Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Carat symbol “^” designates a superscript.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Typographical errors have been silently corrected.
CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY
OF SCIENCE
GENERAL EDITOR CHARLES SINGER
I
GREEK BIOLOGY
&
GREEK MEDICINE
BY
CHARLES SINGER
OXFORD
At the CLARENDON PRESS
1922
Oxford University Press
_London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _Copenhagen_
_New York_ _Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_
_Bombay_ _Calcutta_ _Madras_ _Shanghai_
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY
2540.1
PRINTED IN ENGLAND.
PREFACE
This little book is an attempt to compress into a few pages an account
of the general evolution of Greek biological and medical knowledge. The
section on _Aristotle_ appears here for the first time. The remaining
sections are reprinted from articles contributed to a volume _The
Legacy of Greece_ edited by Mr. R. W. Livingstone, the only changes
being the correction of a few errors and the addition of some further
references to the literature.
In quoting from the great Aristotelian biological treatises, the
_History of Animals_, the _Parts of Animals_, and the _Generation of
Animals_, I have usually availed myself of the text of the Oxford
translation edited by Mr. W. D. Ross. For the _De anima_ I have used
the version of Mr. R. D. Hicks.
I have to thank my friends Mr. R. W. Livingstone, Dr. E. T. Withington,
and Mr. J. D. Beazley for a number of suggestions. To my colleague
Professor Arthur Platt I have to record my gratitude not only for
much help in the writing of these chapters but also for his kindness
and patience in reading and rereading the work both in manuscript and
proof. I am specially indebted, moreover, to the notes appended to his
translation of the _Generation of Animals_.
C. S.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
_March 1922._
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GREEK BIOLOGY
FIGURE PAGE
1. Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the
sixth century B. C. 7
2. A, Jaw bones of lion; B, head of
lioness from Caere vase 7
3. Paintings of fish on plates: Italo-Greek work of
the fourth century B. C. 8
4. Head and talons of the Sea-eagle,
_Haliaëtus albicilla_: A, from an Ionic
vase of the sixth century B. C.; B,
drawn from the object 9
5. Minoan gold cup, sixteenth century B. C. _facing_ 12
6. Horse’s head, from Parthenon. 440 B. C. ” 12
7. Aristotle. From Herculaneum; probably work of fourth
century B. C. ” 18
7 _a_. The Order of Living Things according to Aristotle 30
7 _b_. The Four Elements and the Four Qualities 39
8. Theophrastus. From Villa Albani;
copy (second century A. D.?) of earlier work _facing_ 60
9, 10. Fifth century drawings from Juliana Anicia MS.,
copied from originals of the first century
B. C. (?): 9, Σογκός τρυφερός = _Crepis paludosa_,
Moen.; 10, Γεράνιον = _Erodium malachoides_, L. ” 64
11. Illustrating Galen’s physiological teaching 67
GREEK MEDICINE
1. Hippocrates. British Museum, second or
third century B. C. _facing_ 90
2. Asclepius. British Museum, fourth century B. C. ” 90
3, 4. From MS. of Apollonius of Kitium, of ninth century
(copied from a pre-Christian original): 3, reducing
dislocated shoulder; 4, reducing dislocated jaw ” 104
5. A Greek clinic of about 400 B. C.: from a vase-painting 106
6. A kylix, from the Berlin Museum, of about 490 B. C. 107
7. Athenian funerary monument. British Museum,
second century A. D. _facing_ 114
8. Votive tablet, representing cupping and bleeding
instruments, from Temple of Asclepius at Athens ” 120
GREEK BIOLOGY
§ 1. _Before Aristotle_
What is science? It is a question that cannot be answered easily, nor
perhaps answered at all. None of the definitions seem to cover the
field exactly; they are either too wide or too narrow. But we can
see science in its growth and we can say that being a process it can
exist only as growth. Where does the science of biology begin? Again
we cannot say, but we can watch its evolution and its progress. Among
the Greeks the accurate observation of living forms, which is at least
one of the essentials of biological science, goes back very far. The
word _Biology_, used in our sense, would, it is true, have been an
impossibility among them, for _bios_ refers to the life of man and
could not be applied, except in a strained or metaphorical sense, to
that of other living things.[1] But the _ideas_ we associate with the
word are clearly developed in Greek philosophy and the foundations of
biology are of great antiquity.
[1] The word _Biology_ was introduced by Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus
(1776-1837) in his _Biologie oder die Philosophie der lebenden Natur_,
6 vols., Göttingen, 1802-22, and was adopted by J.-B. de Lamarck
(1744-1829) in his _Hydrogéologie_, Paris, 1802. It is probable that
the first English use of the word in its modern sense is by Sir William
Lawrence (1783-1867) in his work _On the Physiology, Zoology, and
Natural History of Man_, London, 1819; there are earlier English uses
of the word, however, contrasted with _biography_.
The Greek people had many roots, racial, cultural, and spiritual, and
from them all they inherited various powers and qualities and derived
various ideas and traditions. The most suggestive source for our
purpose is that of the Minoan race whom they dispossessed and whose
lands they occupied. That highly gifted people exhibited in all stages
of its development a marvellous power of graphically representing
animal forms, of which the famous Cretan friezes, Vaphio cups (Fig.
