SECTION XVI 

 THE HISTORY OF ZOOLOGY 



ZOOLOGY, like other branches of Natural Science, has had two 

 lines of progress, observation and generalisation. Without accurate 

 and detailed knowledge of the facts and phenomena of animal 

 life and structure, all theories of classification or of origin are so 

 much idle speculation : in the absence of philosophic spirit sug- 

 gesting hypotheses of greater or less magnitude, the mere accumu- 

 lation of facts is an empirical and barren study. 



Zoology as a science, therefore, can hardly be said to have existed 

 until a sufficient proportion of the facts relating to animals had been 

 observed and recorded accurately and systematically, and until 

 some attempt had been made to classify these facts and to arrange 

 animals into larger and smaller groups according to some definite 

 plan. 



This being the case, it may be said that the common knowledge 

 of animals possessed by mankind in all ages, and constantly being 

 developed and extended by lovers of external nature and by 

 anatomists working from the medical standpoint, first became 

 scientific and evolved itself into a system over 200 years ago, when 

 John Ray, an English clergyman, first grasped the idea of species 

 and published the earliest classification of animals founded upon 

 anatomical characters. Although soon overshadowed by the 

 greater genius of Linnaeus, Ray may safely be called the father of 

 modern zoological science, the only serious precursor of his Synopsis 

 methodica animalium, published in 1693, being the voluminous 

 De differentiis animalium of Edward Wotton, printed nearly 

 150 years earlier. 



But although Zoology, as a science, was practically non-existent 

 up to the period referred to, much valuable knowledge of animals 

 had been accumulated, and was, as it were, merely waiting to be 

 systematised. As in other branches of knowledge, the first steps 

 were taken by the Greeks, and, in philosophical grasp, the zoological 

 writings of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) are far in advance of those 

 of all other students of the subjects up to the times of Wotton and 



