The Book about Animals, the _Historia Animalium_ as we say, from which I have quoted these few examples of Aristotle's store of information, may be taken to represent the first necessary stage of scientific inquiry. There is a kind of _manual_ philosophy (as old Lord Monboddo called it) which investigates facts which escape the vulgar, and may be called the _anecdotes_ or _secret history_ of nature. In this fascinating pursuit Gilbert White excelled, and John Ray and many another--the whole brotherhood of simple naturalists. But such accumulated knowledge of facts is but the foundation of a philosophy; and 'nothing deserves the name of philosophy, except what explains the causes and principles of things'. Aristotle would have done much had he merely shown (as Gilbert White showed to the country gentlemen of his day) that the minute observation of nature was something worth the scholar and the gentleman's while; but, far more than this, he made a Science of natural knowledge, and set it once for all within the realm of Philosophy. He set it side by side with the more ancient science of Astronomy, which for many hundred years in Egypt and the East, and for some few centuries in Hellas, had occupied the mind of philosophers and the attention of educated men. I have quoted before a great sentence in which he explains his purpose, and makes excuse for his temerity. 'The glory, doubtless, of the heavenly bodies fills us with more delight than the contemplation of these lowly things; for the sun and stars are born not, neither do they decay, but are eternal and divine. But the heavens are high and afar off, and of celestial things the knowledge that our senses give us is scanty and dim. The living creatures, on the other hand, are at our door, and if we so desire it we may gain ample and certain knowledge of each and all. We take pleasure in the beauty of a statue, shall not then the living fill us with delight; and all the more if in the spirit of philosophy we search for causes and recognize the evidences of design. Then will nature's purpose and her deep-seated laws be everywhere revealed, all tending in her multitudinous work to one form or another of the Beautiful.'