42 FATHERS OF BIOLOGY. 



is about to refute the view put forward. Exaggerated 

 praise of any author has a tendency to excite depre- 

 ciation correspondingly unjust and untrue. It has been 

 so in the case of this great man. In the endeavour to 

 depose him from the impossible position to which his 

 panegyrists had exalted him, his detractors have gone to 

 any length. The principal charges brought against his 

 biological work have been inaccuracy and hasty gene'- 

 ralization. In support of the charge of inaccuracy, some 

 of the extraordinary statements which are met with in his 

 works are adduced. " These," Professor Huxley says, 

 " are not so much to be called errors as stupidities." 

 Some, however, of the inaccuracies alleged against 

 Aristotle are fancied rather than real. Thus he is charged 

 with having represented that the arteries contained 

 nothing but air ; that the aorta arose from the right ven- 

 tricle; that the heart did not beat in any other animal 

 but man ; that reptiles had no blood, etc. ; although in 

 reality he made no one of these assertions. There 

 remain, nevertheless, the gross misstatements referred to 

 above, and which really do occur. Such, for instance, 

 as that there is but a single bone in the neck of the 

 lion ; that there are more teeth in male than in female 

 animals ; that the mouth of the dolphin is placed on 

 the under surface of the body ; that the back of the 

 skull is empty, etc. Although these absurdities un- 

 doubtedly occur in Aristotle's works, it by no means 



