8 ACALETIIS IN GENERAL. Part 1. 



historical events, is not (lifficult to trace. The estabhshmeut of the Mahometans 

 in 8])ain, and, some centuries hiter, the Crusades, had l)rought the West into direct 

 contact Avith the East, where tlie Araljs had kept alive the traditions of CJreek 

 learning, and the foundation of the great universities of Europe in the twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries was the result of the intellectual impulse which this intercourse 

 aroused. The institution of the mendicant orders, which Avere established at the 

 same time, and Avhose office was chiefly to teach, stimulated this activity still 

 further ; while the overthrow of the Byzantine Empire, in the middle of the 

 fifteenth century, sent westward many of the most learned CJreeks of that age. 

 Then came the Reformation, with its all-embracing discussions upon the most im- 

 portant prol)lems of mental activity, — the introduction tif the arts of printing and 

 engraving, multijjlying a thousand-fold the influence of thought, — the inventicni of 

 gunpowder and of fire-arms, bringing brute force under the contrt)! of intellectual 

 energy and foresight, — the discovery of America, and of a jjassage into tlie Pacific 

 Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope and the southern extremity oi" Aujerica, 

 ojiening new worlds to the investigations of the learned. 



The extraordinary activity then ])revailing ruanifested itself in the most stiiking 

 manner also among those whose inclination tended towards the study of nature, and 

 of man as an intellectual l)eing. Besides philosophy and mathematics, Ave see human 

 anatomy taught in the puljlic schools, and extending its iniiueuce OA'cr the investi- 

 gations of the Avhole aninud kingdom ; so that the great anatomists of the sixteenth 

 century, Vesalius, Fallopius, Eustachius, Fabricius ab Ac^uapendente, and Harvey, had 

 their peers among the naturalists in Wotton, Belon, Salviaui, Rondelet, (iessner, 

 AldroA'andi, and Faljio Colonna. Among these, Ave are chiefly indeljted to Rondelet 

 for contributions to the natural history of the Acalei)hs. lie Avas, indeed, not only 

 better ac(|uainted Avith the iuhaliitants of the IMediterraneau than all his prede- 

 cessors, but he knew them even more accurately than any naturalist that lived 

 before the present century. Professor of Anatomy in the University of IMont[)elier, 

 Avhere he had the best 0})i)ortunity for studying the marine animals of the IMediter- 

 ranean, be has published a work upon the fishes inhaliiting that sea, Avhich chal- 

 lenges our admiration even now;' and if his account of the soft-bodied animals is 

 far infei'ior to his descriptions of tlie other types of the animal kingdom, it is simply 

 to be ascril)ed to the mode of iu\'estigating which has too long prevailed, and from 

 Avhich even some tif the living naturalists are not yet altogetber free, — that of 

 removing the animals to be examined from their natui'al element in ordt'r to 

 describe them. While there is hardly a. naturalist at present who does not know 



' GuiL. RONDELETH liliri (Ic; |iiscilais iiKiriiiis, ITtli liouk is ilcvotrJ U> llic Acalrjilis, wliicli lie- calls 



Liig.hmi, 1554, 1 vul. ful. The 1 llh ('hap. .jf lh<' 6r//<Yf> (nrttU-s). 



