CHAPTER XLIII 

 THE PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY 



It is difficult to realize at this stage in the world's history 

 that what to us are well-known facts were entirely unknown to 

 the men of past centuries. Zoological facts that are now com- 

 mon knowledge had to be laboriously worked out and estab- 

 lished — a process that has occupied the attention of thousands 

 of men for many centuries. Progress at first was very slow, but 

 the more we know the easier it is to advance, and hence zoology 

 and other sciences are moving forward more rapidly now than 

 ever before. 



Many of the most important scientific discoveries are con- 

 nected with the names of certain men, and perhaps there is no 

 better way of presenting a brief resume of the history of zoology 

 than by referring to a few of the scientists who have added the 

 most to our zoological knowledge. 



Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). — No one knows when man began 

 to study animal life. The pursuit of certain forms for food, the 

 domestication of others, and the practice of animal sacrifice 

 doubtless furnished some crude and scattered notions of anatomy, 

 physiology, and ecology, even in remote antiquity. The first 

 scientific treatises that had an influence upon modern zoo- 

 logical ideas were not written until about three hundred and 

 fifty years before Christ. At this time Aristotle's works ap- 

 peared, and so careful were the observations of this remarkable 

 man that they were considered authoritative for twenty cen- 

 turies. 



Aristotle was the foremost pupil of Plato and the tutor of 

 Alexander the Great. His greatest works were on the natural 



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