Aristotle's biology

To return for a moment to some Aristo- telian opinions bearing on the generation of life and its transmission of attributes to off- spring. He combated pangenesis, the theory that the semen must come from the whole body, in order to account for the irdieritance of SD many diverse individual resemblances.* He was aware that bodily imperfections in- cidentally acquired would not be inherited, like congenital traits. Yet he realized the con- stitutional effects arising from the alteration of a small part or organ: that if animals " be subjected to a modification in minute organs, they are liable to immense modifications in their general configuration," — a phenome- non noticeable with gelded animals.^" Hip- pocrates had shown how often trouble with one organ worked a general disturbance of the system. Aristotle recognized also that the habits of animals are connected with their main functions of " breeding and the rearing of young, or with procuring a due supply of food; and these habits are modified so as to suit cold and heat and the variations of the season." " He has much to say of migration and hiber- nation. In ancient natural science the manner of

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