30 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



Among the great number of true observations, however, which Aris- 

 totle's treatise contains, there are no inconsiderable number of par- 

 ticulars so entirely false, that they are inconsistent altogether with any 

 possible derivation from actual observation. Thus, it gravely stated 

 that the lion has but one vertebra in its neck, that the river-crocodile 

 moves its upper jaw, and that certain conformations of the hand in- 

 dicate certain dispositions, etc. We are also informed that the breath 

 enters the heart, that this organ has three cavities, that the back part 

 of the head is empty, that men have eight ribs, and that men have 

 more teeth than women. There are many other particulars, equally 

 removed from truth, which are set down without the least indication 

 that they are not facts which the author has himself observed. 



A very eminent English physiologist (Professor Huxley) has quite 

 recently propounded a theory which happily explains the occurrence 

 of such astounding errors in a work displaying an amount of otherwise 

 accurate observation that is truly marvellous, considering the age in 

 which it was written. Professor Huxley supposes that the treatise on 

 animals of Aristotle, as we now possess it, is nothing more or less 

 than a collection of notes of Aristotle's lectures, taken by one or more 

 of his students. The Professor cites his own experience and that of 

 other teachers as showing that in students' notes it is not unusual to 

 meet with the most extravagantly erroneous statements even in the 

 midst of notes displaying otherwise an extraordinary degree of ac- 

 curacy. Moreover, after discussing in detail all the statements concern- 

 ing the heart in Aristotle's treatise, Huxley concludes that what have 

 been pointed out by all the Stagyrite's commentators as glaring errors 

 are, by a very slight change of the commonly accepted sense of his 

 words, capable of being interpreted as exact statements of facts. 

 Thus, by considering one of the cavities of the heart as simply a dila- 

 tion of one of the great vessels a view for which the appearances 

 afford a certain justification Aristotle's account would become, as 

 far as the science of his epoch extended, substantially correct. 



Two other men with names greatly celebrated among the ancients 

 may be referred to here, as representatives of what may be termed the 

 Natural History group of sciences. One of them was a contemporary 

 of Plato, the other was a pupil of Aristotle. The first is the famous 

 physician HIPPOCRATES (B.C. 470 375), to whom is attributed the 

 foundation of medicine as a science. The healing of wounds and the 

 cure of diseases is an art, and as such must have been practised in 

 some form at a period coeval with the existence of mankind. The 

 successful practice of this art depends largely upon a knowledge of 

 the causes, symptoms, and course of diseases, and upon a knowledge 

 of the anatomy and physiology of the human body. This kind of 

 knowledge constitutes but a part of that division of science which 

 occupies itself with the study of living things, and therefore it is 

 only as in subordinate relation to zoology generally that the special 



