1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

136 5. Medicine and Other Empirical Sciences
cause he regards the words as synonymous, he reproaches Herophilus for
unwisely juxtaposing them as if they had distinct meanings. 49
To these men language had again become an external body of information
which they could not influence except unconsciously. This is an
important aspect of the death of the scientific method.
5.6 Botany and Zoology
Zoology and botany gained great impetus from Alexander the Great’s
conquests, which made possible the systematic study of many animal and
plant species unknown or little known to classical Greece. Alexander himself
had ensured that specimens of flora and fauna from the regions he
crossed, especially in his Indian campaign, were sent home so they could
be studied.
Hellenistic botany and zoology had an important precursor: Aristotle’s
research. The philosopher’s teleological world view did not, in this area,
prevent the collection of interesting results. Whereas, as already noticed,
his anatomy was obstructed by a static concept of language, this was not
such a problem in zoology, where Greek names for animals provided a
fairly suitable conceptual scheme. Aristotle not only described about five
hundred animal species based on observations ranging from morphological
to behavioral, 50 but he also recognized that animal life varies along a
continuum, and so introduced a “natural classification scheme” for zoology.
51
Theophrastus, who was for decades Aristotle’s favorite disciple and page 179
succeeded the master at the head of the Lyceum, devoted himself to many
subjects, including meteorology, mineralogy, and above all botany. His
two surviving botanical treatises, Historia plantarum and De causis plantarum,
contain the elements of a theory (in the empirical-science sense) of
botanical physiology, built both on the gathering of ancient empirical lore
and on recent observations and experiments.
Theophrastus discusses at length the modifications that living beings
can undergo between generations. 52 Morphological variations of plants
due to changes in soil or climate are clearly distinguished from spontaneous
changes; Theophrastus stresses that mutations of the second type,
49
Caelius Aurelianus, Celeres vel acutae passiones, I, pref. 4–5 = [von Staden: H], text 211.
50
Aristotle, Historia animalium. Many observations can be found in his other zoological works
as well.
51
On the subject of classification criteria, the salient texts are the Historia animalium and the first
book of the De partibus animalium.
52 Theophrastus, Historia plantarum, II, iii.
Revision: 1.9 Date: 2002/09/14 19:12:01