THE HISTOEY AND SCOPE OF ZOOLOGY 



The branch of science to which the name Zoology is 

 strictly applicable may be defined as that portion of 

 Biology which relates to animals, as distinguished from 

 that portion which is concerned with plants. 



The science of Biology itself has been placed by 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer in the group of concrete sciences, 

 the other groups recognised by that writer being the 

 " abstract- concrete " and the "abstract." The ab- 

 stract sciences are Logic and Mathematics, and treat of 

 the blank forms in which phenomena occur in relation 

 to time, space, and number. The abstract-concrete 

 sciences are Mechanics, Physics, and Chemistry. The 

 title assigned to them is justified by the fact that, 

 whilst their subject-matter is found in a consideration 

 of varied concrete phenomena, they do not aim at the 

 explanation of complex concrete phenomena as such, 

 but at the determination of certain " abstract " quanti- 

 tative relations and sequences known as the " laws " 

 of mechanics, physics, and chemistry, which never are 

 manifested in a pure form, but always are inferred by 

 observation and experiment upon complex phenomena 

 in which the abstract laws are disguised by their 

 simultaneous interaction. The group of concrete 



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