200 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 



motion of the blood. But, without attempting to read 

 into Aristotle modern conceptions which never entered 

 his mind, it is only just to observe that his view of what 

 becomes of the air taken into the lungs is by no means 

 worthy of contempt as a gross error. On the contrary, 

 here, as in the case of his anatomy of the heart, what 

 Aristotle asserts is true as far as it goes. Something 

 does actually pass from the air contained in the lungs 

 through the coats of the vessels into the blood, and 

 thence to the heart ; to wit, oxygen. And I think that 

 it speaks very well for ancient Greek science that the 

 investigator of so difficult a physiological problem as 

 that of respiration, should have arrived at a conclusion, 

 the statement of which, after the lapse of more than two 

 thousand years, can be accepted as a thoroughly estab- 

 lished scientific truth. 



I trust that the case in favour of removing the state- 

 ments about the heart, from the list of the " errors of 

 Aristotle " is now clear ; and that the evidence proves, 

 on the contrary, that they justify us in forming a very 

 favourable estimate of the oldest anatomical investigations 

 among the Greeks of which any sufficient record remains. 



But is Aristotle to be credited with the merit of hav- 

 ing ascertained so much of the truth? This question 

 will not appear superfluous to those who are acquainted 

 with the extraordinary history of Aristotle's works, or 

 who adopt the conclusion of Aubert and "Wimmer, that, 

 of the ten books of the " Historia Animalium " which 

 have come down to us, three are largely or entirely spu- 



