INTRODUCTION 



9 



appealed directly to nature for his facts, and founded his natural history 

 only on observation. Far less is to be said of his successors, as will 

 appear later. 



The works of Aristotle contain a number of errors which seem now to 

 be rather obvious. But his insistence on the inductive method, which 

 is today the method of laboratory sciences, far outweighed his occasional 

 failures to use that method properly. He obtained his facts at first hand. 

 Had his errors been twice as numerous as they were, Aristotle would 

 still be the heroic figure of the Greek period of learning, in the field of 

 zoology, because he declined to accept authority, except the authority 

 of nature itself. 



Fig. 1. — Aristotle, 384-322 B. C. {From Heklcr's Greek and Roman Portraits. G. P. 



Putnam's Sons.) 



Unfortunately Aristotle represents the greatest development of 

 zoology until comparatively recent times. No subsequent naturahst 

 of note arose in Greece. It is to Rome that one must turn for the next 

 famous zoologist. The only one worthy of mention seems to have been 

 the elder Pliny, soldier and writer, who flourished in the first century 

 of the Christian era, or four hundred years after Aristotle. Pliny, how- 

 ever, did nothing original, he merely compiled the works of others, and 

 was none too judicious in his choice of material. 



The Dark Ages. — -Learning was entering dark days even in the time 

 of Pliny, and zoology shared the fate of her sister sciences. The story 

 of this period is familiar in the annals of every branch of knowledge. 

 Books were scarce, the schools lost their influence, and travel was 

 difficult. Men no longer cared to investigate, they preferred to be told 



