INTRODUCTORY. 5 



Francis Willughby, John Kay, and Peter Artedi (whose 

 work on ichthyology was edited by Linnaeus) were students 

 of Aristotle. Gesner s Historia Animalium, 1551-87, con 

 taining numerous extracts from and comments on Aristotle s 

 History of Animals, was the standard work on animals for 

 many years. 



In the latter part of the eighteenth and early part of 

 the nineteenth century there was a revival of interest in 

 Aristotle s writings. This revival, effected to a large extent 

 by the efforts of Lessing and Hegel, has not died out. On 

 the contrary, the interest taken in Aristotle s writings has 

 been steadily increasing, and the peculiar character of these 

 writings will probably cause such interest to increase still 

 more, for they represent more fully than any others the 

 highest intellectual development of ancient Greece. The 

 opinions of the philosophers who preceded him are more 

 fully and accurately set forth by Aristotle than by any other 

 writer. He gives valuable accounts of their views, and 

 discusses how far they should be accepted or rejected. He 

 also makes extensive additions to the knowledge obtained 

 from his predecessors, and adds the results of his own 

 researches in many subjects which they had never investi 

 gated. It may be fairly claimed that, in his attempts to 

 separate and define the various branches of learning, Aristotle 

 established several new sciences, more especially Logic, 

 Ehetoric, Ethics, and Zoology. The best parts of his 

 writings on these subjects have passed into modern treatises. 

 Large parts of his Analytics have been absorbed in this 

 way. Little has been added by later writers to his work 

 on rhetoric. In modern zoological works, excepting most 

 of those describing the results of recent researches, or 

 animals unknown to Aristotle, many statements are made 

 which recall to the mind of the Aristotelian scholar passages 

 in the History of Animals or other Aristotelian treatise. 

 It has also been contended, not always groundlessly, that 

 some passages in Aristotle s works anticipated several 

 theories and discoveries of modern times. Among such 

 alleged anticipations may be mentioned the undulatory 

 theory of light, the so-called law of organic equivalents, the 

 hectocotylus of certain cephalopods, the nest-making habits 

 of some fishes, and the occurrence of hermaphroditism in 

 some species of S err anus. 



The unobtrusive, even hidden, influence of the Aristo 

 telian writings is perhaps more striking. This influence is 



