"In an 1838 notebook, listing things ‘to be read’, Darwin had included a note to himself ‘Read Aristotle to see whether any of my views is ancient?’. But he was not in fact to open a copy of Aristotle’s physical or biological works until the very last year of his life, when he would, finally, express deep admiration for what he found there. Writing to thank the naturalist and scholar William Ogle, who had sent him a copy of his new translation of Aristotle’s On the Parts of Animals, Darwin famously commented: ‘From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle’s merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere school-boys to old Aristotle."

David Sedley "Socrates vs Darwin".