ARISTOTELIAN PERIOD. 17 



two great groups, the Enaima and Anaima, or animals 

 with blood and animals without blood ; but he does not 

 use this as the basis of any distinct classification. Under 

 the head of Enaima, or animals with blood (that is, with 

 red blood), he seems to have included all the animals 

 which we know as the 'Vertebrate Animals,' and he 

 recognises certain distinctions amongst these according 

 as they are viviparous or oviparous, or according to the 

 number of legs which they possessed ; but he cannot 

 reasonably be said to have established a classification of 

 the Vertebrata upon these distinctions. Similarly, the 

 Anaima, or animals without blood (that is, with colourless 

 blood, or having, as he thought, a fluid analogous to 

 blood, though not really the same), were understood by 

 Aristotle as comprising the 'Invertebrate Animals;' and 

 he recognised certain groups of these, such as the Shell- 

 fish, the Crustaceans, the Cuttle-fishes, and the Insects; 

 but here also he laid down no regular classification. 

 Upon the whole, therefore, we may accept the verdict 

 of Mr George Henry Lewes* upon this point, that 

 ' zoologists may read a classification in Aristotle's pages, 

 but they do violence to the plain meaning of the text; 

 they disregard context, and piece together from far and 

 wide detached observations never meant to be connected 

 with one another.' 



We have dwelt thus at length upon the labours of 

 Aristotle, partly because he is the best, and indeed almost 

 the only, representative of the knowledge possessed by 

 the ancients as to natural history, and partly because it is 



'Aristotle, a Chapter from the History of Science,' p. 278. 

 B 



