FROM THALES TO LAMARCK 7 



emperors, still more during the Middle Ages. Even Galen, the 

 founder of scientific physiology, who lived in the third century, 

 was unable to arrest it. Nothing will better indicate the 

 low ebb at which science had arrived than a few quotations 

 from the so-called 'Physiologus,' which was during the Middle 

 Ages the most celebrated and best known work on natural 

 history. It was written about the third century and has been 

 translated into almost every civilized language. It draws its 

 facts of natural history mainly from the Bible and various 

 Roman and Greek authors. Altogether forty-one animals are 

 mentioned in this book, and of each we hear remarkable news. 

 Thus it is said of the panther : ' He is multi-coloured, after a 

 meal he sleeps three days, wakes up roaring and emits such 

 pleasant odours that all animals go to him/ Of the lion we are 

 told that ' after his birth he is dead three days, but on the third 

 day his father comes, blows into his face and thus ^Wakens him 

 into life.' Similar stories are told of the hyena, the pelican, the 

 phoenix, ttie unicorn, the siren and other * species of the animal 

 kingdom.' '^ 



Blind belief in dogma and all theories, encouraged by a 

 fanatic priesthood, is the sign of that period. Only with the 

 founder of astronomy, Nicolas Copernicus, with Galilei and his 

 undying * E pur si muove ' flung from his dungeon out into 

 the world, with Kepler's discovery of the course of the planets, 

 and finally with Newton's demonstration of the Law of Gravita- 

 tion, the blind belief in authorities breaks down, the tyranny of 

 the Church collapses and we see the dawn of the new age of 

 scientific research. , . 



Prominent among the leaders in this new era is Cuvier, 

 famous alike as the founder of comparative anatomy and as the 

 bitterest and most powerful opponent of the Doctrine of Descent. 



His chief merit is that he, for the first time, examined the 

 different species from the standpoint of comparative anatomy 

 and thus built up a system which has remained the basis of 

 modern classification. He formed the following four groups : 



(1) Vertebrata. 



(2) Articulata. 



(3) Mollusca. 



(4) Radiata. 



