Note 112 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTION

On “Aristotle as a Biologist” see the Herbert Spencer lecture by D’Arcy W. Thompson, Oxford, 1913, 31 pp. Also T. E. Lones, Aristotle’s Researches in Natural Science, London, 1912. Professor W. A. Locy, author of Biology and Its Makers, writes me (May 9, 1921) that in his opinion G. H. Lewes, Aristotle; a Chapter from the History of Science, London, 1864, “dwells too much on Aristotle’s errors and imperfections, and in several instances omits the quotation of important positive observations, occurring in the chapters from which he makes his quotations of errors.” Professor Locy also disagrees with Lewes’ estimate of De generatione as Aristotle’s masterpiece and thinks that “naturalists will get more satisfaction out of reading the Historia animalium” than either the De generatione or De partibus. Thompson (1913), p. 14, calls Aristotle “a very great naturalist.”