Synopses & Reviews
In History of Animals, Aristotle analyzes "differences"--in parts, activities, modes of life, and character--across the animal kingdom, in preparation for establishing their causes, which are the concern of his other zoological works. Over 500 species of animals are considered: shellfish, insects, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals--including human beings. In Books I-IV, Aristotle gives a comparative survey of internal and external body parts, including tissues and fluids, and of sense faculties and voice. Books V-VI study reproductive methods, breeding habits, and embryogenesis as well as some secondary sex differences. In Books VII-IX, Aristotle examines differences among animals in feeding; in habitat, hibernation, migration; in enmities and sociability; in disposition (including differences related to gender) and intelligence. Here too he describes the human reproductive system, conception, pregnancy, and obstetrics. Book X establishes the female's contribution to generation. The Loeb Classical Library® edition of History of Animals is in three volumes. A full index to all ten books is included in the third (Volume XI of the Aristotle edition). Related Volumes Aristotle's biological corpus includes not only History of Animals, but also Parts of Animals, Movement of Animals, Progression of Animals, Generation of Animals, and significant parts of On the Soul and Parva Naturalia. Aristotle's general methodology--"first we must grasp the differences, then try to discover the causes" (Ha 1.6)--is applied to the study of plants by his younger co-worker and heir to his school, Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants studies differences across the plant kingdom, while De Causis Plantarum studies their causes. In the later ancient world, both Pliny's Natural History and Aelian's On the Characteristics of Animals draw significantly on Aristotle's biological work.
Synopsis
Nearly all the works Aristotle (384-322 BCE) prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as practical; logical; physical; metaphysical; on art; other; fragments.
About the Author
Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BC, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taughtthere (367347); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias' relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 3432 hewas appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling thereafter Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Manuscripts
Printed Editions
Translations
Students of Aristotle's Zoology
Authenticity
Date of the Treatise
This Edition
Notes On Terminology
Tables
Sigla
History Of Animals
Book I
Book II
Book III
Additional Notes