Revival: The History of Biology (1929)

A Survey

Erik Nordenskiold

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351338974
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This work, which is here present in the English language, is based on a course of lectures given at the University of Helsingfors, Finland, during the academic year 1916-17. It is the author's intention to present a picture of the development of biological science throughout the ages, viewed in conjunction with the general cultural development of mankind. Regarded thus as a link in the general history of culture, the problems of biology will, it is hoped, prove of interest not only to young university students, for whom this book is primarily intended, but also to a still wider public. With regard to moderen times, for obvious reasons it has only been possible in such a brief history as this to give a very summary account of recent developments.

Part One
Biology in Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance

Chapter I
The Development of Biology Amongst the Primitive Peoples and the Civilized Nations of the East

Primitive man’s speculations upon life

THE EARLIEST FOUNDATION of all our natural scientific knowledge is to be sought in the observations of nature collected in the course of thousands of years by prehistoric peoples who had reached a primitive stage of civilization. This empirical folk-knowledge, which the student of folk-lore in our own day investigates from a historical and national-psychological point of view, has not only been the starting-point for all scientific thought, but has also, right up to the most recent times, to a certain extent influenced scientific research itself; increased its store of facts with material for observation and even now and then given rise to problems which science has debated. Primitive man's speculations upon life have naturally been influenced by his mode of life in various climates and under varying conditions. Common to them all, however, would appear to have been the fact that the first thing that has induced man to reflect upon life has been its cessation: death. And to the aborigines what we call a natural death is actually the most wonderful; that a man should fall in a fight against wild animals or his enemies is all part of the order of the day, but that the powers of a sound and healthy man should suddenly and without reason begin to fail and life to cease with or without the accompaniment of pain — that is a thing one finds it hard to acquiesce in. And the thing becomes all the more remarkable for the fact that again and again at night the departed one appears in dreams to those who have survived him. These dreams have given rise to a belief in ghosts, spectres, and spiritual powers of various kinds, both friendly and evil, and this belief has in its turn called forth measures with a view to deriving advantage from the well-disposed and avoiding the snares of the wicked. Thus measures of many and various kinds were adopted in regard to the bodies of the dead, which were either cremated or otherwise destroyed in order to render it impossible for them to return amongst the living, or else, on the other hand, they were elaborately cared for by the preservation of the skeleton or by embalming, which was intended to make the dead well-disposed towards their survivors. From these manipulations arose the first knowledge of the anatomy of the human body, while observations of the actual course of death created certain physiological ideas. Men learnt to observe the heart-beat and to connect life with its continuance or cessation, and thus the heart itself was regarded as the organ of life. Breathing was also observed to be an essential condition of life, and in particular the deep expiration which indeed so often attends the actual moment of death gave rise to the idea of life as having something of the nature of air, being dependent upon the respiratory organs and leaving the body through them. In mediaeval church paintings this belief reappears in a particularly naive manner: the soul of the dying is seen to leave the body in the form of a little child creeping out through the mouth. Likewise the words of the biblical story of the creation to the effect that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life testifies to the same kind of idea. And so there arose, as a further development of these ideas, the belief that the breath or spirit lives when the body dies. The contrast between body and spirit which is an outcome of the ideas described above is included in the speculations of the earliest natural philosophers as a fundamental principle.

Relationship to animals

HOWEVER, in the mind of primitive man these lines of thought, proceeding from the contrast between life and death, are crossed by others, which have their origin in his relationship to the rest of the world of living creatures. The great wild beasts — bears, lions, elephants — were difficult to overcome; it was often necessary to try, as far as was possible, to make friends with them. Other beasts were regarded with terror for their night-roving habits and horrible cries, such as hyenas and owls; while some possessed otherwise enviable natural gifts — the fox his cunning, the deer his swiftness, etc. It is out of all this that we must explain the origin of the mass of animal superstition that has filled the life of both wild and civilized peoples. As forms in which this superstition has developed may be mentioned totemism, or the custom existing among certain wild peoples of adopting animals as a kind of guardian spirit and family symbol, as well as the belief in and worship of holy animals, which, even amongst highly civilized peoples, such as the Egyptians and the Romans, have played such an important part in life. This animal superstition has naturally contributed towards increasing the interest in and knowledge of animals, both as regards the habits of life of those which were worshipped as gods, and the anatomy of those which were offered in sacrifice and were most minutely examined with a view to divining portents for the future from their internal structure.

