COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

528 COSMOS.
the Macedonian campaigns, either from Persia or from Babylon,
which was the seat of a widely extended foreign commercial
intercourse? Owing to the utter ignorance that prevailed at
this time of the preparation of alcohol* nothing but the skins
and bones of animals, and not the soft parts capable of dissection,
could be sent from remote parts of Asia to Greece.
However probable it may be that Aristotle received the most
liberal aid from Philip and Alexander for the furtherance of
his studies in physical science, for procuring an immense
number of zoological specimens both from Greece and the
neighbouring seas, and for forming a collection of books, unique
In that age, and which passed successively into the hands, first
of Theophrates, and afterwards of Neleus of Skepsis, we must,
nevertheless, regard the accounts of " the presents of eight
hundred talents, and the maintenance of so many thousand
collectors, overseers of fish-ponds, and bird-keepers," as mere
exaggerations of a later period, or as
stood by Pliny, Athena3us, and JElian.f
traditions misunder-
direct evidence on this subject. That which we possess of the corres-
pondence of Aristotle is undoubtedly not genuine (Stahr,
208, th. ii. s. 169--234), and Schneider says very confidently (Hist, de
Animal., t. i. "
p. xl), hoc enim tanquam certissimum sumere mihi lice-
th. i. s. 194--
bit, scriptas comitum Alexandri notitias post mortem demum regia
fuisse vulgatas."
* I have elsewhere shown, that although the decomposition of sul-
phuret of mercury by distillation is described in Dioscorides (Mat. med.,
v. 110, p. 667, Saracen.), the first description of the distillation of a
fluid (the distillation of fresh water from sea water,) is, however, to be
found in the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias
work de Meteorol. ;
to Aristotle's
see my Exainen critique de Vhistoire de la Geographic,
t. ii. pp. 30S--316, and Joannis (Philoponi,) Grammatici in libro de
General, et Alexandri Aphrod., in Meteorol. Comm. Tenet., 1527, p.
97, b. Alexander of Aphrodisias in Caria, the learned commentator
of the Meteorologica of Aristotle, lived under Septimius Severus and
Caracalla; and although he calls chemical apparatuses, "XVIKU opyava,
yet a passage in Plutarch (de Iside et Osir., c. 33), proves that
the word Cliemie, applied by the Greeks to the Egyptian art, is not
derived from %w. Hoefer (Histoire de la Chimie, t. i. pp. 91, 195,
and 219, t. ii. p. 109).
f- Compare Sainte-Croix, Examen des Historiens d'Alexandre, 1810,
p. 207; and Ouvier, Histoire des Sciences naturelles, t. i. p. 137, with
Schneider, ad Aristot. de Historid Animalium, t. i. pp. xlii-xlvi, and
Stahr, Aristotelia, th. i. s. 116-118. If, therefore, the transmission of
epecimens from Egypt and the interior of Asia seems to be highly iiu-