Ill S TORT OF ZOOLOGY. 9 



The decay of zoological investigation, that had only just begun to 

 bloom, begins in the writings of Pliny. Although this Roman 

 general and scholar was long lauded as the foremost zoologist of 

 antiquity, he is now given the place of a not even fortunate com- 

 piler, who collected from the writings of others the accurate and 

 the fabulous indiscriminately, and replaced the natural classifica- 

 tion of animals according to structure by the unnatural, purely 

 arbitrary division according to their place of abode (flying animals, 

 land animals, water animals). 



Zoology of the Middle Ages. The rise of Christianity resulted 

 in the complete annihilation of natural science and investigation. 

 The world-renouncing character, which originally was peculiar to 

 the Christian conception, led naturally to a disposition hostile to 

 any mental occupation with natural things. Then came a time 

 when answers to questions capable of solution by the simplest 

 observation were sought by painstaking learned rummaging of the 

 works of standard authors. How many teeth the horse has, was 

 debated in many polemics, which would have led to bloodshed if 

 one of the authors had not taken occasion to look into a horse's 

 mouth. Significant of this mental bias which prevailed through- 

 out the entire Middle Ages is the i Physiologus' or ' Bestiarius/ a 

 book from which the zoological authors of the Middle Ages drew 

 much material. The book in its various editions names about 

 seventy animals, among them many creatures of fable : the dragon, 

 the unicorn, the phoenix, etc. Most of the accounts given of 

 various animals are fables, intended to illustrate religious or 

 ethical teachings. In a similar way the religious element played 

 an important role in the many-volumed Natural History of the 

 Dominican Albertus Magnus, and Viiicentius Bellovacensis, and 

 of the Augustine Thomas Cantimpratensis, although these used 

 as a foundation for their expositions the Latin translation of 

 Aristotle, the works of Pliny and other authors of antiquity. 



Wotton. Under such conditions we must regard it as an im- 

 portant advance that at the close of the Middle Ages, when the 

 interest in scientific investigation awoke anew, Aristotle's concep- 

 tions were taken up and elaborated from a scientific standpoint. 

 In this sense we can call the Englishman Wotton the successor of 

 Aristotle. In 1552 he published his work "De differentiis 

 animalium," in which he essentially copied the system of Aristotle, 

 except that he admitted the new group of plant-animals or 

 zoophytes. However, the title, ' On the Distinguishing Characters 

 of Animals/ shows that of the rich treasury of Aristotelian knowl- 



