EPOCHS IN BIOLOGICAL HISTORY 383 



Ages, being saved from total loss for future generations 

 chiefly by Arabian scientists, and the monasteries of Italy 

 and Britain. In so far as science was taught at all, it was 

 from small compilations of corrupt texts of ancient authors 

 interspersed with anecdotes and fables. Under theological 

 influence there arose the oft-quoted PHYSIOLOGUS, found in 

 many forms and languages, which is at once a collection of 

 natural history stories, and a treatise on symbolism and the 

 medicinal use of animals. The centaur and phoenix take 

 their place with the Frog and Crow in affording illustrations 

 of theological texts and in pointing out more or less evident 

 morals. 



So low had science fallen that the scientific Renaissance 

 may be said to owe its origin to the revival of classical learn- 

 ing to the translation and study of the writings of Aristotle, 

 and other authors we have mentioned. These were so 

 superior to the existing science that, in accord with the spirit 

 of the time, Aristotle and Galen became the bible of biology. 

 The first works were merely commentaries on the writings 

 of these authors, but as time went on more and more new 

 observations were interspersed with the old. In short, the 

 climax of the scientific Renaissance involved a turning away 

 from the authority of Aristotle and an adoption of the 

 Aristotelian method of observation and induction. 



Botany was the first to show visible signs of the awakening, 

 probably because of the dependence of medicine on plant 

 products. "All physicians professed to be botanists and 

 every botanist was thought fit to practice medicine." In 

 the HERBALS published in Germany during the sixteenth 

 century we can trace the evolution of plant description 

 and classification from mere annotations on the text of 

 Dioscorides to well-illustrated manuals of the flora of 

 western Europe. 



