INFLUENCE OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGNS. 163 



the skins and bones of animals, and not the soft parts capable 

 of dissection, could be sent from remote parts of Asia to Greece. 

 However probable it may be that Aristotle received the most 

 liberal aid from Philip and Alexander for the furtherance of 

 his studies in physical science, for procuring an immense num- 

 ber of zoological specimens both from Greece and the neigh- 

 boring seas, and for forming a collection of books unique in 

 that age, and which passed successively into the hands, first 

 of Theophrastes, and afterward of Neleus of Skepsis, we must 

 nevertheless regard the accounts of" the presents of eight hund- 

 red talents, and the maintenance of so many thousand col 

 lectors, overseers of fish-ponds, and bird-keepers," as mere ex- 

 aggerations of a later period, or as traditions misunderstood by 

 Pliny, AthensBUs, and -^lian.* 



The Macedonian campaign, Avhich opened so large and 

 beautiful a portion of the earth to the influence of one sole 

 highly-gifted race, may therefore certainly be regarded, in the 

 strictest sense of the word, as a scientific expedition, and, 

 moreover, as the first in which a conqueror had surrounded 

 himself with men learned in all departments of science, as 

 naturalists, geometricians, historians, philosophers, and artists. 

 The results that w^e owe to Aristotle are not, however, solely 

 to be referred to his own personal labors, for he acted also 

 through the intelligent men of his school who accompanied 

 the expedition. Among these shone pre-eminently Callisthe- 

 nes of Olynthus, the near kinsman of the Stagirite, w^ho had 



* Compare Sainte-Croix, Examen des Historiens d' Alexandre, 1810, 

 p. 207 ; and Cuvier, Histoire des Sciences Naturelles, t. i., p. 137, with 

 Schneider, ad ATdstot. de Historid Animalinm, t. i., p. xlii., xlvi., and 

 Stahr, Aristotelia, th. i., s. 116-118. If, therefore, the tiausmis^^ion of 

 specimens from Egypt and the interior of Asia seems to be highly im- 

 probable, yet the latest \vi-itings of our great anatomist, Johannes Mtil- 

 ler, show with what wonderful delicacy Aristotle dissected the fishes 

 of the Greek seas. See the learned treatise of Johannes Muller, on the 

 adherence of the ovum to the uterus, in one of the two species of the 

 genus Mustelus living in the Mediterranean, which in its fcetal state 

 possesses a placenta of the vitelline vesicle connected with the uterine 

 placenta of the mother, and his researches on the yakeog Aeiof of Aristo 

 tie, in the Ahhandl. der Berliner Akad. aus dem Jahr 1840, s. 192-197. 

 (Compare Aristot., Hisi. Anim., vi., 10, and De Gener. Anini., iii., 3.) 

 The distinction and detailed analysis of the species of cuttle-fish, the 

 description of the teeth of snails, and the organs of other gasteropodes 

 all testify to the delicate nicety of Aristotle's own anatomical examina- 

 tions. Compare Hist. Anim., iv., 1 and 4, with Lebert, in Mliller's 

 Archiv der Physiologie, 1846, s. 463 uud 467. I myself, in 1797, called 

 the attention of modern naturalists to the form of snails' teeth. See 

 my Versuche ilber die gereizfe Muskel iind Nervenfaser, bd. i., s. 261 . 



