

Nov. 6, 1879] 



NATURE 



cddd, puisqu'ils n'avaient rien produit de solide, le disciple 

 de Platon ddcouvrit et dcmontra plus de ve'rite's, executa 

 plus de travaux scientifiques en un vie de soixante-deux 

 ans, qu'apres lui vingt siecles n'en ont pu faire," 1 &c, &c. 



'• Aristote est le premier qui ait introduit la methode de 

 l'induction, de la comparaison des observations pour en 

 faire sortir des idees gdneVales, et celle de l'expe'rience 

 pour multiplier les faits dont ces idees gcndrales peuvent 

 etre deduites." — ii. p. 515. 



The late Mr. G. H. Lewes, 2 on the contrary, tells us 

 " on a superficial examination, therefore, he [Aristotle] 

 will seem to have given tolerable descriptions ; especially 

 if approached with that disposition to discover marvels 

 which unconsciously determines us in our study of eminent 

 writers. But a more unbiased and impartial criticism 

 will disclose that he has given no single anatomical 

 description of the least value. All that he knew may have 

 been known and probably was known, without dissection. 

 .... I do not assert that he never opened an animal ; 

 on the contrary, it seems highly probable that he had 



opened many He never followed the course of 



a vessel or a nerve ; never laid bare the origin and 

 insertion of a muscle ; never discriminated the component 

 parts of organs ; never made clear to himself the 

 connection of organs into systems.'' — (pp. 156-7.) 



In the face of the description of the heart and lungs, 

 just quoted, I think we may venture to say that no one 

 who has acquired even an elementary practical acquaint- 

 ance with anatomy, and knows of his own knowledge 

 that which Aristotle describes, will agree with the opinion 

 expressed by Mr. Lewes ; and those who turn to the 

 accounts of the structure of the rock lobster and that of 

 the lobster, or to that of the Cephalopods and other 

 Mollusks, in the fourth book of the " Historia Animalium " 

 will probably feel inclined to object to it still more 

 strongly. 



On the other hand, Cuvier's exaggerated panegyric will 

 as little bear the test of cool discussion. In Greece, the 

 century before Aristotle's birth was a period of great intel- 

 lectual activity, in the field of physical science no less than 

 elsewhere. The method of induction has never been used 

 to better effect than by Hippocrates ; and the labours of 

 such men as Alkmeon, Demokritus, and Polybus among 

 Aristotle's predecessors, Diokles, and Praxagoras, among 

 his contemporaries, laid a solid foundation for the scien- 

 tific study of anatomy and development, independently 

 of his labours. Aristotle himself informs us that the dis- 

 section of animals was commonly practised ; that the aorta 

 had been distinguished from the great vein ; and that the 

 connection of both with the heart had been observed by 

 his predecessors. What they thought about the structure 

 of the heart itself, or that of the lungs, he does not tell us, 

 and we have no means of knowing. So far from arro- 

 gantly suggesting that he owed nothing to his prede- 

 cessors, Aristotle is careful to refer to their observations 

 and to explain why, in his judgment, they fell into the 

 errors which he corrects. 



Aristotle's knowledge, in fact, appears to have stood in 

 the same relation to that of such men as Polybus and 

 Diogenes of Apollonia, as that of Herophilus and Eras- 

 isiratus did to his own, so far as the heart is concerned. 

 He carried science a step beyond the point at which he 

 found it ; a meritorious, but not a miraculous, achieve- 

 ment. What he did required the possession of very 

 good powers of observation ; if they had been powers of 

 the highest class he could hardly have left such con- 



1 " Histoire des Sciences Nature!lev."—t. i. p. 130. 



2 "Aristotle, a Chapter from the History of Se.ence." 



spicuous objects as the valves of the heart to be discovered 

 by his successors. 



And this leads me to make a final remark upon a 

 singular feature of the " Historia Animalium.'" As a whole, 

 it is a most notable production, full of accurate information 

 and of extremely acute generalisations of the observations 

 accumulated by naturalists up to that time. And yet, every 

 here and there, one stumbles upon assertions respecting 

 matters which lie within the scope of the commonest 

 inspection, which are not so much to be called errors as 

 stupidities. What is to be made of the statement 

 that the sutures of women's skulls are different from those 

 of men ; that men and sundry male animals have more 

 teeth than their respective females ; that the back of the 

 skull is empty, and so on ? It is simply incredible to me 

 that the Aristotle who wrote the account of the heart, 

 also committed himself to absurdities which can be 

 excused by no theoretical prepossession and which are 

 contradicted by the plainest observation. 



What, after all, were the original manuscripts of the 

 " Historia Animalium"? If they were notes of Aristotle's 

 lectures taken by some of his students, any lecturer who 

 has chanced to look through such notes, would find the 

 interspersion of a foundation of general and sometimes 

 minute accuracy, with patches of transcendent blundering, 

 perfectly intelligible. Some competent Greek scholar 

 may perhaps think it worth while to tell us what may be 

 said for or against the hypothesis thus hinted. One 

 obvious difficulty in the way of adopting it is the fact 

 that, in other works, Aristotle refers to the " Historia 

 Animalium" as if it had already been made public by 

 himself. T. H. Huxley 



ON THE NECESSITY FOR A NEW- 

 DEPARTURE IN SPECTRUM ANALYSIS 

 IT is now about a year since I gave an account of the 

 results to which the final discussion of a complete 

 set of photographs of the spectra of the metallic ele- 

 ments compared with the spectrum of the sun had led me. 



The comparison was limited necessarily to the blue and 

 violet portions of the spectrum, as photography was 

 employed, and the methods since worked out by Capt. 

 Abney for photographing the other regions were not then 

 available. Of set purpose I limited it still more, as I 

 wished to find the dernier mot in the present state of 

 science regarding the coincidence of metallic with Fraun- 

 hofer's lines ; and for this it was imperative to work on a 

 large scale over a small region rather than on a small 

 scale over a large one. 



In point of fact, the work was limited to about the 

 T J th part of the spectrum, and this small part w as mapped 

 on a large scale. A complete map of the specirum on 

 the scale adopted would be about half a furlong long. 

 The work took time : including interruptions 01 one kind 

 and another, some four years were expended on it. 



I have elsewhere discussed at some length the conclu- 

 sion which stared us in the face when all the work was 

 brought to focus, but it is important that I should here 

 dwell upon it fur a moment, especially as it is now pos- 

 sible, perhaps, to state it with more terseness and clear- 

 ness than one could at first, when the new c nception 

 thus forced upon us and its consequences were less familial 

 to one's mind. 



