1910.] Ccesalpinus; Influence of Botany on Zoology. 15 



is connected with the name of an Englishman, Wotton, born at Oxford in 

 1492; who practised as a physician in London and died in 1555 .... In many 

 respects Wotton was simply an exponent of Aristotle, .... It was Wotton's 

 merit that he rejected the legendary and fantastic accretions [of the Middle 

 Ages], and returned to Aristotle and the observation of nature. . . .Wotton 

 divides the viviparous quadrupeds into the many- toed, double hoofed, and 

 single-hoofed. By the introduction of a method of classification which was 

 due to the superficial Pliny, — viz. one depending, not on structure, but on 

 the medium inhabited by an animal, whether earth, air, or water, — Wotton 

 is led to associate Fishes and Whales as aquatic animals. But this is only a 

 momentary lapse, for he broadly distinguishes the two kinds." 



C^SALPINUS, 1583. 



In considering the early history of the classification of mammals one 

 would gain a very imperfect idea of the true sequence of thought if he were 

 to leave out of account entirely the influence of the progress of other branches 

 of zoology and indeed of natural philosophy. Whewell in his 'History of 

 the Inductive Sciences' has demonstrated the general interdependence and 

 the progressive advance and mutual aid rentlered by these various sciences, 

 especially the development of the idea of classification, which first attained 

 modern form in the science of botany, in the works of Gesner and Csesalpinus 

 of Arezzo. But an important preliminary step was the casting off of the 

 shackles of scholasticism, of the age-long habit of appealing to books, not 

 nature, and this had been taken, for botany, by several botanists of the early 

 sixteenth century. After this, W'hewell continues (1837, pp. 277-279): 

 "The perception that there is some connexion among the species of plants, 

 was the first essential step; the detection of different marks and characters 

 which should give, on the one hand, limited groups, and on the other com- 

 prehensive divisions, were other highly important parts of this advance. 

 To point out every successive movement in this progress would be a task of 

 extreme difficulty, but we may note, as the most prominent portions of it, 

 the establishment of the groups which immediately include species, that is 

 the formation of genera; and the invention of a method which should dis- 

 tribute into consistent and distinct divisions the whole vegetable kingdom, 

 that is the construction of a system." Whewell also says that although it is 

 difficult to state "to what botanist is due the establishment of genera; yet 

 we may justly assign the greater part of the merit of this invention, as is 

 usually done, to Conrad Gesner of Zurich." 



The first construction of a system in Botany, says Whewell {op. cit., Vol. 

 Ill, p. 280), is due wholly to Andreas Csesalpinus of Arezzo, "one of the 



