SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



143 



It is said that Alexander (afterwards Alexander 

 the Great), a pupil of Aristotle, was so interested 

 in the natural history studies of his tutor, that he 

 employed a host of men in collecting natural curi- 

 osities, which afterwards formed the materials for 

 the work of his master on the " History of 

 Animals." This point is particularly interesting as 

 tending to show us that Aristotle was not content 

 with merely reasoning about things, but he must 

 see and handle. Indeed, so antagonistic are 

 some of his principles from those of Plato 

 that whilst the key-note of the latter seems 

 to be that ideas alone determine our knowledge, 

 and that consequently we must distrust all sen- 

 sations not in accordance with those a priori 

 ideas, Aristotle goes so far as to say that a 

 sensation must be true, although our interpretation 

 may be, and often is, erroneous. He points out 

 that observation is more to be trusted than pure 

 reason, and that we must not accept general 

 principles from reason only, but must start with 

 facts, and then test the general laws we promulgate 

 by the accuracy of the deductions we make from 

 them. With Aristotle we reach the culminating 

 point of ancient philosophy, and we can hardly 

 doubt that had not the principles given above been 

 submerged later by the subtle speculations of the 

 school-men, science would have progressed much 

 more rapidly than has been the case 



The first names of fossils, as far as is known, are 

 due to Theofrastus, another pupil of Aristotle, and 

 Pliny, nearly 300 years later, gave us the familiar 

 names Ammonites (the horns of Jupiter' Ammon), 

 Spongites, etc. It must be remembered, however, 

 that these names were not applied in the definite 

 and limited sense in which we now use them, the 

 name Spongites, for example, now restricted to the 

 fresh-water sponge, being then applied to almost 

 any indeterminate markings. 



We have seen how, after this, inductive science 

 was brought almost to a standstill and a priori 

 reasoning alone cultivated. Speculation became 

 rife as to what fossils were. Belief in spontaneous 

 generation (abiogenesis), that is to say, in the 

 development of living matter out of mineral 

 matter, was universal, and the prevailing idea was 

 that fossils are generated in the earth. And why 

 not ? Just as certain things are formed in the sea 

 and different things in the air, why should not 

 certain things be formed in the earth ? And why 

 should they not, thought these old masters, have 

 the form of animals or plants ? And did they not 

 see in the fern-like growth of the hoar-frost, as it 

 crept o'er the window-pane in winter, proof that 

 there are forces acting capable of making inorganic 

 matter take up organic forms. What wonder then 

 that people preferred to believe that fossils were 

 mere sports of nature than that they were really 

 what they are ; for would it not have necessitated 



belief in the fluctuation of the relative level of 

 land and sea? How impossible this must have 

 seemed. How much more reasonable to accept 

 the former view rather than the latter. Let 

 us ever remember that these old philosophers' 

 thoughts were necessarily moulded to a very con- 

 siderable extent by the intellectual environment of 

 their time, just exactly as ours are, and that their 

 opinions, though erroneous to us, are yet entitled to 

 our respect ; and let us re-echo with Vanini : " The 

 grace of God forbid we should be over-bold to lay 

 rough hands on any man's opinion. For opinions 

 are certes, venerable properties, and those which 

 show the most decrepitude should have the 

 gentlest handling." 



The second of our periods — that from the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century— presents no 

 very sharp line of demarcation from the preceding 

 one. Metaphysical speculation still held almost 

 undisputed sway ; indeed, it may be said that the 

 a priori method really culminated in Linnaeus, who 

 was essentially a school-man, and did not think 

 that fossils were the remains of living organisms. 

 However, be this as it may, opinion was beginning 

 to change. Thinkers were no longer content to 

 receive unquestioned the speculations of their 

 ancestors. No longer was everyone content to look 

 upon fossils as mere sports of nature, mere creative 

 attempts, mere failure in the history of creation. 

 The prevailing idea was that they were remains 

 left by the Deluge. How many books were 

 published in confirmation of this ? We can imagine 

 the interest evinced when Schewchzer published 

 his works on the animals of the period of the 

 Deluge. How interesting the account given of the 

 remains of the ill-fated animals and even men. 

 Alas, so uncritical were their methods that it was 

 left to the future to point out that the so-called 

 skeleton of a man was really but a salamander, 

 and that the bones of the accursed race were 

 merely the now famihar Liassic Ichthyosaurus 

 vertebra;. One of the most remarkable men 

 of this period was Dr. John Woodward, the 

 founder of the museum bearing his name at 

 Cambridge. His chief work was entitled " An 

 Attempt Towards a Natural History of the Fossils 

 of England," published in 1729. This book, 

 published after the author's death, contains an 

 introduction by the publisher, in which he quaintly 

 remarks: "He succeeded, indeed, but it was not 

 without having carried it on for a course of nearly 

 forty years, with a passion for the improvement of 

 natural knowledge in general, and with a particular 

 view to evince the universality of the Deluge." 

 Glancing through this book, one sees the very wide 

 sense in which the term " fossil " was then used ; 

 for it includes minerals, metals, gems, flint-imple- 

 ments, etc. So overwhelmed at the cumulating 

 evidence in favour of the Deluge was Voltaire that 



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