104 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 



plication of glasses has multiplied and magnified to 

 our sight the almost endless succession and ever- 

 diminishing tribes of insects, and enabled us to exa- 

 mine more accurately their germs and organs. Yet 

 nevertheless, with all these advantages, it is sur- 

 prising how nearly the facts collected by Aristotle 

 correspond with the advanced state of knowledge at 

 the present time ; and in certain departments, Birds 

 and Fishes, for example, it will not be easy to prove 

 that modern writers have added much of import- 

 ance to his observations. An eminent naturalist of 

 the last century (Cavolini), in speaking concerning 

 the development of the impregnated eggs of shell- 

 fish, and the little attention which the subject had 

 received, pays the following well-merited compliment 

 to the minute information of the Stagirite : " When 

 I. consider this defect, and turn to Aristotle's His- 

 tory of Animals, I am seized with astonishment on 

 finding that he should have fully and distinctly seen 

 the facts which we have been able only very imper- 

 fectly to perceive ; that he should have described 

 them with the utmost precision, and compared them 

 with the well-known observations concerning the 

 eggs of birds. My astonishment is the greater, 

 when I reflect that he was unassisted by micro- 

 scopes, which instruments have in our days been 

 brought to great perfection." 



In chemistry, botany, and mineralogy, we scarce- 

 ly find any thing approaching to a system among 

 ihe ancients ; but in the animal kingdom, the true 



