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  | publication date =

  | publication date =

  | original date = 1874-12-05

  | original date = 1874-12-05

  | notes = Published in section "Scientific"

  | notes = Published in section "Scientific". Second part of the article is wanted.

  | categories =

  | categories =

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<center><small>BY WILLIAM HITCHMAN, M.D. (PRUSSIA), M.R.C.S». (ENGLAND), ETC.</small></center>

<center><small>BY WILLIAM HITCHMAN, M.D. (PRUSSIA), M.R.C.S». (ENGLAND), ETC.</small></center>

{{Style P-Quote|“ Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.”—''Thomas Fuller''.}}

{{Style P-Quote|“ Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.” —''Thomas Fuller''.}}

{{Style S-Small capitals|Philosophers}} have long been perplexed in their efforts to define nature, and human nature, in a manner altogether satisfactory to themselves and others. ''Inter alia''—man has been sometimes characterized as “ the suicidal animal.” But, alas ! for the permanency of this discovery—notable as it might seem at first sight—the scorpion crossed this sage’s path of progress, and claimed equality with the Lord of Creation, in this dignified and glorious prerogative ! Moreover, during the Socratic and Aristotelian periods of philosophic history, shone the Greek intellect, “ like a meteor streaming to the wind,” but incomparably more lasting.

{{Style S-Small capitals|Philosophers}} have long been perplexed in their efforts to define nature, and human nature, in a manner altogether satisfactory to themselves and others. ''Inter alia''—man has been sometimes characterized as “ the suicidal animal.” But, alas ! for the permanency of this discovery—notable as it might seem at first sight—the scorpion crossed this sage’s path of progress, and claimed equality with the Lord of Creation, in this dignified and glorious prerogative ! Moreover, during the Socratic and Aristotelian periods of philosophic history, shone the Greek intellect, “ like a meteor streaming to the wind,” but incomparably more lasting.

In the first chapter of his Natural History of Animals, recently translated, the term ''εῦρα'' is rendered “ nerve,” instead of tendon or ligament ; the sentence “ salt water and fresh water marshes ” occurs, with other and more ''copious'' illustrations of equal truth and value. Without some knowledge of zoology and comparative anatomy—for example, the structure of the ovum of the cuttle-fish, the history of the hectocotyle, the envelopes of the embryo, and the like—not even the profound scholarship of a Scaliger, or a Bentley, would suffice to master the difficulties of the text of Aristotle, in the matter of such familiar words as ''είδος, γένος, ίλυσπαστικà'', and so forth, well-known expressions to both physicians and metaphysicians in the treatise ''De Incessu''. Now, there is not a syllable in the original about “ salt water ” at all ; yet in English translations of the great philosopher of nature, he is absurdly represented to teach, amongst other things, that the perch, the carp, and the silurus, are “ marine fishes,” and that the different modes of locomotion—flying, walking, and swimming—are given by the Stagirite as “ ''wriggling ''” examples of progression ! Surely, the great intellectual luminary of old was far too enlightened in all departments of human learning to have written thus of each particular class of gasteropods, caterpillars, worms, or of a species of the genus. What shall be said of such unnatural interpolation ?

In the first chapter of his Natural History of Animals, recently translated, the term ''εῦρα'' is rendered “ nerve,” instead of tendon or ligament ; the sentence “ salt water and fresh water marshes ” occurs, with other and more ''copious'' illustrations of equal truth and value. Without some knowledge of zoology and comparative anatomy—for example, the structure of the ovum of the cuttle-fish, the history of the hectocotyle, the envelopes of the embryo, and the like—not even the profound scholarship of a Scaliger, or a Bentley, would suffice to master the difficulties of the text of Aristotle, in the matter of such familiar words as ''είδος, γένος, ίλυσπαστικà'', and so forth, well-known expressions to both physicians and metaphysicians in the treatise ''De Incessu''. Now, there is not a syllable in the original about “ salt water ” at all ; yet in English translations of the great philosopher of nature, he is absurdly represented to teach, amongst other things, that the perch, the carp, and the silurus, are “ marine fishes,” and that the different modes of locomotion—flying, walking, and swimming—are given by the Stagirite as “ ''wriggling ''” examples of progression ! Surely, the great intellectual luminary of old was far too enlightened in all departments of human learning to have written thus of each particular class of gasteropods, caterpillars, worms, or of a species of the genus. What shall be said of such unnatural interpolation ?

----

{{Style P-Quote|“ Intolerable, not to be endured—men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love,—‘ As you like it,’—?—<ref>Here is a combined quotation from W. Shakespeare's plays. Before the hyphen from the play [https://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming_shrew/taming_shrew.5.2.html “The Taming of the Shrew”], Act 5, Scene 2; after the hyphen from the play [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/asyoulikeit/full.html “As you like it”], Act 4, Scene 1.</ref>

{{Style P-Quote|“ Intolerable, not to be endured—men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love,—‘ As you like it,’—?—

The sense is so obvious, in every instance, to a practical anatomist, as to remind him of a justly merited compliment—

{{Style P-Align right|—By Mary, ''No'' !}}}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=“ Il maestro di color che sanno.”<ref>“The master of those, who know” (Latin) – a periphrasis from the ''Divine Comedy'' by Dante, where he calls Aristotle “the teacher of all scholars.”</ref>}}

 

What naturalist can fail to discern in the following passages from ''De Partibus Animalium'', the exact scientific question on the theory of development, as advocated by Lamarck, and the author of “ Vestiges of Creation ” ? “ Similarly, some philosophers assert, with respect to the generation of animals and plants, that from water flowing in the body a stomach was formed, and every organ became the recipient of food, or waste, and that by the passage of air nostrils were produced.” (Vol. I., p. 640, ed. Bekker.) The classical reader of The Scientist may find, again and again, in the works of Aristotle, various matters of scientific interest, at the present moment, everywhere, but to which one cannot now advert—especially those relating to atoms, germs, and molecules, or “ Spontaneous Generation,” a theory which has recently been advocated by Dr. Bastian, with considerable ability, in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and duly supported by myself at Liverpool, with extremely curious, most important, and far from entirely inconclusive results. Life is given to insects out of death ? Infusorial animalcules need not other parentage than flint, dust, disease, or destruction ! What is done is done, living flowers ''do'' skirt an eternal frost.

What naturalist can fail to discern in the following passages from ''De Partibus Animalium'', the exact scientific question on the theory of development, as advocated by Lamarck, and the author of “ Vestiges of Creation ” ? “ Similarly, some philosophers assert, with respect to the generation of animals and plants, that from water flowing in the body a stomach was formed, and every organ became the recipient of food, or waste, and that by the passage of air nostrils were produced.” (Vol. I., p. 640, ed. Bekker.) The classical reader of The Scientist may find, again and again, in the works of Aristotle, various matters of scientific interest, at the present moment, everywhere, but to which one cannot now advert—especially those relating to atoms, germs, and molecules, or “ Spontaneous Generation,” a theory which has recently been advocated by Dr. Bastian, with considerable ability, in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and duly supported by myself at Liverpool, with extremely curious, most important, and far from entirely inconclusive results. Life is given to insects out of death ? Infusorial animalcules need not other parentage than flint, dust, disease, or destruction ! What is done is done, living flowers ''do'' skirt an eternal frost.