22 



ARISTOTELIAN SYSTEM. 



[Ch. II. 



mi 2 



indifference on this subject, and that a belief in the sponta- 



oni 



mi 



have caused the organic world to appear 



so 



unstable and fluctuating, that phenomena indicative of 



osity. The 



changes 



5 



cur 



Egyptians, it is true, had taught, and the Stoics had repeated 

 that the earth had once given birth to some monstrous 

 animals, which existed no longer ; but the prevailing opinion 

 seems to have been, that after each great catastrophe the 

 same species of animals were created over a^ain. 



is implied in a 



future deluge, he says, 



anew, and man free from 



are created over again. This tenet 

 of Seneca, where, speaking of a 

 Every animal shall be generated 



An old Arabian version of the doctrine of the successive 

 volutions of the £rlobe. translated bv Abraham TWhpllpn- 



enera 



sis,f seems to form a 



for here we find th 



having been created. The Gerbanites, a sect of astronomers 



who flourished some centuries before the Christian era, 



taught as follow 



51 • 



That after every period of thirty-six 

 thousand four hundred and twenty -years, there were pro- 

 duced a pair of every species of animal, both male and female, 



animals might be propagated and inhabit this 

 lower world. But when a circulation of the heavenly orbs 



I in that space of years, 



rom 



was com 



animals 



plants and other things, and the first order is destroyed, and 

 so it goes on for ever and ever/t 





* ' Omne ex integro animal generabi- viginti quinque bina ex singulis anima- 



m * ft i 



tur, dabiturque terris homo inscius sce- 

 lerum.'— Qusest. Nat. iii. c. 29. 



f This author was Kegius Professor 

 of Syriac and Arabic at Paris, where, 

 in 1685, he published a Latin transla- 

 tion of many Arabian MSS. on different 

 departments of philosophy. This work 



has always been considered of high au- 

 thority. 



j 'Gerbanitse docebant singulos tri- 



lium speciebus produci, marem scilicet 

 ac feminam ex quibus animalia propa- 

 gantur, huncque inferiorem incoltmt 

 orbem. Absoluta ant em ccelestium or- 

 bium circulatione, quae illo annorum 

 conficitur spatio, iterum alia producun- 

 tur animalium. genera et species, quem- 

 admodum et plantarum aliarumque 

 rerum, et primus destruitur ordo, sieque 

 in infinitum producitur.'— Histor. Orient, 



ginta sex mille annos quadringentos, Suppl. per Abrahamum Ecchellensem 



