PKEFACE. V 



by necessity, would eventually be pursued for its own sake -, 

 and not a few would be found who would investigate, and, 

 as far as they could, record the various phenomena they 

 observed. The paintings of Egypt and the sculptures of 

 Assyria are our witnesses of the skill with which animals 

 and plants were drawn, and of the minute perception 

 of their external forms ; and the knowledge thus gained 

 in the ancient centres of civilization would be sure to 

 circulate and increase when the intercourse with foreign 

 nations spread the knowledge and philosophy so acquired. 



In the writings of Homer we find that the knowledge of 

 the anatomy of the human body had already made consi- 

 derable progress ; and the inspection of the animals offered 

 in sacrifice cannot fail to have added much to the general 

 knowledge of their history. A century later, we have the 

 poems of Hesiod, devoted to the encouragement of agricul- 

 ture and rural pursuits. Pythagoras, in the seventh cen- 

 tury B.C., may perhaps have left no writings, but we know 

 that he was an eminent student and exponent of natural 

 phenomena. His contemporary, Alcmseon of Crotona, is 

 especially mentioned by Aristotle ; and he is eminent among 

 natural philosophers as the first who is said to have recom- 

 mended to his followers the practice of dissection. Empe- 

 docles of Agrigentum left a work on the phenomena of na- 

 ture, of which a few fragments still remain, and there were 

 also others who, if they did not enter into the details of 

 what we now call natural history, treated generally of the 

 nature of things, and opened the field to those who would 

 study the subject in its particular parts. The empire 

 of Persia was still the dominant power, and was carrying 

 the civilization of the East to every part of the known 

 world when Ctesias wrote his great works, of which, un- 

 happily, only a few fragments remain. He described not 



