\ 
~ poses to which ships and houses are subservient. 
that measure is small, for nature, in making plants and 
animals, can but use such material substances as exist; 
she does the best she can with the materials that are at 
hand, but the properties of those materials are beyond 
her control, and such consequences as follow upon those 
properties are the results of necessity. 
Dr. Ogle, describing this view of his author, refers to 
the singular reference which Galen long after made to 
the same view, and to the criticism Galen offers on the 
Mosaic tradition of the creation, a work he had evidently 
read with much care. Galen disputes with Moses on the 
point that the Creator can make an animal of any matter 
he chooses—a man from a stone, an ox from dust. “ This,” 
says Galen, “we deny. The laws of matter are antecedent 
to the Creator, and obligatory upon Him.” 
Aristotle in his teaching was as little Agnostic as Moses 
himself. The creative mind, the mind that is like to the 
human mind, only so infinitely mightier and more original 
in design, is in nature, and, whether as first or second, 
is sufficiently above human nature as to be to it a 
creator, a designer, a maker. “ It is ridiculous,’’ he says, 
“to suppose that such phenomena as those of organic life 
are merely the result of chance.” The very essence of 
chance is uncertainty. Chance is the principle of the 
inconstant. “But the phenomena in question present a 
high degree of constancy, and can be foretold with more 
or less of precision. It is quite plain that, besides the 
necessary forces of matter, there is something else at 
work which guides and co-ordinates these, so as to make 
them converge to a predetermined end. If a man cannot 
see this, it is absurd to argue with him; as well try to 
convince a man born blind, who denies the existence of 
colour. You see a house or a ship, and without hesitation 
you infer that such house or ship was made for the pur- 
Why? 
Because they are manifestly adapted to those purposes. 
Why, then, when you see a plant or an animal with 
equally manifest adaptations do you hesitate to draw a 
sinilar inference? True, in one case you can see the 
agent at work, while in the other the agency is invisible. 
But why should this make any difference? The agency 
in the latter case is invisible because it is an internal 
~ force, a something acting inside the material. It is as 
though the invisible shipwright were away and his art 
were inherent in the timber itself. Moreover, if the 
agency itself is out of sight, the model from which it 
works is visible enough, is as visible and palpable as the 
model of the ship or the plan of the house, and, like them, 
examinable before either is constructed.” Could Aristotle 
have seen at work one of our modern power looms and 
have ob-erved how, so long as it was fed, it produced 
results that unconsciously converge to a predetermined 
end, he would have drawn from this source another and 
striking illustration. He would have said here is another 
instance Of an invisible agency working as if the art were 
truly inherent in the thing itself. It is matter in motion 
and in direction, producing something by fixed rule, but 
dependent, nevertheless, on something else which is in- 
dependent and antecedent. 
The great argument left behind, we follow the master 
to lower but still exalted fields of thought, speculation, and 
description. We follow him from the metaphysical to the 
physical, from the formative principle to the things that 
NATURE 
are formed, and from these in their details rather than in 
their mass. Itis in this part of the original work that 
the critic comes in with power, and is able to try the 
quality of Aristotle by the hard test of examination of 
fact, by the side of statement. 
Aristotle is found to be wanting, or, to use a word that 
has been applied to him, a “failure.” He is said to fail 
in description of objects actually before his eyes. He is — 
said to fail in generalisation, to have been hasty in gene- 
ralisation, and to have reasoned on too small a basis of 
facts. Lastly he is said to fail in method, a failure which 
was certain to follow if the facts and the generalisations 
from them are both at fault. 
Against all these charges Dr. Ogle defends Aristotle 
with true and honest skill. He does not defend error nor 
gloss over defect. He takes the natural common-sense 
view that Aristotle, in the conditions under which he 
lived and worked, performed the most signal services: 
that when he failed to see as we see, he failed because he 
had no means of seeing; that when he failed to generalise 
correctly, he failed because the stage to which biology had 
attained in his time made failure a matter of necessity ; 
that he failed in method because in fact his was the first 
method, and because verification, which is essential to 
perfection of method, “does not find its proper sphere in 
the early condition of a nascent science, when the 
generalisations are merely provisional, and the false yet 
necessary precursors of more accurate ones.”’ 
The defence really leaves nothing to be desired ; it is 
that which the master would, we believe, have made of 
himself by himself, could he speak for himself. 
If there be one observation which in difference and in 
deference, we would offer in respect to this defence, it is 
on the comparison which is drawn between the Timzeus of 
Plato and the work of his contumacious pupil. We admit 
that it “is the gap which separates the man, Aristotle, from 
his predecessors, not that which lies between him and his 
successors which gives the true measuré of his position.” 
We admit that when any one compares Aristotle’s physio- 
logy with that of the Timzeus, there is a wide distinction, ~ 
but are we, really, in the transit “conscious of passing 
into an entirely new order of things?”’? Wecannot declare 
this possible with such confident affirmation. It may be 
fairly said that a great deal in the Timzeus is of airy and 
fanciful construction, but we do not think it fair to affirm 
that the construction is one ‘‘in which imagination alone 
supplies the foundation, and in which facts, if introduced 
at all, are introduced merely as ornamental additions in no 
wise essential to the fabric.’’ This is a harsh judgment, 
and the more so because we are bound to take Plato as 
the prompter of Aristotle, and the teachings like those in 
the Timzeus, with all the imaginings and poetry, as the 
promptings of the ‘Parts of Animals.” To our minds it 
would be only just to say that the “‘ Parts” was written on 
the Platonic design, and that if the teachings of Plato 
had not been placed before Aristotle his more correct and 
matter-of-fact work had never been born. 
The “Introduction” of Dr. Ogle is followed by a 
chapter entitled ‘‘The Main Groups of Animals,” in_ 
which the chief groups recognised by Aristotle are 
arranged as follows :— 
I. Sanguineous Animals (Vertebrata). 
A. Vivipara 
(Mammalia), 
1. Man; 2. Quadrupeds; 3. Cetacea. B. 
eh a ae ee 
[March 16, 1882 4 
Thus adjudicated upon, ~ 
a 
7 
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