ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 201 



rious, and that the others contain many interpolations 

 bj later writers. 



It so happens, however, that, apart from other rea- 

 sons, there are satisfactory internal grounds for ascribing 

 the account of the heart to a writer of the time at which 

 Aristotle lived. For, within thirty years of his death, 

 the anatomists of the Alexandrian school had thoroughly 

 investigated the structure and the functions of the valves 

 of the heart. During this time the manuscripts of Aris- 

 totle were in the possession of Theophrastus ; and no 

 interpolator of later date would have shown that he was 

 ignorant of the nature and significance of these impor- 

 tant structures, by the brief and obscure allusion " in its 

 cavities there are tendons " (A). On the other hand, 

 Polybus, whose account of the vascular system is quoted 

 in the "Historia Animalium," was an elder contem- 

 porary of Aristotle. Hence, if any part of the work 

 faithfully represents that which Aristotle taught, we 

 may safely conclude that the description of the heart 

 does so. Having granted this much, however, it is an- 

 other question, whether Aristotle is to be regarded as the 

 first discoverer of the facts which he has so well stated, 

 or whether he, like other men, was the intellectual child 

 of his time and simply carried on a step or two the work 

 which had been commenced by others. 



On the subject of Aristotle's significance as an origi- 

 nal worker in biology extraordinarily divergent views 

 have been put forward. If we are to adopt Cuvier's 

 estimate, Aristotle was simply a miracle: 