Primitive surgery and medicine

FINALLY, a third extremely important source of biological knowledge has been medical science. Primitive surgery, which originated in attempts to cure various bodily injuries, must of course eventually lead to a certain amount of knowledge of the anatomy of the human body, a knowledge which was increased by the process of comparison with the experience gained from the slaughter of wild and tame animals. As to the natural diseases, the same holds good for these as what has just been mentioned in regard to death, for lack of ability to explain them naturally, people took refuge in a belief in supernatural causes. The belief in enchantments of various kinds which arose therefrom and which has been maintained even amongst civilized peoples for a surprisingly long time, fills one of the darkest chapters in the history of civilization. Disasters of supernatural origin of course demanded corresponding remedies, and consequently the earliest practice of medical science among all races of mankind has been that of magic: they sought to remove the evil by setting sorcery against sorcery. However, the regular course of certain processes of disease could not fail to be observed and conclusions drawn therefrom as to the functions of the body in sickness and health. By a comparison of these observations a number of primitive ideas were acquired on physiology and pathology. Hand in hand with this was evolved the theory of pharmacology, based on experiments — originally for the most part for magical purposes — with plants which experience proved to be poisonous or otherwise capable of affecting the life-process. Through observations of this kind the knowledge of life was still further enhanced. It was not given, however, to just anyone to acquire all this knowledge, the origins and development of which have been described above. The supernatural and mysterious elements in them made them a privilege for certain qualified persons: magicians, sorcerers, sacrificial priests, Among these classes of people they were shared and handed down as professional secrets, until in course of time a division of them took place — the magical and ritual customs became the professional sphere of the priests, while the amassed knowledge of nature, released from the obstructive bonds of magic, was developed by independent inquirers into a free sphere of learning. The people amongst whom this independent natural science first arose were the Greeks. But long before Greek culture appears in history, the people of the East had already bequeathed historical evidences of their civilization, and these deserve all the more to be carefully examined for such contributions to biological knowledge as they may have to show, seeing that the whole of Greek culture was so highly influenced by the oriental.

Badylonian science

The earliest home of human civilization is now generally supposed to have been Babylon, and a high standard of culture was maintained there under the dominion of various types of peoples up to the latter part of the Middle Ages. The "oriental wisdom" which has played such an important part in the mystical literature of all times also originates from there through a more or less varying number of intermediate stages. Actually, the mystical and the magical have from the earliest times played a predominant role in that country's learning, undoubtedly owing to the fact that all knowledge was nurtured and developed by a powerful priesthood. The conception of nature was influenced thereby: the early knowledge of astronomy was placed at the service of mystical powers, as were also mathematics and medicine. The latter science, however, in certain respects made no small progress. The knowledge of anatomy was considerable; preserved clay-models of certain of the viscera of the body prove this and give evidence that the dissection of corpses must have taken place in spite of the horror which Orientals have always felt for the dead and their spirits. It is clear from preserved writings on medicine that the heart was regarded as the organ of intelligence, and the liver as that of the blood-circulation; the blood was divided into "light" and "dark" blood — arterial and venous. The knowledge of higher animal forms was, as extant lists of nomenclature go to prove, quite considerable, and kings and princes kept rare live animals in their gardens. Even animal-doctors are mentioned in preserved inscriptions.

Egyptian medicine and natural knowledge

Again, in the other oldest civilized country of the West, Egypt, there was developed at an early period an art of healing which was based not merely upon superstition, but also upon actual observations. The early perfected religious practice of preserving dead bodies from putrefaction by conserving the skeleton and, later, by embalming offered an opportunity of acquiring anatomical knowledge which proved of great benefit to medical science. The sacred animals were likewise studied with minute care, and writings have been discovered giving in detail the history of the development of the sacred scarab, and even the metamorphosis of the frog and the fly. The parasitic worms that so infected Egypt were also objects of investigation and speculation.

