ON BIOLOGY. 9 



facts or effects of Nature as have no dependence on man's 

 will; such as are the histories of metais, plants, animals, 

 regions, and the like. The other is civil history, which 

 is the history of the voluntary actions of men in Com- 

 monwealths." 



From these words it will be seen that at least one good 

 thinker of the middle of the Seventeenth Century, recog- 

 nized the distinction between what soon came to be desig- 

 nated as natural history, and civil history. A few years 

 afterward, when Newton's great work, the "Principia," 

 appeared, other lines commenced to be drawn, and It 

 dawned upon men that certain of the sciences especially 

 required the application of mathematics in their treat- 

 ment, as was the case in physics, astronomy, and other 

 branches. As these developed they naturally became 

 differentiated from those which took into consideration 

 the phenomena of Nature, and especially demanded the 

 exercise of the observational powers of men. Again, other 

 departments of human knowledge were in those days 

 arrayed in another series, depending upon the fact whether 

 the phenomena they presented for consideration were sus- 

 ceptible of explanation or were dealt with by experimental 

 methods or fell within the treatment of both. Thus the 

 old science spoken of as "natural philosophy," was 

 gradually drawn away from astronomy and chemistry 

 began to occupy a field of its own. It was thus, as time 

 went on, that the persons designated as "naturalists" 

 were those . who devoted themselves to the study of the 

 history of plants and of animals, to physical geography, 

 mineralogy and geology, and those branches were con- 

 sidered to constitute "natural history." As thus defined, 

 however, it will at once be clear to you that natural 

 history meant to Aristotle and to Buffon two widely 

 different things; the latter understood it to mean pre- 

 cisely what I have just given you. Indeed, to some ex- 

 tent, at least, the meaning which Buffon attached to 

 natural history has endured down to our time, and no 

 doubt not a few of those of my audience can 

 well remember in their boyhood days how it 

 fell to the lot of one of the professors in 

 college to assume the duties of the Chair of Natural His- 

 tory, and such a person was designated as the Professor 

 of Natural History, and essayed to instruct his class in 

 not only the history of plants and animals but in miner- 

 alogy and the entire field of geology besides. So far as I 

 am aware, we never hear of a professor of natural history 

 in any of the leading universities or colleges of this coun- 



