102 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 



East, the recluse philosopher of Athens, while h 

 pupil was conquering the world, composed, in the 

 tranquil shades of the Lycaewm, that immortal work 

 which Pliny professed to abridge, and which Buffon 

 despaired to rival. 



The History of Animals occupies nine bookvs : 

 the remaining sixteen are employed in explaining 

 their general affections or properties, and their prin- 

 cipal parts or members ; viz. four treat of their se- 

 veral parts, five of generation, and the rest of their 

 sensations and motions, in the knowledge of which 

 particulars he considered the philosophy of zoology 

 chiefly to consist. As he extends that term to 

 whatever has animal life, the first four books of his 

 history, beginning with the outward conformation of 

 animals, divides and distinguishes, (in comparison 

 with the human form as that which is most fami- 

 liarly known), the inhabitants of the earth, the water, 

 and the air, from the enormous whale, and massy 

 elephant, to the scarcely perceptible productions of 

 dust and rottenness; enumerating, with surprising 

 accuracy, the agreements, and differences, and ana- 

 logies, that prevail in point of external organization 

 among all the living tribes of nature. In the three 

 subsequent books, he examines the different classes 

 of animals, with respect to the commencement, du- 

 ration, and term of their generative powers. His 

 eighth book examines their habitation and nourish- 

 ment ; and the conclusion of the history details their 

 manners and habits^ enumerates their friends and 