Israelitic conception of nature

With regard, finally, to the Israelitic people, their cultural contribution has been in a sphere entirely different from the natural-scientific; namely, the ethical-religious. Their material, and thereby also their scientific, culture was borrowed from the earlier developed and powerful neighbouring peoples and may therefore be passed over here. Nevertheless the Israelitic conception of nature as preserved in the Old Testament, has, owing to religious causes, right up to our own day had a deeply significant influence. The part played by the six days' creation as a co-determining factor even in purely scientific explanations of the world is too well known to need close examination. Likewise the ordinances of the Mosaic law regarding clean and unclean animals have had their great importance for the conceptions of nature held by the Christian peoples, while even the well-known problem of the ruminant hare is still today a subject of lively discussion in certain circles. And undoubtedly, even in the far distant future, the religiousdogmatic currents of thought which have always had, and indeed always will have, a powerful influence on the development of human culture will receive guidance from this quarter.

Hindu and Chinese science

The civilized peoples of eastern Asia, the Hindus and Chinese, have likewise contributed very little of importance to the development of the science of biology. Hindu science, indeed, especially in the sphere of mathematics, reached a high standard, and the tendency to employ figures even in the other branches of learning which this people cultivated is unmistakable. Thus a Hindu work on medicine states that the human body has seven skins, 300 bones, 107 joints, 900 tendons, 700 blood-vessels, and 500 nerves. But they had very primitive ideas as to the functions of these organs, and similarly the various fluids and kinds of air which provide for the body's renewal are of interest to them more from the numerical than from the functional point of view. Chinese culture, again, has essentially occupied itself with ethical and social problems. Chinese medicine has on the whole advanced little beyond that of primitive peoples, although certain isolated instances of progress achieved — for example, smallpox inoculation—might perhaps be traced back to the experiences of this people. Even pure zoology has on the whole made no advance; as early as about a thousand years before Christ mention is made of an imperial zoological garden, but the thorough study of the causal connexion in living nature did not come within the sphere of Chinese interest.

Chapter II
The Earliest Greek Natural Philosophy

The Greeks: creators of natural science

IF THE BABYLONIANS and Egyptians thus succeeded in collecting quite a considerable mass of individual facts of science, it was nevertheless left to the Greek nation to deduce from these facts a consistently realized conception of nature — not free from mystical and magical influences, it is true, but still striving more and more after a natural explanation of the laws of existence. There has been much speculation as to why it should be amongst just this people, who were not only few in number, but were also politically divided, that such a splendid development of human thought should have taken place. The deepest cause is surely to be sought in the much discussed, yet fundamentally so inexplicable national character, in the spiritual and cultural disposition of the people. It may, at any rate, be worth while briefly considering its manifestations in the social sphere, in order to gain some idea of the external conditions of development under which free thought was here able to expand.

The people of Greece, as is well known, never achieved political unity; it remained divided into a number of small communities independent of one another, consisting usually of a city with its surrounding country district. Trade and shipping rather than agriculture were the people's main source of income. Over-population gave rise to splendid colonizing activity along the coasts of the Mediterranean; the colonies, which from the very beginning were made independent of the mother city, adopted the latter's institutions. A strong national feeling prevailed everywhere and was maintained by law and custom. Outside the boundaries of his own town the Greek was a foreigner without rights, without the possibility of acquiring civic privileges elsewhere, and with no prospect of winning the consolations of religion. Religion was in fact as localized as the communities themselves; every town had its own gods, which could be worshipped only by its citizens and within its boundaries. Such a local form of religion was naturally primitive and remained so even at the time when Greek culture was at its zenith. It was just on account of this lack of a more highly developed religion, however, that free thought was able to develop as it did. Here there was no priesthood, as there was in Babylon, Egypt, and India, to reserve to itself alone the right to the higher learning and to ensure that its results did not conflict with the ancient religious usages. The religious persecutions that occasionally took place in Greece against thinkers, as, for instance, against Socrates, were rather the work of the mob than of the defenders of religion and were therefore of a purely incidental and transitory nature. On the other hand, we find that many of Greece's oldest philosophers were priests or at any rate the sons of priests. And just as religion in ancient Greece was primitive, so also were the moral ideas: provided the citizen obeyed the ancient laws of the State, he need not worry much about what further duties were owed to his nearest and to himself. Thought was thus at liberty to turn to external nature and devote itself to speculations on how things arose and why the world and the living creatures in it were formed just as they were. The oldest Greek thinkers were therefore natural philosophers, while it was not till later that the ethical problems — which, for instance, among the thinkers of the Jewish people, the prophets, had from the very beginning dominated the soul — through Socrates found a place in Greek thought and finally, in late classical times, entirely supplanted the interest in nature and its phenomena.

