a The Science of Life. 



inquisitiveness was strong but uncritical, and even round 



the simplest facts the intellectual fingers failed to meet. 



But just as there are precocious children, so there was 



an early naturalist, whose works represent the most 



remarkable achievement of any one thinker. 



The foundations of biology were laid by 



Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). He collected and classified, 



dissected and pondered, and the prevision of his insight 



reached forward to generalizations which were not 



established till two thousand years had passed. 



Aristotle laid firm foundations, but for fifteen cen- 

 turies they remained unbuilt upon, and were indeed in 

 The great part obscured by accumulations of rub- 



Dormant bish. Apart from a few exceptions, such 

 as Pliny (23-79 A.D.), a diligent but uncrit- 

 ical collector of facts, and the physician Galen (130-200 

 A.D.), who had the courage to dissect monkeys, men 

 were preoccupied with the practical tasks of civilization, 

 alike in peace and war, and science slumbered. 



Even during the dormant period there were never 

 lacking those who, as it were, dreamed of the great world 

 Legendary around them. Their dreams are expressed 

 Biology. j n sucn literature as the famous Physiologus, 

 which is found in about a dozen languages and in many 

 forms, partly a collection of natural history fables and 

 anecdotes, partly a treatise on symbolism, and partly 

 an account of the medicinal and magical uses of animals. 

 Fact and fiction were in those days inextricably jumbled; 

 credulity ran riot along the paths where the scientific 

 method afterwards established order; and the dominant 

 theological mood affected even the vision of those who 

 tried, as some did, to get away from tradition and back 

 to nature. 



It would be a difficult task to state in due proportion 

 all the factors which contributed to the scientific renas- 

 The cence. It came about gradually: and, as 



scientific in the making of the butterfly out of the 

 ence * chrysalis, processes of disruption went hand 

 in hand with reconstruction. The freer circulation of 

 men and thoughts associated with the Crusades, the 

 widening of the horizon by travellers like Columbus, 



