5. Of Aristotle's actual contributions to the Physical Sciences I have
spoken in the History of those Sciences[24]. I have[25] stated that
he conceived the globular form of the earth so clearly and gave so
forcibly the arguments for that doctrine, that we may look upon him as
the most effective teacher of it. Also in the Appendix to that History,
published in the third edition, I have given Aristotle's account of the
Rainbow, as a further example of his industrious accumulation of facts,
and of his liability to error in his facts.
6. We do not find Aristotle so much impressed as we might have expected
by that great monument of Grecian ingenuity, the theory of epicycles
and excentrics which his predecessor Plato urged so strongly upon the
attention of his contemporaries. Aristotle proves, as I have said,
the globular form of the earth by good and sufficient arguments. He
also proves by arguments which seem to him quite conclusive[26], that
the earth is in the center of the universe, and immoveable. As to the
motions of the rest of the planets, he says little. The questions
of their order, and their distances, and the like, belong, he says,
to Astrology[27]. He remarks only that the revolution of the heaven
itself, the outermost revolution, is simple and the quickest of all:
that the revolutions of the others are slower, each moving in a
direction opposite to the heaven in its own circle: and that it is
reasonable that those which are nearest to the first revolution should
take the longest time in describing their own circle, and those that
are furthest off, the least time, and the intermediate ones in the
order of their distances, "as also the mathematicians show."
In the _Metaphysics_[28] he enumerates the circular movements which
had been introduced by the astronomers Eudoxus and Calippus for the
explanation of the phenomena presented by the sun, moon and planets.
These, he says, amount to fifty-five; and this, he says, must be the
number of essences and principles which exist in the universe.
7. In the Sciences of Classification, and especially in the
classification of animals, higher claims have been made for Aristotle,
which I have discussed in the History[29]. I have there attempted to
show that Aristotle's classification, inasmuch as it enumerates all
the parts of animals, may be said to contain the _materials_ of every
subsequent classification: but that it cannot be said to anticipate
any modern system, because the different grades of classification are
not made _subordinate_ to one another as a _system_ of classification
requires. I have the satisfaction of finding Mr. Owen agreeing with me
in these views[30].
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