THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



INTKODUCTION. 



The term N atural History has at dift'erent times and by different authors been used 

 in a variety of senses. At the present time it is perhaps more commonly used in con- 

 tradistinction to natural philosophy ; it is generally applied to the study of natural ob- 

 jects, both mineral or inorganic, and to plants and animals, or organic bodies. 



At first it was applied to the study of all natural objects, whether the minerals, 

 rocks, and living beings observed ujion our own planet, or heavenly bodies in general. 

 The study of external nature, and the phenomena or laws governing the movements of 

 natural bodies, was formerly opposed to metaphysics, history, literature, etc. After a 

 while astronomy and chemistry were eliminated from natural history ; then natural 

 philosophy, or what is now called physics, was farther separated from chemistry, so 

 that a chemist studies the constitution or atomic nature of bodies, both inorganic and 

 organic ; how they combine, and how compound bodies may be analyzed or .separated 

 into their simple constituents ; the natural philosopher, or physicist, studies the forces 

 of nature, the mechanical movements of inorganic bodies, and their phenomena, such 

 as light, heat, and electricity, while the naturalist studies minerals, rocks, plants, and 

 animals. But natural science, as distinguished from physical science, has made such 

 progress, the work has been so sub-divided or differentiated, that even the term 

 naturalist has become a vague, indefinite one. We must now know whether our 

 naturalist is a mineralogist, a geologist, a botanist, or a zoologist ; and the latter may 

 be an entomologist, or ichthyologist, or ornithologist, according as he devotes himself 

 exclusively to insects, fishes, or birds. The term natural history is popularly, at least 

 by many, confined to botany and zoology, often, however, to zoology .alone ; and such 

 is the convenient though inexact title of the present work. 



Man is an animal as well as a mental and spiritual being. His material body is dom- 

 inated by his mind and soul, but as zoologists we study him simply as an animal. The 

 natural history of man is his physical history ; it concerns his bodily structure and de- 

 velopment, the work of his hands and the language he speaks, as well as the races into 

 wliich his species is divided. 



Anthropology is a convenient and comprehensive term now generally used for the 

 natural history of man. The anthroi)ologist, making a specialty of the natural history 

 of man, studies not oidy his bodily structure, especially his skull or cranium and the 

 other bones of the skeleton, comparing those of different r.aces both living an<l extinct, 

 but the works of human art; also human languages, both those now spoken and those 

 which have become extinct. Moreover the anthropologist goes out of the realm of 

 zoology into those of mental phenomena or jisychology, and of sociology, and studies 

 man as a spirit, his notions of the future life, his myths, traditions; he also studies his 

 origin, histoiy, and social law.s and government. 



