2 THE MAIN CURRENTS OF ZOOLOGY 



plain story of how zoology arose and of how it became 

 closely related to human affairs has not been told. 



There has been too little attempt to picture 

 zoology as a unified science. Even among those who 

 have studied zoology, knowledge is little dissem- 

 inated regarding its scope, the results, both material 

 and intellectual, of its progress and the kind of work 

 that is being carried on at the present time. Scarcely 

 known are the names of its foremost men, their 

 relative rank and the reasons for their eminence. 



These matters are not only important, they are 

 essential to an understanding of what zoology is and 

 what it stands for. 



To say that zoology is the science that acquaints 

 us with animals and the phenomena of animal life 

 which is a fair definition gives no clue to the part 

 it has played in intellectual development and in the 

 interpretation of the organic world. Its advances 

 brought a new class of ideas into man's intellectual 

 horizon, which resulted in dispelling error, in spread- 

 ing enlightenment and produced some changes of 

 opinion of epoch-making importance. 



There resulted from zoological discovery the 

 sweeping conclusion that the human body belongs 

 to the animal series and, consequently, that observa- 



