148 



NA TURE 



[December i6, 1897 



(Mr. Dakyns is responsible for this rather odd translation), 

 " not to speak of the bad example of carelessness to the 

 beholder." 



The work is a marvellous display of close and intel- 

 ligent observation by an enthusiastic sportsman, and will 

 be full of interest to persons of similar taste in the present 

 day. Of course it contains a good deal of " keepers' 

 superstition," very similar to the fancies of the modern 

 keeper, but this, perhaps, adds to the interest ; and many 

 more or less brilliant suggestions are made in explanation 

 of facts which seemed to be in need of it. Mr. Dakyns' 

 translation is spirited and, on the whole (to judge from 

 passages chosen at random), accurate ; and any sports- 

 man into whose hand the book falls will feel grateful to 

 him for rendering accessible the work of, perhaps, the 

 acutest observer of outdoor life in antiquity. 



In turning to Dr. Ogle's translation of some of the 

 minor treatises of Aristotle, we enter the domain of 

 science proper. The translator's name is sufficient 

 guarantee of the excellence alike of introduction, trans- 

 lation, and notes : the work is quite up to the standard 

 of the " Parts of Animals" by the same editor. Shortly, 

 the doctrine contained in the treatises translated rests 

 on the belief that life depends upon heat : the source of 

 this heat was the heart, in which heat was continually 

 being generated by the concoction of food received from 

 the stomach and passed into the heart ; and the heat 

 thus generated supplied the place of that which was 

 continually being given off by the body. But life might 

 be destroyed by excess no less than by defect of heat ; 

 this excess was provided against by respiration, which 

 cooled the violence of the "fire" in the heart, which 

 always tended to become excessive : in the case of 

 pulmonate animals, the air in the lungs was the means 

 of refrigeration ; in the case of branchiates, the water 

 playing upon the gills. Natural death (as distinct from 

 death by disease or violence) was due to the gradual 

 exhaustion of vital heat — an idea at least as clearly 

 defined as the " vital force " of many modern physio- 

 logists. The causes of longevity (in these and other 

 treatises) are somewhat vaguely stated, but the corre- 

 lation of longevity with such characters as large size, 

 high organisation and length of the period of gestation, 

 was observed by Aristotle. These points are, of course, 

 worked out in much greater detail, and the exposition of 

 them by Aristotle cannot here be reproduced at length. 

 The first impression of an ordinary reader will probably 

 be that views so absurd and obsolete are not worth 

 consideration. But on further attention, we find that 

 obsolete though these views may be, yet they were the 

 first step towards a really scientific physiology. The 

 physiology of Plato and Democi'itus was pure guess- 

 work, or at least only guided by preconceived theories 

 not falling within the range of physiology. It was 

 Aristotle who first saw 



" that the study of function must be preceded by the 

 study of structure, or in other words, that physiology 

 must be based upon anatomy. ... By insisting on the 

 absolute necessity of anatomical observation, he carried 

 biology at one step from the world of dreams into the 

 world of realities ; he set the science on a substantial 

 basis, and may indeed be said to have been its founder, 

 for the same imaginings of his predecessors can hardly 

 be dignified with the name of science." 



NO. 1468, VOL. 57] 



And, to quote a later passage of Dr. Ogle's intro- 

 duction : 



" If we perform the difficult task of excluding from our 

 minds all ideas and facts since acquired, we shall find 

 ourselves constrained to admit that in Aristotle's days 

 no better hypothesis could have been devised with which 

 to colligate the facts or supposed facts then available." 



And when we consider that such ideas and facts 

 include among others those of chemical combination, 

 the circulation of the blood and the existence of nerves, 

 we shall be surprised to find the difference between the 

 Aristotelian and the modern theories so slight as it is. 

 In fact, as Dr. Ogle shows both in the introduction and 

 notes, a very slight alteration of terminology is often all 

 that is required to convert Aristotle's statements into 

 propositions which would still be accepted as true ; and 

 even in their crude form, many of his doctrines (or some- 

 thing very like them) were held by the most advanced 

 scientific men of recent centuries, Harvey himself among 

 others. It is further remarkable that Aristotle should, 

 with the extremely inadequate instruments and appli- 

 ances at his command, have produced results so accurate 

 in the region of anatomy and embryology : his account, 

 e.g. of the lung, is a model of careful description so far 

 as it goes, and the work before us will provide many 

 other instances. Aristotle, of course, had his defects, 

 and his editor points these out frankly : he occasionally 

 (though far less than any other ancient author) took 

 mere hearsay for fact ; and he was scarcely alive to the 

 importance of experiment. But he had a definite method 

 of investigation ; his conclusions were always based on 

 recorded observations of himself and others ; the advance 

 he made was almost incredibly great for one man ; and 

 the lines he laid down have been (though unconsciously) 

 followed and developed by all great physiologists ever 

 since. To quote Dr. Ogle once more : 



" There are minds to which the mistakes and short- 

 comings of great men apparently present greater attrac- 

 tion than their achievements. To them Bacon is but a 

 man who believed in the spontaneous generation of 

 mistletoe ; Cuvier, an upholder of the fixity of species ; 

 Kepler, one who thought that the huge volcanoes in the 

 moon were artificial structures built by its inhabitants ; 

 Descartes, an asserter of the immediate transmission of 

 light ; and Newton himself an advocate of the emission 

 theory. To such persons Aristotle's anatomical state- 

 ments will doubtless supply much desirable pabulum. 

 But those more genial critics who prefer to dwell upon 

 what a man has done well rather than what he has left 

 undone or done amiss . . . will admit that never has a 

 science been started on its career by its originator with 

 so large an equipment of facts and ideas as that with 

 which Comparative Anatomy left the hands of Aristotle." 



THE MEASUREMENT OF RAPIDLY 

 VARYING ELECTRIC PRESSURE. 

 The Capillary Electrometer : its Theory and Practice. 

 Part i. By G. J. Burch, M.A. Pp. 54. Reprinted from 

 the Electrician. (London : G. Tucker.) 



MUCH of the present knowledge concerning the 

 capillary electrometer is due to the author of this 

 little book. The instrument was invented in 1875 by 

 Prof Lippmann, but for twenty years it was hardly used 