5), and Mycenean lions provide well-known examples. It is difficult
not to believe that the Minoan element, entering into the mosaic of
peoples that we call the Greeks, was in part at least responsible for
the like graphic power developed in the Hellenic world, though little
contact has yet been demonstrated between Minoan and archaic Greek Art.
For the earliest biological achievements of Greek peoples we have
to rely largely on information gleaned from artistic remains. It
is true that we have a few fragments of the works of both Ionian
and Italo-Sicilian philosophers, and in them we read of theoretical
speculation as to the nature of life and of the soul, and we can thus
form some idea of the first attempts of such workers as Alcmaeon
of Croton (_c._ 500 B. C.) to lay bare the structure of animals by
dissection.[2] The pharmacopœia also of some of the earliest works
of the Hippocratic collection betrays considerable knowledge of both
native and foreign plants.[3] Moreover, scattered through the pages of
Herodotus and other early writers is a good deal of casual information
concerning animals and plants, though such material is second-hand and
gives us little information concerning the habit of exact observation
that is the necessary basis of science.
[2] The remains of Alcmaeon are given in H. Diels’ _Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker_, Berlin, 1903, p. 103. Alcmaeon is considered in the
companion chapter on _Greek Medicine_.
[3] Especially the περὶ γυναικείης φύσιος, _On the nature of woman_,
and the περὶ γυναικείων, _On (the diseases of) women_.
[Illustration: FIG. 1. Lioness and young from an Ionian vase of the
sixth century B. C. found at Caere in Southern Etruria (Louvre, Salle
E, No. 298), from _Le Dessin des Animaux en Grèce d’après les vases
peints_, by J. Morin, Paris (Renouard), 1911. The animal is drawing
itself up to attack its hunters. The scanty mane, the form of the
paws, the udders, and the dentition are all heavily though accurately
represented.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2. A, Jaw bones of lion; B, head of lioness from
Caere vase (Fig. 1), after Morin. Note the careful way in which the
artist has distinguished the molar from the cutting teeth.]
Something more is, however, revealed by early Greek Art. We are in
possession of a series of vases of the seventh and sixth centuries
before the Christian era showing a closeness of observation of animal
forms that tells of a people awake to the study of nature. We have thus
portrayed for us a number of animals—plants seldom or never appear—and
among the best rendered are wild creatures; we see antelopes quietly
feeding or startled at a sound, birds flying or picking worms from
the ground, fallow deer forcing their way through thickets, browsing
peacefully, or galloping away, boars facing the hounds and dogs chasing
hares, wild cattle forming their defensive circle, hawks seizing
their prey. Many of these exhibit minutely accurate observation. The
very direction of the hairs on the animals’ coats has sometimes been
closely studied, and often the muscles are well rendered. In some
cases even the dentition has been found accurately portrayed, as in a
sixth century representation on an Ionian vase of a lioness—an animal
then very rare on the Eastern Mediterranean littoral, though still well
known in Babylonia, Syria, and Asia Minor. The details of the work show
that the artist must have examined the animal in captivity (Figs. 1 and
2).
[Illustration: FIG. 3. Paintings of fish on plates. Italo-Greek work of
the fourth century B. C. From Morin.
A. Sargus vulgaris.]
[Illustration: B. Crenilabrus mediterraneus.
C. Uranoscopus scaber?]
Animal paintings of this order are found scattered over the Greek world
with special centres or schools in such places as Cyprus, Boeotia,
or Chalcis. The very name for a painter in Greek, _zoographos_,
recalls the attention paid to living forms. By the fifth century,
in representing them as in other departments of Art, the supremacy
of Attica had asserted itself, and there are many beautiful Attic
vase-paintings of animals to place by the side of the magnificent
horses’ heads of the Parthenon (Fig. 6). In Attica, too, was early
developed a characteristic and closely accurate type of representation
of marine forms, and this attained a wider vogue in Southern Italy in
the fourth century. From the latter period a number of dishes and vases
have come down to us bearing a large variety of fish forms, portrayed
with an exactness that is interesting in view of the attention to
marine creatures in the surviving literature of Aristotelian origin
(Fig. 3).
These artistic products are more than a mere reflex of the daily life
of the people. The habits and positions of animals are observed by the
hunter, as are the forms and colours of fish by the fisherman; but
the methods of huntsman and fisher do not account for the accurate
portrayal of a lion’s dentition, the correct numbering of a fish’s
scales or the close study of the lie of the feathers on the head, and
the pads on the feet, of a bird of prey (Fig. 4). With observations
such as these we are in the presence of something worthy of the name
_Biology_. Though but little literature on that topic earlier than
the writings of Aristotle has come down to us, yet both the character
of his writings and such paintings and pictures as these, suggest the
existence of a strong interest and a wide literature, biological in the
modern sense, antecedent to the fourth century.
[Illustration: FIG. 4. Head and talons of the Sea-eagle, _Haliaëtus
albicilla_:
A, From an Ionic vase of the sixth century B. C.
B, Drawn from the object.
From Morin.]
Greek science, however, exhibits throughout its history a peculiar
characteristic differentiating it from the modern scientific standpoint.
