   Following Plato, Aristotle explains in his Physics the general principles of natural things: form, matter, nature, the essence and principles of movement, time and place; again taking inspiration from the Timaeus, he studies in other works the specific principles of the distinct regions of the physical world, thus in the De Caelo the celestial and the sublunary realm, and in On generation and corruption and in Meteorologica the sublunary realm. In this domain, it cannot be denied, Aristotle did much more than his master. According to Proclus, however, he developed the subject ‘beyond what is needed’. The same remark must be made about Aristotle’s extensive zoological research. Whereas Plato limited himself in the Timaeus to an analysis of the fundamental principles of all living organisms, Aristotle gave most of his attention to the material components of animals and scarcely, and only in few cases, did he consider the organism from the perspective of the form. Plato, on the contrary, when explaining the physical world, never got lost in a detailed examination.