The Fathers of Biology. By Charles McRae, M.A. (Percival and
Co.)—Mr. McRae is quite right when he says that students of science have " a tendency to imaging that the facts with which they are now being made familiar have all been established by recent observation and experiment." He has done well to recall something of the services which were rendered in a time long past by the first investigators. That these " fathers of biology" did investigate and observe, is beyond all doubt, So far they differed from a writer like Pliny, who was certainly a " naturalist of the chair," and for this, whatever their errors, they deserve our respect. Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen aro the three scientific ancients of whom Mr. McRae writes. The claims of the other two included among the "fathers," Vesalius and Harvey, the most fanatical modernist would not, we suppose, deny.
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