ARISTOTLE AS A BIOLOGIST 15 



recognized great problems of biology that are still ours 

 to-day, problems of heredity, of sex, of nutrition and 

 growth, of adaptation, of the struggle for existence, of 

 the orderly sequence of Nature's plan. Above all he was 

 a student of Life itself. If he was a learned anatomist, 

 a great student of the dead, still more was he a lover of 

 the living. Evermore his world is in movement. The 

 seed is growing, the heart beating, the frame breathing. 

 The ways and habits of living things must be known : 

 how they work and play, love and hate, feed and pro- 

 create, rear and tend their young ; whether they dwell 

 solitary, or in more and more organized companies and 

 societies. All such things appeal to his imagination and 

 his diligence. Even his anatomy becomes at once an 

 anatomia animata, as Haller, poet and physiologist, 

 described the science to which he gave the name of 

 physiology. This attitude towards life, and the knowledge 

 got thereby, afterwards helped to shape and mould 

 Aristotle's philosophy. 



I have no reason to suppose that the study of biology 

 4 maketh a man wise ', but I am sure it helped to lead 

 Aristotle on the road to wisdom. Nevertheless he takes 

 occasion to explain, or to excuse, his devotion to this 

 study, alien, seemingly, to the pursuit of philosophy. 

 ' Doubtless,' he says, 1 ' the glory of the heavenly 

 bodies fills us with more delight than we get from 

 the contemplation of these lowly things ; for the sun 

 and stars are born not, neither do they decay, but are 

 eternal and divine. But the heavens are high and afar off, 

 and of celestial things the knowledge that our senses give 

 us is scanty and dim. On the other hand, the living 

 creatures are nigh at hand, and of each and all of them 

 we may gain ample and certain knowledge if we so desire. 



1 De Part. Anim. i. 5. 



