528 COSMOS. 



the Macedonian campaigns, either from Persia or from Babylon, 

 which was the seat of a widely extended foreign commercial 

 intercourse? Owing to the utter ignorance that prevailed at 

 this time of the preparation of alcohol*' nothing but the skins 

 and bones of animals, and not the soft parts capable of dissec- 

 tion, 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 ^tudies in physical science, for procuring an immense 

 number of zoological specimens both from Greece and the 

 neighbouring seas, and for forming a collection of books, unique 

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

 of Tlieophrates, and afterwards of Neleus of Skepsis, we must, 

 nevertheless, regard the accounts of " the presents of eight 

 hundred talents, and the maintenance of so many thousand 

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

 exaggerations of a later period, or as traditions misunder- 

 stood by Pliny, Athenaeus, and JElian.f 



direct evidence on this subject. That which we possess of the corres- 

 pondence of Aristotle is undoubtedly not genuine (Stahr, th. i. s. 194- 

 208, th. ii. s. 1 69-23 4), and Schneider says very confidently (Hist, de 

 Animal,, t. i. p. xl), *' hoc enim tanquam certissimum sumere mini lice- 

 bit, scriptas comitum Alexandri notitias post mortem demum regis 

 fuisse vulgatas." 



* I have elsewhere shown, that although the decomposition of sul- 

 phuret of mercury by distillation is described in Dioscorides (Mat. med., 

 v. 110, p. 667, Saracen.), the first description of the distillation of a 

 fluid (the distillation of fresh water from sea water,) is, however, to be 

 found in the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias to Aristotle's 

 work de MeteoroL ; see my Examen critique de I'histoire de la Geogra- 

 phic, t. ii. pp. 308-316, and Joannis (Philoponi,) Grammaticiin libro de 

 Generat. et Alexandri ApJirod., in MeteoroL Comm. Yenet., 1527, p. 

 97, b. Alexander of Aphrodisias in Caria, the learned commentator 

 of the Meteorologica of Aristotle, lived under Septimius Severus and 

 Caracalla; and although he calls chemical apparatuses, ^VIKCL opyava, 

 yet a passage in Plutarch (de Iside et Osir., c. 33), proves that 

 the word Chemie, applied by the Greeks to the Egyptian art, is not 

 derived from %?w. Hoefer (Histoire de la CMmie, t. i. pp. 91, 195, 

 and 219, t. ii. p. 109). 



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

 p. 207; and Ouvier, Histoire des Sciences naturelles, t. i. p. 137, with 

 Schneider, ad Aristot. de Historid Animalium, t. i. pp. xlii-xlvi, and 

 Stahr, Aristotelia, th. i. s. 116-118. If, therefore, the transmission of 

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



