384 



FOUNDATIONS OF BIOLOGY 



During the same century zoology made abortive attempts 

 to emerge as a science, but the less immediate utility of the 

 subject, combined with the difficulty of collecting material 

 and therefore the necessity of more dependence on travelers' 

 tales, contributed to retard its advance. One group of natu- 

 ralists, the ENCYCLOPAEDISTS, so-called from their endeavor to 



FIG. 197. Andreas Vesalius. 



gather all available information of living things, attempted 

 the impossible. Gleaning from the ancients and adding such 

 materials as they could gather, led to the publication of huge 

 volumes of fact and fiction whose value bore no just propor- 

 tion to the vast expenditure of labor even in the case of 

 the best, Gesner's History of Animals. 



Although GESNER (1516-1565) of Switzerland was without 

 doubt the most learned naturalist of the period and probably 

 the best zoologist who had appeared since Aristotle, the direct 



