INTRODUCTION. 



XI 



We have now to enquire how it fared with Aristotle in his search 

 after final causes, in his attempt, that is, to assign to each organ its 

 proper function. 



It must be confessed that his success, as measured by what has been 

 attained in modem times, was but small. In dealing, indeed, with the 

 external parts he was more happy. His account, for instance, of the 

 adaptation of the visible parts of birds to the varied modes of life in 

 this class of animals is admirable, and reads like a chapter from Cuvier, 

 whose unstinted praise was lavished on it. But with the internal organs 

 it was otherwise. The most that can be said is that he devised an 

 ingenious system, which included in its range pretty fairly all such 

 facts as were known to him, but which in its conclusions was far wide 

 of the truth as now ascertained. This was indeed inevitable. He was 

 trying to solve the complex problems of biology, while the ancillary/ 

 sciences were yet unknown. Anatomy was still in its first infancy, physics 

 embryonic, and chemistry hardly as yet conceived. What possibility 

 was there that digestion or respiration should, under these conditions, 

 find an adequate interpretation } This explanation of Aristotle's failure ! 

 to assign to the several internal parts their several functions seems tol 

 me a sufficient and a true one. It is more usual, )rowever, to account 

 for it on other grounds, and to attwLute it to hil]<iarelessness in the 

 observation of individual facts, hisJbastiness in geaeralisation. and the 

 3^mperfection of his method. A few words on each of these alleged 

 causes of defeat ; and, first, as to his supposed inaccuracy of observa- 

 tion. I cannot but think that this has been, to say the least, enormously 

 exaggerated. Were we indeed to suppose that Aristotle had committed 

 all the extravagant blunders which critics have laid to his charge, the 

 accusation would have to be admitted as just. But a very large pro- 

 portion, at any rate, of his supposed mistakes have no other ground 

 than the careless mode in which his writings have been studied. They 

 are not mistakes of Aristotle, but mistakes of his critics. To give a few 

 examples. It is laid to his charge that he represented the arteries as 

 void of blood and containing nothing but air ; the aorta as springing 

 from the right ventricle ; the heart as beating in man and in no other 

 animal, and as not liable to disease ; the gall-bladder as situated in 

 some animals on or close to the tail ; reptiles as having no blood \^ 

 and so on, till the list might be swollen with almost every conceivable 

 absurdity. In reality not one of the errors here enumerated was made 

 by him. Still I am far from denying that there are strange misstate- 

 ments of simple facts to be found in his works. That there is but a 

 single bone in the neck of the lion and of the wolf; that there are 

 more teeth in male than in female animals ; that the mouth of the 

 dolphin is placed, as in rays and sharks, on the under surface of the 



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