Most of the work of the Greek scientist was done in relation to
man. Nature interested him mainly in relation to himself. The Greek
scientific and philosophic world was an anthropocentric world, and
this comes out in the overwhelming mass of medical as distinct from
biological writings that have come down to us. Such, too, is the
sentiment expressed by the poets in their descriptions of the animal
creation:
Many wonders there be, but naught more wondrous than man:
* * * * *
The light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and
the wood
He traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood.
Master of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart
Who roams the mountain free, are tamed by his infinite art.
And the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to bear the bit.
Sophocles, _Antigone_, verses 342 ff.
(Translation of F. Storr.)
It is thus not surprising that our first systematic treatment of
animals is in a practical medical work, the περὶ διαίτης, _On regimen_,
of the Hippocratic Collection. This very peculiar treatise dates from
the later part of the fifth century. It is strongly under the influence
of Heracleitus (_c._ 540-475) and contains many points of view which
reappear in later philosophy. All animals, according to it, are formed
of fire and water, nothing is born and nothing dies, but there is a
perpetual and eternal revolution of things, so that change itself
is the only reality. Man’s nature is but a parallel to that of the
universal nature, and the arts of man are but an imitation or reflex
of the natural arts or, again, of the bodily functions. The soul, a
mixture of water and fire, consumes itself in infancy and old age, and
increases during adult life. Here, too, we meet with that singular
doctrine, not without bearing on the course of later biological
thought, that in the foetus all parts are formed simultaneously. On
the proportion of fire and water in the body all depends, sex, temper,
temperament, intellect. Such speculative ideas separate this book from
the sober method of the more typical Hippocratic medical works with
which indeed it has little in common.
After having discussed these theoretical matters the work turns to its
own practical concerns, and in the course of setting out the natures
of foods gives in effect a rough classification of animals. These are
set forth in groups, and from among the larger groups only the reptiles
and insects are missing. The list has been described, perhaps hardly
with justification, as the _Coan classificatory system_. We have here,
indeed, no _system_ in the sense in which that word is now applied to
the animal kingdom, but we have yet some sort of definite arrangement
of animals according to their supposed natures. The passage opens with
mammals, which are divided into domesticated and wild, the latter being
mentioned in order according to size, next follow the land-birds,
then the water-fowl, and then the fishes. These fish are divided into
(1) the haunters of the shore, (2) the free-swimming forms, (3) the
cartilaginous fishes or Selachii, which are not so named but are placed
together, (4) the mud-loving forms, and (5) the fresh-water fish.
Finally come invertebrates arranged in some sort of order according to
their structure. The characteristic feature of the ‘classification’ is
the separation of the fish from the remaining vertebrates and of the
invertebrates from both. Of the fifty animals named no less than twenty
are fish, about a fifth of the number studied by Aristotle, but we must
remember that here only edible species are mentioned. The existence of
the work shows at least that in the fifth century there was already a
close and accurate study of animal forms, a study that may justly be
called scientific. The predominance of fish and their classification
in greater detail than the other groups is not an unexpected feature.
The Mediterranean is especially rich in these forms, the Greeks were a
maritime people, and Greek literature is full of imagery drawn from the
fisher’s craft. From Minoan to Byzantine times the variety, beauty, and
colour of fish made a deep impression on Greek minds as reflected in
their art.
Much more important however for subsequent biological development, than
such observations on the nature and habits of animals, is the service
that the Hippocratic physicians rendered to Anatomy and to Physiology,
departments in which the structure of man and of the domesticated
animals stands apart from that of the rest of the animal kingdom. It
is with the nature and constitution of man that most of the surviving
early biological writings are concerned, and in these departments are
unmistakable tendencies towards systematic arrangement of the material.
Thus we have division and description of the body in sevens from the
periphery to the centre and from the vertex to the sole of the foot,[4]
or a division into four regions or zones.[5] The teaching concerning
the four elements and four humours too became of great importance
and some of it was later adopted by Aristotle. We also meet numerous
mechanical explanations of bodily structures, comparisons between
anatomical conditions encountered in related animals, experiments
on living creatures,[6] systematic incubation of hen’s eggs for the
study of their development, parallels drawn between the development of
plants and of human and animal embryos, theories of generation, among
which is that which was afterwards called ‘pangenesis’—discussion of
the survival of the stronger over the weaker—almost our survival of
the fittest—and a theory of inheritance of acquired characters.[7] All
these things show not only extensive knowledge but also an attempt
to apply such knowledge to human needs. When we consider how even in
later centuries biology was linked with medicine, and how powerful and
fundamental was the influence of the Hippocratic writings, not only
on their immediate successors in antiquity, but also on the Middle
Ages and right into the nineteenth century, we shall recognize the
significance of these developments.
[4] περὶ ἑβδομάδων. The Greek text is lost. We have, however, an early
and barbarous Latin translation, and there has recently been printed
an Arabic commentary. G. Bergsträsser, _Pseudogaleni in Hippocratis de
septimanis commentarium ab Hunaino Q. F. arabice versum_, Leipzig, 1914.
[5] περὶ νούσων δ’.
[6] περὶ καρδίης.
[7] Especially in the περὶ γονῆς.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. MINOAN GOLD CUP. SIXTEENTH CENTURY B. C.]
