[109] Since 1898 various volumes and parts have appeared under the editorship of Cumont, Kroll, Boll, Olivieri, Bassi, and others. Much of the material noted is of course post-classical and Byzantine, and of Christian authorship or Arabic origin.
[110] For example, see R. Wünsch, Antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamon, in Jahrb. d. kaiserl. deutsch. archæol. Instit., suppl. VI (1905), p. 19.
[111] T. L. Heath, The Works of Archimedes, Cambridge, 1897, pp. xxxix-xl.
[112] 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.”
[113] This quotation is from Professor Locy’s letter of May 9, 1921.
[114] The quotations are from a note by Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson on his translation of the Historia animalium, III, 3. The note gives so good a glimpse of both the merits and defects of the Aristotelian text as it has reached us that I will quote it here more fully:
“The Aristotelian account of the vascular system is remarkable for its wealth of details, for its great accuracy in many particulars, and for its extreme obscurity in others. It is so far true to nature that it is clear evidence of minute inquiry, but here and there so remote from fact as to suggest that things once seen have been half forgotten, or that superstition was in conflict with the result of observation. The account of the vessels connecting the left arm with the liver and the right with the spleen ... is a surviving example of mystical or superstitious belief. It is possible that the ascription of three chambers to the heart was also influenced by tradition or mysticism, much in the same way as Plato’s notion of the three corporeal faculties.”
[115] Professor Locy called my attention to it in a letter of May 17, 1921. See also Thompson (1913), p. 14.
[116] Thompson (1913), p. 19.
[117] L. C. Karpinski, “Hindu Science,” in The American Mathematical Monthly, XXVI (1919), 298-300.