1 6 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i, i, jam. 1905 



classified accumulations of facts about animals which were then 

 known as natural history. This happens to be a very appropriate 

 term, for the word " history " here involves no idea of chronology, 

 but was directly derived from the Greek title of Aristotle's 

 work on animals in which connection the original " historia " 

 meant records of investigation or information obtained by re- 

 searches; from this natural history meant a record of studies of 

 nature, and the phrase literally and by strict usage involved no 

 idea of organization and generalization such as is understood in 

 the modern natural sciences. Organization on the basis of classi- 

 fication of facts and generalizations is, then, the one fundamental 

 difference between the old natural history of animals and the new 

 science which we know as zoology. 



I have used the history of the study of animals to illustrate the 

 difference between the mere accumulation of facts about nature 

 and the organization of the facts into science. In like manner 

 we might find illustration in any other natural science ; as, for ex- 

 ample, we might have traced the records of the old alchemists 

 who built up a chemical natural history — a record of facts without 

 the atomic theory and the other generalizations which have organ- 

 ized the facts into the modern science of chemistry. Other illus- 

 trations are unnecessary for our present purpose ; but the one 

 point which must be emphasized is that the early studies of nature 

 in all its phases were concerned chiefly with observing and 

 accumulating facts because of man's interest in nature for its own 

 sake, rather than for the sake of contributing to organized scien- 

 tific knowledge for science's sake. 



This is the place where I wish to draw the distinction between 

 general nature-study and natural science — two phases of the study 

 of nature. Here is the difference : nature-study, which in its 

 subject-matter is only a modern educational form of the old-time 

 general natural history, deals with facts primarily for their own 

 sake without particular regard to organization into a system ; on 

 the contrary, modern natural science deals with facts primarily 

 as they stand related to generalizations. Nature-study deals with 

 the simple facts of nature as these are related to man's general 

 interest in them ; but natural science deals with facts, both general 

 and detailed, as they fit into one vast scheme of generalizations. 

 In nature-study for elementary and popular education the gen- 

 eral acquaintance with natural things is essential ; but in science 