[Illustration: Fig. 6. HORSE’S HEAD. FROM PARTHENON. 440 B. C.]
Such was the character of biological thought within the fifth century,
and a generation inspired by this movement produced some noteworthy
works in the period which immediately followed. In the treatise περὶ
τροφῆς, _On nourishment_, which may perhaps be dated about 400 B. C.,
we learn of the pulse for the first time in Greek medical literature,
and read of a physiological system which lasted until the time of
Harvey, with the arteries arising from the heart and the veins from the
liver. Of about the same date is a work περὶ καρδίης, _On the heart_,
which describes the ventricles as well as the great vessels and their
valves, and compares the heart of animals with that of man.
A little later, perhaps 390 B. C., is the treatise περὶ σαρκῶν, _On
muscles_, which contains much more than its title suggests. It has
the old system of sevens and, inspired perhaps by the philosophy of
Heracleitus (_c._ 540-475), describes the heart as sending air, fire,
and movement to the different parts of the body through the vessels
which are themselves constantly in movement. The infant in its mother’s
womb is believed to draw in air and fire through its mouth and to eat
_in utero_. The action of air on the blood is compared to its action
on fire. In contrast to some of the other Hippocratic treatises the
central nervous system is in the background; much attention, however,
is given to the special senses. The brain resounds during audition. The
olfactory nerves are hollow, lead to the brain, and convey volatile
substances to it which cause it to secrete mucus. The eyes also have
been examined, and their coats and humours roughly described; an
allusion, the first in literature, is perhaps made to the crystalline
lens, and the eyes of animals are compared with those of man. There is
evidence not only of dissection but of experiment, and in efforts to
compare the resistance of various tissues to such processes as boiling,
we may see the small beginning of chemical physiology.
An abler work than any of these, but exhibiting less power of
observation is a treatise, περὶ γονῆς, _On generation_, that may
perhaps be dated about 380 B. C.[8] It exhibits a writer of much
philosophic power, very anxious for physiological explanations, but
hampered by ignorance of physics. He has, in fact, the weaknesses and
in a minor degree the strength of his successor Aristotle, of whose
great work on generation he gives us a foretaste. He sets forth in
considerable detail a doctrine of pangenesis, not wholly unlike that of
Darwin. In order to explain the phenomena of inheritance he supposes
that vessels reach the seed, carrying with them samples from all parts
of the body. He believes that channels pass from all the organs to the
brain and then to the spinal marrow (or to the marrow direct), thence
to the kidneys and on to the genital organs; he believes, too, that
he knows the actual location of one such channel, for he observes,
wrongly, that incision behind the ears, by interrupting the passage,
leads to impotence. As an outcome of this theory he is prepared to
accept inheritance of acquired characters. The embryo develops and
breathes by material transmitted from the mother through the umbilical
cord. We encounter here also a very detailed description of a specimen
of exfoliated _membrana mucosa uteri_ which our author mistakes for an
embryo, but his remarks at least exhibit the most eager curiosity.[9]
[8] The three works περὶ γονῆς, περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, περὶ νούσων δ’,
_On generation_, _on the nature of the embryo_, _on diseases, book IV_,
form really one treatise on generation.
[9] περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, _On the nature of the embryo_, § 13. The same
experience is described in the περὶ σαρκῶν, _On the muscles_.
The author of this work on generation is thus a ‘biologist’ in the
modern sense, and among the passages exhibiting him in this light is
his comparison of the human embryo with the chick. ‘The embryo is in a
membrane in the centre of which is the navel through which it draws and
gives its breath, and the membranes arise from the umbilical cord....
The structure of the child you will find from first to last as I have
already described.... If you wish, try this experiment: take twenty
or more eggs and let them be incubated by two or more hens. Then each
day from the second to that of hatching remove an egg, break it, and
examine it. You will find exactly as I say, for the nature of the bird
can be likened to that of man. The membranes [you will see] proceed
from the umbilical cord, and all that I have said on the subject of
the infant you will find in a bird’s egg, and one who has made these
observations will be surprised to find an umbilical cord in a bird’s
egg.’[10]
[10] περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, _On the nature of the embryo_, § 29.
The same interest that he exhibits for the development of man and
animals he shows also for plants.
‘A seed laid in the ground fills itself with the
juices there contained, for the soil contains in itself
juices of every nature for the nourishment of plants.
Thus filled with juice the seed is distended and
swells, and thereby the power (= faculty ἡ δὗύναμις)
diffused in the seed is compressed by living principle
(pneuma) and juice, and bursting the seed becomes the
first leaves. But a time comes when these leaves can no
longer get nourished from the juices in the seed. Then
the seed and the leaves erupt, for urged by the leaves
the seed sends down that part of its power which is yet
concentrated within it and so the roots are produced as
an extension of the leaves. When at last the plant is
well rooted below and is drawing its nutriment from the
earth, then the whole grain disappears, being absorbed,
save for the husk, which is the most solid part;
and even that, decomposing in the earth, ultimately
becomes invisible. In time some of the leaves put
forth branches. The plant being thus produced by
humidity from the seed is still soft and moist. Growing
actively both above and below, it cannot as yet bear
fruit, for it has not the quality of force and reserve
(δύναμις ὶσχυρὴ καὶ πιαρἀ) from which a seed can be
precipitated. But when, with time, the plant becomes
firmer and better rooted, it develops veins as passages
both upwards and downwards, and it draws from the soil
not only water but more abundantly also substances that
are denser and fatter. Warmed, too, by the sun, these
act as a ferment to the extremities and give rise to
fruit after its kind. The fruit thus develops much from
little, for every plant draws from the earth a power
more abundant than that with which it started, and
the fermentation takes place not at one place but at
many.’[11]
[11] περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, _On the nature of the embryo_, § 22.
