Marine counterparts of land creatures
Encyclopedia
The idea that there are specific marine counterparts to land creatures, inherited from the writers on natural history
in Antiquity
, was firmly believed in Islam
and in Medieval Europe, and is exemplified by the creatures represented in the medieval animal encyclopedias called bestiaries
and in the parallels drawn in the moralising attributes attached to each. "The creation was a mathematical diagram drawn in parallel lines," T.H. White said a propos the bestiary he translated. "Things did not only have a moral they often had physical counterparts in other strata. There was a horse in the land and a sea-horse in the sea. For that matter there was probably a Pegasus
in heaven" The idea of perfect analogies in the fauna of land and sea was considered part of the perfect symmetry
of the Creator
's plan, offered as the "book of nature
" to mankind, for which a text could be found in Job
:
All of Creation was considered to reflect the Creator, and Man could learn about the Creator through studying the Creation, an assumption that underlies the "Watchmaker analogy
" offered as a proof of God's existence.
The correspondence between the realms of earth and sea, extending to its denizens, offers examples of the taste for allegory
engendered by Christian and Islamic methods of exegesis
, which also encouraged the doctrine of signatures
, a "key" to the meaning and use of herbs.
The source text that was most influential in compiling the bestiaries of the 12th and 13th centuries was the Physiologus, one of the most widely read and copied secular texts of the Middle Ages. Written in Greek in Alexandria the 2nd century CE and accumulating further "exemplary" beasts in the next three centuries and more, Physiologus was transmitted in the West in Latin, and eventually translated into many vernacular languages: many manuscripts in various languages survive.
Aelian
, On the Characteristics of Animals (A.F. Scholfield, in Loeb Classical Library
, 1958).
Christian writers, trained in anagogical thinking
and expecting to find spiritual instruction inherent in the processes of Nature, disregarded the caveat in Pliny's Natural History, where the idea is presented as a "vulgar opinion":
Pliny
points out that many more things are found in the sea than on the land, and also mentions the correspondences that may be discovered between many non-living objects of the land and living creatures in the sea.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
reasons based on analogy
, that since there is a serpent in the grass, there must be an eel in the sea; because there is a Leviathan
in the sea, there must be a Behemoth
on the land. (City of God? xi.15?)
The reaction to such anagogical thinking set in with the unfolding of critical scientific thought in the 17th century. Sir Thomas Browne
devoted a chapter of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica
to dispelling such a belief: Chapter XXIV: "That all Animals in the land are in their kinde in the Sea." During the Enlightenment
the ancient conception was given an innovative and rationalized cast by Benoît de Maillet
in describing the transformations and metamorphoses undergone by creatures of the sea to render them fit for life on land, a proto-evolutionist concept, though it was based on superficial morphological similarities:
Though in Moby-Dick
Ishmael, with a nod to Sir Thomas Browne's wording, denies the claim that land animals find their counterparts in the sea,
in discussing dolphin
s trained to aid scuba divers, a 1967 Popular Mechanics
article could still casually state: "It's hoped that the marine counterparts of some land animals can be trained to become useful members of the Man-in-the-Sea program
."
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
in Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, was firmly believed in Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and in Medieval Europe, and is exemplified by the creatures represented in the medieval animal encyclopedias called bestiaries
Bestiary
A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...
and in the parallels drawn in the moralising attributes attached to each. "The creation was a mathematical diagram drawn in parallel lines," T.H. White said a propos the bestiary he translated. "Things did not only have a moral they often had physical counterparts in other strata. There was a horse in the land and a sea-horse in the sea. For that matter there was probably a Pegasus
Pegasus
Pegasus is one of the best known fantastical as well as mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, usually white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing...
in heaven" The idea of perfect analogies in the fauna of land and sea was considered part of the perfect symmetry
Symmetry
Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
of the Creator
Creator deity
A creator deity is a deity responsible for the creation of the world . In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator deity, while polytheistic traditions may or may not have creator deities...
's plan, offered as the "book of nature
Book of Nature
Frequently deployed by philosophers, theologians, and scholars, the “Book of Nature” is a metaphorical device derived from the Latin Middle Ages that provides form, order, and intelligibility to the study of nature...
" to mankind, for which a text could be found in Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
:
"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind."
All of Creation was considered to reflect the Creator, and Man could learn about the Creator through studying the Creation, an assumption that underlies the "Watchmaker analogy
Watchmaker analogy
The watchmaker analogy, or watchmaker argument, is a teleological argument for the existence of God. By way of an analogy, the argument states that design implies a designer...
