330 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT. 



and such measures, they established laws of nature, 

 and began the construction of the science of pathology. 

 All true science begins with empiricism though all 

 true science is such exactly, in so far as it strives to 

 pass out of the empirical stage into that of the deduc- 

 tion of empirical from more general truths. Thus, it 

 is not wonderful, that the early physicians had little 

 or nothing to do with the development of biological 

 science; and, on the other hand, that the early bio- 

 logists did not much concern themselves with medi- 

 cine. There is nothing to show that the Asclepiads 

 took any prominent share in the work of founding 

 anatomy, physiology, zoology, and botany. Eather 

 do these seem to have sprung from the early philo- 

 sophers, who were essentially natural philosophers, 

 animated by the characteristically Greek thirst for 

 knowledge as such. Pythagoras, Alcmeon, Democritus, 

 Diogenes of Apollonia, are all credited with anatomical 

 and physiological investigations ; and, though Aristotle 

 is said to have belonged to an Asclepiad family, and 

 not improbably owed his taste for anatomical and 

 zoological inquiries to the teachings of his father, 

 the physician Nicomachus, the " Historia Animalium," 

 and the treatise " De Partibus Animalium," are as free 

 from any allusion to medicine as if they had issued 

 from a modern biological laboratory. 



It may be added, that it is not easy to see in what 

 way it could have benefited a physician of Alexander's 

 time to know all that Aristotle knew on these subjects. 

 His human anatomy was too rough to avail much in 

 diagnosis ; his physiology was too erroneous to supply 



