Aristotle's biology 



to this many-sided problem, proceeding very 

 tentatively with a suspicion that after all we 

 may be following not his mental processes, but 

 our own. 



Undoubtedly a comprehensive examination 

 of living organisms (animals rather than plants 

 are in Aristotle's mind) must embrace the 

 processes of formation of each animal, as well 

 as of its characters when formed. He bids us 

 remember that abstractions cannot form the 

 subject of a natural science, and individual 

 animals are the real existences, and not the 

 genera formed by the mind. It is with indi- 

 viduals that we have to deal, when trying to 

 study their formation and characteristics and 

 even when trying to form groups of genera and 

 species. Thus he insists upon the concrete 

 as the real object of study; yet he groups and 

 classifies and seeks ever the general qualities 

 in these concrete existences — even as he did 

 in his famous theory of tragedy, in the Poetics, 

 — and one should not draw back from the 

 humblest details provided they lead us on and 

 disclose the great design. Therefore: 



" Having already treated of the celestial 

 world, as far as our conjectures could reach, 

 we proceed to treat of animals, without omit- 



[47] 



