The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Study of Zoology, by Thomas H. Huxley

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Title: On the Study of Zoology

Author: Thomas H. Huxley

Posting Date: January 6, 2009 [EBook #2935]
Release Date: November, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY ***

Produced by Amy E. Zelmer

ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY

by Thomas H. Huxley

[1]

NATURAL HISTORY is the name familiarly applied to the study of the
properties of such natural bodies as minerals, plants, and animals; the
sciences which embody the knowledge man has acquired upon these subjects
are commonly termed Natural Sciences, in contradistinction to other
so-called "physical" sciences; and those who devote themselves
especially to the pursuit of such sciences have been and are commonly
termed "Naturalists."

Linnaeus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his 'Systema Naturae'
was a work upon natural history, in the broadest acceptation of the
term; in it, that great methodising spirit embodied all that was known
in his time of the distinctive characters of minerals, animals,
and plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnaeus gave to the
investigation of nature soon rendered it impossible that any one man
should write another 'Systema Naturae,' and extremely difficult for any
one to become even a naturalist such as Linnaeus was.

Great as have been the advances made by all the three branches of
science, of old included under the title of natural history, there can
be no doubt that zoology and botany have grown in an enormously greater
ratio than mineralogy; and hence, as I suppose, the name of "natural
history" has gradually become more and more definitely attached to these
prominent divisions of the subject, and by "naturalist" people have
meant more and more distinctly to imply a student of the structure and
function of living beings.

However this may be, it is certain that the advance of knowledge
has gradually widened the distance between mineralogy and its old
associates, while it has drawn zoology and botany closer together; so
that of late years it has been found convenient (and indeed necessary)
to a