Page:Greek Biology and Medicine.djvu/83

 Aristotle's biology him as Ostracoderma, but his actual descrip- tions of the structure of the Cephalopods are exceedingly remarkable. His distinctions be- tween the Malacostraca or Crustacea, Entoma, Sponges, and Jellyfish are also still of value, and these divisions remain along much the same lines as he left them." ^^ In reading through the biological treatises of Aristotle, one realizes that they are the pioneerings of a mighty mind. He was laying out the multitudinous matter, striving, not indeed to introduce an order not its own into the chaos of Nature, but rather to apprehend and describe and know the reason of the intri- cate and marvelous order which was embodied in Nature's realm. That Nature held such order, and presented it and worked ever with purpose in fulfilling it, was Aristotle's scien- tific and philosophic faith. If Anaxagoras or another had this faith before him, he was to render it explicit through a more adequate analysis, a keener discrimination, and a mar- shalling of detail hitherto unattempted. He was a universal pioneer in nature's vast realm: an investigating and dissecting pioneer, press- ing on through all the seeming mazes of the unexplored jungle, insistent upon laying out [6i]