These, mankind's earliest natural philosophers, went about their work under conditions which in most respects were utterly primitive. The general education amongst their neighbours was extremely limited and far from widespread — in fact, throughout the whole of the classical period of Greek culture it was confined to a very few. The public instruction provided by the State for the benefit of its citizens was of the simplest kind; in Athens in the time of Pericles, when the greatest philosophers and poets of Greece were assembled there, the citizens had to learn in the State schools only the simplest rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, besides music and gymnastics, which were necessary for military service, while it is said that at the same period in the more conservative country of Sparta the majority of the people were illiterate. Anything that the private individual wished to study beyond that, he had to find out for himself as best he could. Nor were there in ancient times any private professional teachers. If a person of studious mind happened to belong to a family connected with the priesthood, its traditional learning was naturally at his disposal as a foundation; for the rest he had to rely upon-whatever knowledge he could acquire in his own city from foreign travellers and such of his countrymen as had travelled abroad, unless he himself was rich enough to travel and visit learned men in their own homes. Fortunately hospitality in Greece in ancient times knew no bounds; in actual fact it took the place of learned schools and universities and even of books and writings. For if the knowledge of writing was rare, this was to a great extent due to the difficulty of obtaining writing-materials. The Egyptians had discovered a cheap material in their papyrus, the Chaldees another in their clay tablets, but the ancient Greeks had nothing but metal tablets and animal hides, both of which were expensive to get and inconvenient to preserve. The learned therefore had to express their opinions in short and weighty compositions, preferably in the form of verse, so that they could be easily learnt by heart. Thus learning became the asset of a privileged few; they had to be wealthy in order to be able to undertake the journeys that were essential for the acquiring of knowledge, and of high standing in order to be able, both at home and abroad, to gain access to the masters who were primed with the wisdom of the period. But in point of fact the scholars of those days were highly respected: the various states summoned them to be lawgivers and rulers, paid the expenses of their costly journeys, and gave them financial assistance when they ruined themselves over their research work. On the other hand, they were often persecuted by hostile political factions and were sometimes condemned to end their days in exile.

The earliest scientists of Greece: the Ionian philosophers

THE earliest of these Greek natural philosophers, the so-called Ionic philosophers, all lived in, or at any rate originated from, the colonies which the Ionic tribes of Greece founded on the coast of Asia Minor. Through trading with the Orient these cities rapidly grew wealthy, and through contact with the more highly cultivated peoples of the East there arose a keen desire for knowledge, and means for satisfying it were obtainable. Chaldean and Egyptian travellers were able to tell of the great learning of their priests and physicians; journeys to the East gave the ambitious Ionians opportunities of acquiring at least something of that secret knowledge. And on this foundation they themselves built further. — Nature presented a great number of phenomena in constant variation, and herein it was proved that certain phenomena always stood in a certain regular relation to one another. A common primary cause of the variations of existence had to be discovered — a common element out of which everything originated. What was this primary element and how have things originated from it? These two questions occupied the minds of the Ionian thinkers. Nature, the Greek φύσΙς, became ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• FOREWORD
• Contents
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• PART ONE BIOLOGY IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY, THE MIDDLE AGES, AND THE RENAISSANCE
• PART TWO BIOLOGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
• PART THREE MODERN BIOLOGY
• Sources and Literature
• Index of Names