10 LECTURES 



try at the present day, for the reason that the marvelous 

 progress that science has made in this century has de- 

 manded a still further division of labor in such fields. 

 Gradually both geology and mineralogy came to occupy 

 their own legitimate spheres, and the geologists and the 

 mineralogists ceased at last to be classed with the natur- 

 alists. 



Glancing backward again, from this period, we find 

 that in due time men outgrew the practice of making 

 mere alphabetical lists of the animals they studied and re- 

 cording random notes about them. Something more was 

 demanded, for work of that nature could not always sat- 

 isfy the orderly and. the growing mind of the age. It 

 was knowledge to be sure, but it was not classified knowl- 

 edge, nor did it make any attempt to solve the relations of 

 the things described. It rapidly began to dawn upon 

 men that there were but few forms in existence, compar- 

 atively, that had not their affines, the affinity shown, be- 

 ing more or less near. For example, it was appreciated 

 that such forms as the wolf, the hyena, the fox, and the 

 dog were in some way or the other related to each other 

 and were easily distinguished from some other distinct 

 group, as one represented by the lion, the tiger, the puma, 

 the cat, the ocelot, and so on. These same principles be- 

 came also evident in botany, and were duly applied there 

 as they were in other scientific departments. 

 Botany showed especial early development owing 

 to its relation to medicine, and the additional 

 inducement to study it to that end. Many of 

 the herbs were valuable as articles of the materia 

 medica, and early in the Seventeenth Century the number 

 of working botanists, it is said, far outnumbered the 

 zoologists. Among the first of these latter who resorted 

 to a classification of the forms he studied, was that 

 erratic Dutch naturalist, John Swammerdam, who 

 was born at Amsterdam in February, 1637. 

 His numerous works appeared from time to 

 time during the latter part of the century in which he 

 lived. His methods of classification were best seen in his 

 entomological researches, and it will at once be observed 

 by those at all familiar with the subject that his ideas 

 in those premises are very different from the correspond- 

 ing ones entertained by those engaged in the classifi- 

 cation of insects in our own day. Swammerdam divided 

 all insects into four classes, based upon the development 

 of the various kinds as understood by him. He took 

 Into consideration the condition of the species immedi- 