" offered as a proof of God's existence.
The correspondence between the realms of earth and sea, extending to its denizens, offers examples of the taste for allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
engendered by Christian and Islamic methods of exegesis
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
, which also encouraged the doctrine of signatures
Doctrine of signatures
The doctrine of signatures is a philosophy shared by herbalists from the time of Dioscurides and Galen. This doctrine states that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body. Examples include the plants liverwort; snakeroot, an antidote for...
, a "key" to the meaning and use of herbs.
The source text that was most influential in compiling the bestiaries of the 12th and 13th centuries was the Physiologus, one of the most widely read and copied secular texts of the Middle Ages. Written in Greek in Alexandria the 2nd century CE and accumulating further "exemplary" beasts in the next three centuries and more, Physiologus was transmitted in the West in Latin, and eventually translated into many vernacular languages: many manuscripts in various languages survive.
Aelian
Aelian
Aelian or Aelianus may refer to:* Aelianus Tacticus, Greek military writer of the 2nd century, who lived in Rome* Casperius Aelianus, Praetorian Prefect, executed by Trajan...
, On the Characteristics of Animals (A.F. Scholfield, in Loeb Classical Library
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by Harvard University Press, which presents important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each...
, 1958).
Christian writers, trained in anagogical thinking
Anagoge
Anagoge is a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards. The anagogical is a method of spiritual interpretation of literal statements or events, especially the Scriptures....
and expecting to find spiritual instruction inherent in the processes of Nature, disregarded the caveat in Pliny's Natural History, where the idea is presented as a "vulgar opinion":
"Hence it is that the vulgar notion may very possibly be true, that whatever is produced in any other department of Nature, is to be found in the sea as well; while, at the same time, many other productions are there to be found which nowhere else exist. That there are to be found in the sea the forms, not only of terrestrial animals, but of inanimate objects even, is easily to be understood by all who will take the trouble to examine the grape-fish, the sword-fish, the sawfish, and the cucumber-fish, which last so strongly resembles the real cucumber both in colour and in smell."
Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
points out that many more things are found in the sea than on the land, and also mentions the correspondences that may be discovered between many non-living objects of the land and living creatures in the sea.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
reasons based on analogy
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
, that since there is a serpent in the grass, there must be an eel in the sea; because there is a Leviathan
Leviathan
Leviathan , is a sea monster referred to in the Bible. In Demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell and its gatekeeper . The word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature...
in the sea, there must be a Behemoth
Behemoth
Behemoth is a mythological beast mentioned in the Book of Job, 40:15-24. Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for any extremely large or powerful entity.-Plural as singular:...
on the land. (City of God? xi.15?)
The reaction to such anagogical thinking set in with the unfolding of critical scientific thought in the 17th century. Sir Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
devoted a chapter of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths, also known simply as Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors, is a work by Thomas Browne refuting the common errors and superstitions of his age. It first appeared in 1646 and went through five subsequent...
to dispelling such a belief: Chapter XXIV: "That all Animals in the land are in their kinde in the Sea." During the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
the ancient conception was given an innovative and rationalized cast by Benoît de Maillet
Benoît de Maillet
Benoît de Maillet was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant...
in describing the transformations and metamorphoses undergone by creatures of the sea to render them fit for life on land, a proto-evolutionist concept, though it was based on superficial morphological similarities:
"There are in the Sea, Fish of almost all the Figures of Land-Animals, and even of Birds. She includes Plants, Flowers, and some Fruits; the Nettle, the Rose, the PinkDianthusDianthus is a genus of about 300 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native mainly to Europe and Asia, with a few species extending south to north Africa, and one species in arctic North America. Common names include carnation , pink and sweet William Dianthus is a genus of...
, the Melon and the Grape, are to be found there."
"As for the Quadrupeds, we not only find in the Sea, Species of the same Figure and Inclinations, and in the Waves living on the same Aliments by which they are nourished on Land, we have also Examples of those Species living equally in the Air and in the Water. Have not the Sea-Apes precisely the same figure with those of the Land?"
Though in Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
Ishmael, with a nod to Sir Thomas Browne's wording, denies the claim that land animals find their counterparts in the sea,
"For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him."
in discussing dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s trained to aid scuba divers, a 1967 Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
article could still casually state: "It's hoped that the marine counterparts of some land animals can be trained to become useful members of the Man-in-the-Sea program
SEALAB (United States Navy)
SEALAB I, II, and III were experimental underwater habitats developed by the United States Navy to prove the viability of saturation diving and humans living in isolation for extended periods of time...
."