Nor does our author hesitate to draw an analogy between the plant and
the mammalian embryo. ‘In the same way the infant lives within its
mother’s womb and in a state corresponding to the health of the mother
... and you will find a complete similitude between the products of the
soil and the products of the womb.’
The early Greek literature is so scantily provided with illustrations
drawn from botanical study, that it is worth considering the remarkable
comparison of generation of plants from cuttings with that from seeds
in the same work.
‘As regards plants generated from cuttings ... that
part of a branch where it was cut from a tree is
placed in the earth and there rootlets are sent out.
This is how it happens: The part of the plant within
the soil draws up juices, swells, and develops a
_pneuma_ (πνεῦμα ἴσχει), but not so the part without.
The pneuma and the juice concentrate the power of the
plant below so that it becomes denser. Then the lower
end erupts and gives forth tender roots. Then the
plant, taking from below, draws juices from the roots
and transmits them to the part above the soil which
thus also swells and develops pneuma; thus the power
from being diffused in the plant becomes concentrated
and budding, gives forth leaves.... Cuttings, then,
differ from seeds. With a seed the leaves are borne
first, then the roots are sent down; with a cutting
the roots form first and then the leaves.’[12]
[12] _Ibid_. § 23.
But with these works of the early part of the fourth century the
first stage of Greek biology reaches its finest development. Later
Hippocratic treatises which deal with physiological topics are on a
lower plane, and we must seek some external cause for the failure. Nor
have we far to seek. This period saw the rise of a movement that had
the most profound influence on every department of thought. We see
the advent into the Greek world of a great intellectual movement as a
result of which the department of philosophy that dealt with nature
receded before Ethics. Of that intellectual revolution—perhaps the
greatest the world has seen—Athens was the site and Socrates (470-399)
the protagonist. With the movement itself and its characteristic fruit
we are not concerned. But the great successor and pupil of its founder
gives us in the _Timaeus_ a picture of the depth to which natural
science can be degraded in the effort to give a specific teleological
meaning to all parts of the visible Universe. The book and the picture
which it draws, dark and repulsive to the mind trained in modern
scientific method, enthralled the imagination of a large part of
mankind for wellnigh two thousand years. Organic nature appears in this
work of Plato (427-347) as the degeneration of man whom the Creator has
made most perfect. The school that held this view ultimately decayed as
a result of its failure to advance positive knowledge. As the centuries
went by its views became further and further divorced from phenomena,
and the bizarre developments of later Neoplatonism stand to this day as
a warning against any system which shall neglect the investigation of
nature. But in its decay Platonism dragged science down and destroyed
by neglect nearly all earlier biological material. Mathematics, not
being a phenomenal study, suited better the Neoplatonic mood and
continued to advance, carrying astronomy with it for a while—astronomy
that affected the life of man and that soon became the handmaid of
astrology; medicine, too, that determined the conditions of man’s life,
was also cherished, though often mistakenly, but pure science was
doomed.
But though the ethical view of nature overwhelmed science in the end,
the advent of the mighty figure of Aristotle (384-322) stayed the tide
for a time. Yet the writer on Greek Biology remains at a disadvantage
in contrast with the Historian of Greek Mathematics, of Greek
Astronomy, or of Greek Medicine, in the scantiness of the materials
for presenting an account of the development of his studies before
Aristotle. The huge form of that magnificent naturalist completely
overshadows Greek as it does much of later Biology.
§ 2. _Aristotle_
With Aristotle we come in sight of the first clearly defined
personality in the course of the development of Greek biological
thought—for the attribution of the authorship of the earlier
Hippocratic writings is more than doubtful, while the personality of
the great man by whose name they are called cannot be provided with
those clear outlines that historical treatment demands.
Aristotle was born in 384 B. C. at Stagira, a Greek colony in the
Chalcidice a few miles from the northern limit of the present monastic
settlement of Mount Athos. His father, Nicomachus, was physician to
Amyntas III of Macedonia and a member of the guild or family of the
Asclepiadae. From Nicomachus he may have inherited his taste for
biological investigation and acquired some of his methods. At seventeen
Aristotle became a pupil of Plato at Athens. After Plato’s death in 347
Aristotle crossed the Aegean to reside at the court of Hermias, despot
of Atarneus in Mysia, whose niece, Pythias, he married. It is not
improbable that the first draft of Aristotle’s biological works and the
mass of his own observations were made during his stay in this region,
for in his biological writings much attention is concentrated on the
natural history of the Island of Lesbos, or Mytilene, that lies close
opposite to Atarneus. Investigation has shown that in the _History of
Animals_ there are frequent references to places on the northern and
eastern littoral of the Aegean, and especially to localities in the
Island of Lesbos; on the other hand places in Greece proper are but
seldom mentioned.[13] Thus his biological investigations, in outline
at least, are probably the earliest of his extant works and preceded
the philosophical writings which almost certainly date from his second
sojourn in Athens.
