2G6 OX TI]E STUDY OF BIOLOGY x 



which were not, at that time, susceptible of mathe- 

 matical or experimental treatment; that is to sa}% 

 those phenomena of nature which come now under 

 the general heads of physical geography, geology, 

 mineralogy, the history of plants, and the his- 

 tory of animals. It was in this sense that the 

 term was understood by the great writers of the 

 middle of the last century — Buffon and Lin- 

 na?us — by Buffon in his great work, the '* Ilistoirc 

 Naturelle Generale," and by Linna?us in his splen- 

 did achievement, the " Systema Nature." The 

 subjects they deal with are spoken of as " Natural 

 History," and they called themselves and were 

 called " Naturalists." But you will observe that 

 this was not the original meaning of these terms; 

 but that they had, by this time, acquired a sig- 

 nification widely different from that which they 

 possessed primitively. 



The sense in which " Natural History " was 

 used at the time I am now speaking of has, to a 

 certain extent, endured to the present day. There 

 are now in existence in some of our northern uni- 

 versities, chairs of " Civil and Natural History '' in 

 which " Natural History " is used to indicate ex- 

 actly what Hobbes and Bacon meant by that term. 

 Tlie unhappy incumbent of the chair of Natural 

 History is, or was, sui)posed to cover the whole 

 ground of geology, mineralogy, and zoology, per- 

 haps even botany, in his lectures. 



But as science made the marvellous progress 



