Page:Greek Biology and Medicine.djvu/65

 Aristotle's biology Greek biology presents penetrating descrip- tions which often are close and correct. The descriptions were such as yielded explanations. The why was always lurking, or pressing un- concealed behind the how, and even instigating it. The wish for explanation is the antecedent in all science ; — in Greek biology it might color the description. So the description, like the wished-for explanation, was a little over- likely to accord with the insistencies of the Greek mind. But so penetrating was the in- sight of that mind, and so mighty its impulse toward an explanatory ordering of things, that the lesson and example of its accomplishment have not ceased to be the inspiration of the intellectual world. This is as true of Greek science as of Greek philosophy with which it was so closely related. The beginnings of Greek biology were noticed before, in speaking of the Hippocratic school of medicine. Its matured character can best be illustrated from the works of its mightiest exponent, Aristotle. His three great biological treatises, or compendia, or perhaps note-books, may be drawn on — the Historia Animalium, the De Partibus Animalium, and [43]