[13] See a valuable note by D’Arcy W. Thompson prefixed to his
translation of the _Historia Animalium_, Oxford, 1910.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. ARISTOTLE
From HERCULANEUM
Probably work of fourth century B. C.]
In 342 B. C., at the request of Philip of Macedon, Aristotle became
tutor to Philip’s son, Alexander. He remained in Macedonia for seven
years and about 336, when Alexander departed for the invasion of Asia,
returned to Athens where he taught at the Lyceum and established his
famous school afterwards called the Peripatetic. Most of his works
were produced during this the closing period of his life between 335
and 323 B. C. After Alexander’s death in 323 and the break up of his
empire, Aristotle, who was regarded as friendly to the Macedonian
power, was placed in a difficult position. Regarded with enmity by the
anti-Macedonian party, he withdrew from Athens and died soon after in
322 B. C. at Chalcis in Euboea at about sixty-two years of age.
The scientific works to which Aristotle’s name is attached may be
divided into three groups, physical, biological, and psychological. In
size they vary from such a large treatise as the _History of Animals_
to the tiny tracts which go to make up the _Parva naturalia_. So far as
the scientific writings can be distinguished as separate works they may
be set forth as follows:
_Physics._
φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις _Physics._
περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾱς _On coming into being and passing away._
περὶ οὐρανοῡ. _On the heavens._
μετεωρολογικά. _Meteorology._
[περὶ κόσμου. _On the universe._]
[μηχανικά. _Mechanics._]
[περὶ ἀτόμων γραμμῶν. _On indivisible lines._]
[ἀνέμων θέσεις καὶ προσηγορίαι. _Positions and descriptions
of winds._]
_Biology in the restricted sense._
(a) _Natural History_.
περὶ τὰ ζῳα ἱστορίαι. _Inquiry about animals = Historia animalium._
περὶ ζῴων μορίων. _On parts of animals._
περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως. _On generation of animals._
[περὶ φυτῶν. _On plants._]
(b) _Physiology._
περὶ ζῴων πορείας. _On progressive motion of animals._
περὶ μακροβιότητος καὶ βραχυβιότητος. _On length and shortness
of life._
περὶ ἀναπνοῆς. _On respiration._
περὶ νεότητος καὶ γήρως. _On youth and age._
[περὶ ζῴων κινήσεως. _On motion of animals._]
[φυσιογνωμονικά. _On physiognomy._]
[περὶ πνεύματος. _On innate spirit._]
_Psychology and Philosophy with biological bearing._
περὶ ψυχῆς. _On soul._
περὶ αἰσθήσεως καὶ αἰσθητῶν. _On sense and objects of sense._
περὶ ζωῆς καὶ θανάτου. _On life and death._
περὶ μνήμης καὶ ἀναμνήσεως. _On memory and reminiscence._
περὶ ὓπνου καὶ ἐγρηγόρσεως. _On sleep and waking._
περὶ ἐνυπνίων. _On dreams._
[προβλήματα. _Problems._]
[περὶ χρωμάτων. _On colours._]
[περὶ ἀκουστῶν. _On sounds._]
[περὶ τῆς καθ’ ὔπνον μαντικῆς. _On prophecy in sleep._]
Of these works some, the names of which are placed here in brackets,
are clearly spurious in that they were neither written by Aristotle nor
are they in any form approaching that in which they were cast by him.
Yet all are of very considerable antiquity and contain fragments of
his tradition in a state of greater or less corruption. In addition to
works here enumerated there are many others which are spurious in a yet
further sense in that they are merely fathered on Aristotle and contain
no trace of his spirit or method. Such, for example, is the famous
mediaeval work of oriental origin known as the _Epistle of Aristotle to
Alexander_.
In a general way it may be stated that the _physical_ works, with
which we are not here directly concerned, while they show ingenuity,
learning, and philosophical power, yet betray very little direct and
original observation. They have exerted enormous influence in the
past and for at least two thousand years provided the usual physical
conceptions of the civilized world both East and West. After the
Galilean revolution in physics, however, they became less regarded and
they are not now highly esteemed by men of science. The _biological_
works of Aristotle, on the other hand, excited comparatively little
interest during the Middle Ages, but from the sixteenth century on
they have been very closely studied by naturalists. From the beginning
of the nineteenth century, and especially as a result of the work of
Cuvier, Richard Owen, and Johannes Müller, Aristotle’s reputation as a
naturalist has risen steadily, and he is now universally admitted to
have been one of the very greatest investigators of living nature.
The philosophical bases of Aristotle’s biology are mainly to be found
in the treatise _On soul_ and in that _On the generation of animals_.
