Aristotle's History of Animals
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~130,000 words · 633 passages
Cite this work
- APAAristotle. (n.d.). Aristotle's History of Animals. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/aristotle-s-history-of-animals
- MLAAristotle. "Aristotle's History of Animals." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/aristotle-s-history-of-animals.
- ChicagoAristotle. Aristotle's History of Animals. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/aristotle-s-history-of-animals.
What it is about
Aristotle's compilation of what was known and what he himself observed about animals: the earliest surviving treatise of zoology.
Context and history
'History' here means inquiry, not a narrative of the past. The book describes parts, habits, reproduction, feeding and behaviour of hundreds of species, and it is the method that makes it remarkable: Aristotle dissects, compares and classifies, and where he has not seen a thing he says so or names his informant. There are errors — many of them, some coming from fishermen and breeders who misinformed him — and there are observations that were not confirmed again until the nineteenth century, such as the reproduction of the octopus or the day-by-day development of the chick embryo. Darwin wrote that his own gods of science were mere schoolboys beside old Aristotle.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
The following Translation of Aristotle's History of Animals has been made from the text of Schneider. In a work of considerable difficulty it is hardly possible entirely to avoid errors; but it is hoped that those which have escaped are neither numerous nor important. The notes of Schneider have been consulted throughout; and in places of difficulty the English translation by Taylor, the French of Camus, and the German of Strack, have been severally referred to. The work itself is the most ancient and celebrated contribution to science which has come down to us; and it is hardly possible, when we consider the means of observation which were accessible at the time, to imagine a work of more accurate observation. From the numerous quotations in which our author avails himself of the experience of his predecessors in the same field, as well as corrects their errors, there can be no doubt that Aristotle had the advantage of many works which have perished in the lapse of ages. In the Appendix to the present Translation will be found the Essay of Schneider on the sources whence Aristotle derived his knowledge of the animals he describes; and these sources, together with his own accurate observations, are probably sufficient to account for the correct knowledge of the history of animals displayed throughout the work. It is right, perhaps, to observe in this place, that Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of Biography, speaks of the 'History of Animals' as partly the result of the royal liberality of Alexander; and doubtless Aristotle would gladly have introduced into his work any fresh materials which might have been made available to him either during his residence at the Macedonian court, or by the subsequent victories of Alexander in the East, if the information so obtained had reached Athens in sufficient time to be incorporated. But in the first instance he would naturally use the materials ready to his hand in the works of his predeces