ARISTOTELES. 1 1 



lecture, called the evening walk, was on more 

 popular subjects, and to a larger and less select 

 class. It was during these thirteen years of 

 teaching that Aristoteles composed and completed 

 the greater part of his works which have descended 

 to our days. Amongst them are treatises on 

 natural history, the result of his own observations 

 and of the carefully selected works of others. 



His great pupil never forgot his master during 

 his victorious career, and Alexander is said to have 

 sent Aristoteles the enormous sum of eight hundred 

 talents to prosecute his studies in natural history. 

 He, moreover, ordered several thousands of persons 

 over the whole of Greece and Asia, who lived by 

 hunting, bird-catching, and fishing, or who had the 

 care of parks, herds, hives, stews, and aviaries, to 

 furnish Aristoteles with materials for a work on 

 animals. Two volumes on plants were written 

 by Aristoteles, but they are lost to us ; and he 

 influenced the botanists of his day by his great 

 exactitude of description and observation. 



Aristoteles' writings and teaching embraced a 

 great variety of subjects, and they were so genuine 

 that he became the leader of one of the principal 

 schools of Greece ; and his method of study and 

 many of his facts and ideas have influenced man- 

 kind down to the present day. His works were 

 much studied during the Middle Ages, and although 

 his books on botany have been lost, still he influenced 

 the study of botany through his pupil, Theophrastus, \ 

 who became the great light of after years. j 