His actual observations are contained in this latter work—which is in
many ways his finest scientific production—in the great collection on
the _History of animals_, and in the remarkable treatise _On parts of
animals_. Certain of his deductions concerning the nature and mechanism
of life can be found in his two works which deal with the movements of
animals (one of which is very doubtfully genuine) and in his tracts
_On respiration_, _On sleep_, &c. The treatise _On plants_ and the
_Problems_ in their present form are late and spurious, but they are
based on works of members of his school. They were, however, perhaps
originally prepared at the other end of the Greek world in Magna
Graecia.
Aristotle was a most voluminous author and his biological writings
form but a small fraction of those to which his name is attached.
Yet these biological works contain a prodigious number of first-hand
observations and it has always been difficult to understand how one
investigator could collect all these facts, however rapid his work
and skilful his methods. The explanations that have reached us from
antiquity are, indeed, picturesque, but they are neither credible in
themselves nor are they consistent with each other. Thus Pliny writing
about A. D. 77 says ‘Alexander the Great, fired by desire to learn of
the natures of animals, entrusted the prosecution of this design to
Aristotle.... For this end he placed at his disposal some thousands of
men in every part of Asia and Greece, and among them hunters, fowlers,
fishers, park-keepers, herds-men, bee-wards, as well as keepers of
fish-ponds and aviaries in order that no creature might escape his
notice. Through the information thus collected he was able to compose
some fifty volumes.’[14] Athenaeus, who lived in the early part of the
third century A. D., assures us that ‘Aristotle the Stagirite received
eight hundred talents [i.e. equal to about £200,000 of our money]
from Alexander as his contribution towards perfecting his _History
of Animals_’.[15] Aelian, on the other hand, who lived at a period a
little anterior to Athenaeus, tells us that it was ‘Philip of Macedon
who so esteemed learning that he supplied Aristotle with ample funds’
adding that he similarly honoured both Plato and Theophrastus.[16]
[14] Pliny, _Naturalis historia_, viii. 17.
[15] Athenaeus, _Deipnosophistae_, ix. 58.
[16] Aelian, _Variae historiae_, iv. 19.
Now in all Aristotle’s works there is not a single sentence in praise
of Alexander and there is some evidence that the two had become
estranged. In support of this we may quote Plutarch (_c._ A. D. 100)
who gives a detailed description of a conspiracy in 327 B. C. against
Alexander by Callisthenes, a pupil of Aristotle who appears to have
kept up a correspondence with his master.[17] Alexander himself wrote
of Callisthenes, according to Plutarch: ‘I will punish this sophist,
together with those who sent him to me and those who harbour in their
cities men who conspire against my life’ and Plutarch adds that
Alexander ‘directly reveals in these words a hostility to Aristotle in
whose house Callisthenes ... had been reared, being a son of Hero who
was a niece of Aristotle’.[18] Yet the Alexandrian conquests, bringing
Greece into closer contact with a wider world and extending Greek
knowledge of the Orient, must have had their influence in stimulating
interest in rare and curious creatures and in a general extension of
natural knowledge. That the interest in these topics extended beyond
the circle of the Peripatetics is shown by the fact that Speusippus,
the pupil of Plato and his successor as leader of his school, occupied
himself with natural history and wrote works on biological topics and
especially on fish.
[17] The statement of the relation of Callisthenes to Aristotle rests
on the somewhat unsatisfactory evidence of Simplicius (sixth century)
who states that Callisthenes sent Aristotle certain astronomical
observations from Babylon. Simplicius, _Commentarii_ (Karsten), p. 226.
[18] Plutarch, _Alexander_, lv.
Nevertheless, remarkable as is Aristotle’s acquaintance with animal
forms, investigation shows that he is reliable only when treating of
creatures native to the Aegean basin. As soon as he gets outside that
area his statements are almost always founded on hearsay or even on
fable.[19] Whatever assistance Aristotle may have received in the
preparation of his biological works came, therefore, probably from no
such picturesque and distant source as the gossip of Pliny or Aelian
would suggest. We can conjecture that he received aid from the powerful
relatives of his wife at Atarneus and in Lesbos, and we may most
reasonably suppose that after his return to Athens much help would have
been given him by his pupils within the Lyceum. To them may probably
be ascribed many passages in the biological writings; for it seems
hardly possible that Aristotle himself would have had time for detailed
biological research after he had settled as a teacher in Athens. Of the
work of these members of his school a fine monument has survived in
two complete botanical treatises and fragments of others on zoological
and psychological subjects by Theophrastus of Eresus, his pupil and
successor in the leadership of the Lyceum and perhaps his literary
legatee.
[19] The subject is well discussed by W. Ogle in the introduction to
his _Aristotle on the Parts of Animals_, London, 1882.
When we turn to the Aristotelian biological works themselves we
naturally inquire first into the question of genuineness, and here a
difficulty arises in that all his extant works have come down to us
in a state that is not comparable to those of any other great writer.
Among the ancients admiration was expressed for Aristotle’s eloquence
and literary powers, but, in the material that we have here to
consider, very little trace of these qualities can be detected by even
the most lenient judge. The arrangement of the subject-matter is far
from perfect even if we allow for the gaps and disturbances caused by
their passage through many hands. Moreover, there is much repetition
and often irrelevant digression, while the language is usually plain
to baldness and very frequently obscure. We find sometimes the
lightening touch of humour, but the style hardly ever rises to beauty.
