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Aristotle's Researches in Natural Science. By Tuomas Hast 
Loves, M.A., LL.D., B.Sc. West, Newman & Co. 
Tue name of Aristotle is a household word to men of letters ; 
it is also one frequently referred to by philosophical naturalists, 
but to few indeed are his scientific conclusions really known, 
and to still fewer are his writings really familiar. Dr. Lones, 
in this volume, has earned the gratitude of most scientific men 
by giving a digest of Aristotle’s teachings in distinctive sub- 
ject chapters, and with full footnote references, so that both 
verification, and, if necessary, amplification, are obtainable. 
Although many subjects are beyond the purview of this Journal, 
such chapters as are devoted to ‘‘ Distinction between Animals, 
Plants, and Inanimate Matter,’ and their ‘‘ Constituents,” 
** Animal Motion,” ‘‘Generation and Development,” and the 
‘Classification of Animals’”’ are of the highest interest to 
zoologists, and their perusal will show that many of the pre- 
notions of Aristotle have proved in a sense almost prophetic. 
Two terms of classification employed by Aristotle, viz. genos 
and eidos, are often translated as genus and species, and, 
although the latter is fairly representative, genos, as Dr. Lones 
points out, “‘ usually signifies a class, an order, or a family,” 
and, as an opinion of Agassiz is quoted, ‘‘ Aristotle already 
considers fecundity as a specific character.” Again, his two 
divisions Hnaima and Anaima correspond with the terms Verte- 
brata and Invertebrata used by Lamarck and Cuvier. 
Aristotle was an embryonic evolutionist. He is quoted as 
saying, “‘the young animal is not at once a horse or a man, 
but that its life is at first like that of a plant, and that the 
characteristics of each kind of animal are the last to be de- 
veloped.”’ As Dr. Lones well observes: ‘‘ This seems to fore- 
' shadow the modern theory that the history of the development 
