102 
MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
East, the recluse philosopher of Athens, while his 
pupil was conquering the world, composed, iu the 
tranquil shades of the Lycaeum, that immortal work 
which Pliny professed to abridge, and which Buffon 
despaired to rival. 
The History of Animals occupies nine hooks : 
the remaining sixteen are employed in explaining 
their general affections or properties, and their prin- 
cipal parts or members ; viz. four treat of their se- 
veral parts, five of generation, and the rest of their 
sensations and motions, in the knowledge of which 
particulars he considered the philosophy of zoology 
chiefly to consist. As he extends that term to 
whatever has animal life, the first four books of his 
history, beginning with the outward conformation of 
animals, divides and distinguishes, (in comparison 
with the human form as that which is most fami- 
liarly known), the inhabitants of the earth, the water, 
and the air, from the enormous whale, and massy 
elephant, to the scarcely perceptible productions of 
dust and rottenness; — enumerating, with surprising 
accuracy, the agreements, and differences, and ana- 
logies, that prevail iu point of external organization 
among all the living tribes of nature. In the three 
subsequent books, he examines the different classes 
of animals, with respect to the commencement, du- 
ration, and term of their generative powers. His 
eighth book examines their habitation and nourish- 
ment ; and the conclusion of the history details their 
manners and habits, enumerates their friends and 
