THE DEEPENING OF PHYSIOLOGY. 289 



" Q^cologj " (as Haeckel calls it) of living crea- 

 tures is the oldest department of the science. It had 

 its basis in the lore of the hunter and fisher, the 

 shepherd and farmer, or further back still in that of 

 Mowgli in the jungle. 



But the old lore was much mixed with superstition, 

 it was often inexact, and on the whole uncritical. 

 Exact natural histor^^ is essentially modern, and, 

 apart from a few pioneers, may be said to date from 

 the enthusiastic observations of men like Swammer- 

 dam (1637-1680), Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), 

 Reaumur (1683-1767), Roesel von Rosenhof 

 (1705-1759), Trembley (1700-1784), Schaeffer 

 (1718-1790), Gilbert White (1720-1793), and Buf- 

 fon (1707-1788). 



We have placed Buffon's name last because he rep- 

 resents a transition between the old naturalists and 

 the new, for while he may not have had the exactness 

 of some of his predecessors he had a clearer vision of 

 the wide import of his studies. As a philosophic 

 naturalist, he deliberately set himself to a study of 

 the habits of animals and their adaptations to their 

 surroundings, and unified his results in the light of 

 the evolution-idea. 



It is especially the recognition of the evolution- 

 idea that makes the difference in mood between the 

 old and new naturalists. " Before Darwin's day the 

 student of habits, inter-relations, and adaptations 

 had been looked upon by his sterner brethren (anato- 

 mists, classifiers, etc.) with more or less contemp- 

 tuous indulgence. Since Darwin's day, however, 

 the study of bionomics has risen to worth and dig- 

 nity." * 



The study of the life of plants and animals as it 



* See the author's Science of Life, 1899, Chapter XIV. 

 19 