Furthermore, even in matters of fact, while many observations exhibit
wonderful insight and, forestalling modern discovery, betray a most
searching and careful application of scientific methods, yet elsewhere
we find errors that are childish and could have been avoided by the
merest tyro.
This curious state of the Aristotelian writings has given rise to much
discussion among scholars and to explain it there has been developed
what is known as the ‘notebook theory’. It is supposed that the
bases of the material that we possess were notebooks put together by
Aristotle himself for his own use, probably while lecturing. These
passed, it is believed, into the hands of certain of his pupils and
were perhaps in places incomprehensible as they stood. Such pupils,
after the master’s death, filled out the notebooks either from the
memory of his teaching or from their own knowledge—or ignorance. Thus
modified, however, they were still not prepared for publication, even
in the limited sense in which works may be said to have been published
in those days, but they formed again the fuller bases of notes for
lectures delivered by his successors. In this form they have finally
survived to our time, suffering, however, from certain further losses
and displacements on a larger scale. Some of the ‘Aristotelian’ works
are undoubtedly more deeply spurious, but the works that are regarded
as ‘genuine’ do not seem to have been seriously tampered with, except
by mere scribal or bookbinders’ blunders, at any date later than a
generation or two following Aristotle’s own time. These notebooks as
they stand are in fact probably in much the state in which we should
find them were we able to retrieve a copy dating from the first or
second century B. C.[20]
[20] The problem of genuineness is discussed in detail by R. Shute, _On
the history of the process by which the Aristotelian writings arrived
at their present form_, Oxford, 1888.
In the opening chapter of one of his great biological works Aristotle
sets forth in detail his motives for the study of living things. The
passage is in itself noteworthy as one of the few instances in which he
rises to real eloquence.
‘Of things constituted by nature some are ungenerated, imperishable,
and eternal, while others are subject to generation and decay. The
former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but less accessible
to knowledge. The evidence that might throw light on them, and on the
problems which we long to solve respecting them, is furnished but
scantily by sensation; whereas respecting perishable plants and animals
we have abundant information, living as we do in their midst, and ample
data may be collected concerning all their various kinds, if only we
are willing to take sufficient pains. Both departments, however, have
their special charm. The scanty conceptions to which we can attain of
celestial things give us, from their excellence, more pleasure than all
our knowledge of the world in which we live; just as a half glimpse
of persons we love is more delightful than a leisurely view of other
things, whatever their number and dimensions. On the other hand, in
certitude and in completeness our knowledge of terrestrial things has
the advantage. Moreover, their greater nearness and affinity to us
balances somewhat the loftier interest of the heavenly things that
are the objects of the higher philosophy.... For if some [creatures]
have no graces to charm the sense, yet even these, by disclosing to
intellectual perception the artistic spirit that designed them, give
immense pleasure to all who can trace links of causation, and are
inclined to philosophy. We therefore must not recoil with childish
aversion from the examination of the humbler animals. Every realm of
nature is marvellous. It is told of Heraclitus that when strangers
found him warming himself at the kitchen fire and hesitated to go in,
he bade them enter since even in the kitchen divinities were present.
So should we venture on the study of every kind of animal without
distaste, for each and all will reveal to us something natural and
something beautiful.[21] Absence of haphazard and conduciveness of
everything to an end are to be found in Nature’s works in the highest
degree, and the resultant end of her generations and combinations is a
form of the beautiful.
‘If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal kingdom
an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the study of man.
For no one can look at the primordia of the human frame—blood, flesh,
bones, vessels, and the like—without much repugnance. Moreover, when
any one of the parts or structures, be it which it may, is under
discussion, it must not be supposed that it is its material composition
to which attention is being directed or which is the object of the
discussion, but the relation of such part to the total form....
‘As every instrument and every bodily member subserves some partial
end, that is to say, some special action, so the whole body must be
destined to minister to some plenary sphere of action. Thus the saw is
made for sawing, since sawing is a function, and not sawing for the
saw. Similarly, the body too must somehow or other be made for the
soul, and each part of it for some subordinate function to which it is
adapted.’[22]
[21] I have somewhat abbreviated this and the previous sentence.
[22] _De partibus animalium_, i. 5; 644ᵇ 21.
Aristotle is, in the fullest sense a ‘vitalist’. He believes that the
presence of a certain peculiar principle of a non-material character
is essential for the exhibition of any of the phenomena of life. This
principle we may call _soul_, translating his word ψυχή. Living things,
like all else in nature, have, according to Aristotle, an end or
object. ‘Everything that Nature makes,’ he says, ‘is means to an end.
For just as human creations are the products of art, so living objects
are manifestly the products of an analogous cause or principle.... And
that the heaven, if it had an origin, was evolved and is maintained
by such a cause, there is, therefore, even more reason to believe,
than that mortal animals so originated. For order and definiteness are
much more manifest in the celestial bodies than in our own frame.’[23]
It was a misinterpretation of this view that especially endeared him
to the mediaeval Church and made it possible to absorb Aristotelian
philosophy into Christian theology. It must be remembered that the
cause or principle that leads to the development of living things is in
Aristotle’s view, not external but _internal_.