Aristotle Generation of Animals

Abstract

ARISTOTLE'S biological works have never lacked translators and commentators. The latter found in them ample scope for their learning, and particularly for their ingenuity, in so far as the texts, in the words of the late Prof. A. Platt, "have suffered terribly in the process of transmission to us, and are full of grievous blunders committed by scribes". The first complete English translations by Thomas Taylor, published in 1807–09–10, were printed in so small an edition that they are among the rarest of books. The translations available to the modern English student are: "History of Animals" (Cresswell, 1862) and D'Arcy Thompson (1910); "Parts of Animals" (Ogle, 1882, 1912 and Peck, 1937); "Generation of Animals" (Platt, 1910) and the present work by Peck (1943). The last-named author is at present working on another translation of the "History of Animals", which will complete the trilogy of Aristotle's biological works in the Loeb series. Dr. Lones' general survey of these works (1912) serves as an admirable introduction to their range and importance. That ancient and curious volume known as "Aristotle's Compleat Master-piece", first published in 1684, which was already in its thirty-second edition in 1782, is still in print, despite its fallacious title and useless contents. Aristotle. Generation of Animals With an English translation by Dr. A. L. Peck. (Loeb Classical Library.) Pp. lxxviii + 608. (London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943.) 10s. net.