16 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



reached, we find a genuine scientific method making 

 its first start in the person of Aristotle. This 

 remarkable man, the founder of the experimental 

 school, and the Father of Natural History, was born 

 384 B.C. at Stagira in Macedonia. In his eighteenth 

 year he left his native place for Athens, where he 

 became a pupil of Plato. Disappointed, as it is 

 thought, at not succeeding his master in the Academy, 

 he removed to Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, 

 where he received an invitation from Philip of Mace- 

 don to become tutor to his son, the famous Alex- 

 ander the Great. When Alexander went on his 

 expedition to Asia, Aristotle returned to Athens, 

 teaching in the 'school' which his genius raised 

 to the first rank. There he wrote the greater 

 part of his works, the completion of some of which 

 was stopped by his death at Chalcis in 322. The 

 range of his studies was boundless, but in this brief 

 notice we must limit our survey and the more 

 so because Aristotle's speculations outside natural 

 history abound in errors to his pioneer work in 

 organic evolution. Here, in the one possible method 

 of reaching the truth, theory follows observation. 

 Stagira lay on the Strymonic gulf, and a boyhood 

 spent by the seashore gave Aristotle ample oppor- 

 tunity for noting the variations, and withal grada- 

 tions, between marine plants and animals, among 

 which last-named it should be noted as proof of his 

 insight, that he was keen enough to include sponges. 

 Here was laid the foundation of a classification of 

 life-forms on which all corresponding attempts were 

 based. Then, he saw, as none other before him had 

 seen, and as none after him saw for centuries, the 



