GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



the De Generatione Animalium; ^^ then more 

 briefly, the Enquiry Into Plants of his pupil 

 Theophrastus.'* 



Aristotle's prodigious legacy of biological, 

 or let us say zoological, knowledge has often 

 been commented on, criticized, and appraised; 

 his extraordinary insight and grasp of veritable, 

 frequently intricate and difficult facts have 

 been made clear and the errors (however 

 arising) in his writings exposed. Usually one 

 can tell when his knowledge is derived from 

 the reports of other men, and when he has 

 gained it from his own observation of animals, 

 and especially from the many dissections which 

 he must have performed. That he dissected 

 whatever animals he could lay hands on is 

 proved by his knowledge of their parts; but 

 he rarely refers to his dissections -^ any more 

 than to the method and manner of his re- 

 searches generally. It is results or conclusions 

 that are given in these writings, whether by 

 Aristotle himself or some pupil.^" 



From the first the reader is impressed with 

 Aristotle's comprehensive desire to order and 

 classify the objects of his study. He would 

 distinguish the parts of animals and arrange 

 the animals themselves by genera and species, 



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