauded, — groups which from their 

 very nature in their integrity first appeal to the senses, and which only minute 

 analysis enables the observer subsequently to differentiate into ultimate 

 constituents." And again (op. cit., p. 462): "In fine, there is, so far as I 

 can perceive, not the slightest evidence of any recognition of what is now 

 understood by classification in any of the extant treatises of Aristotle on 

 animals, and the systems framed to embody his generalizations have been 

 constructed from isolated sentences wrested from their context and simply 

 reflect the framer's notions or his ideas as to what x\ristotle might have 

 supposed." 



Whewell also concludes (op. cit., pp. 346, 348, 350) that Aristotle was c{uite 

 unconscious of the classification that has been ascribed to him, the very idea 

 of which did not develop until many centuries later. But that Aristotle 

 did recognize some natural groups and felt the lack of generic names to 

 denominate others is shown in the following passage from Aristotle's work 

 *On Animals' quoted among others by Whewell (op. cit., p. 351): 



"'Of the class of viviparous quadrupeds, there are many genera,^ but 

 these again are without names, except specific names, such as man, lion, 

 stag, horse, dog, and the like. Yet there is a genus of animals that haxe 

 manes, as the horse, the ass, the oreus, the ginniis, the innus, and the animal 

 which in Syria is called heminus (mule) .... Wherefore,' he adds, that is, 

 because we do not possess recognised genera and generic names of this kind, 

 'we must take the species separately and study the nature of each'" (Bk. 

 I, chap. vii). 



"These passages," AVhewell continues, "afford us sufficient ground for 



iTe 



VT]. 



