IX THE HISTORY AND SCOPE OF ZOOLOGY 293 



gical science is so great that the name " Zoology" has 

 until recently been associated entirely with it, to the 

 exclusion of the study of minute anatomical structure 

 and function which have been distinguished as Ana- 

 tomy and Physiology. It is a curious result of the 

 steps of the historical progress of the two divisions of 

 biological science that, whilst the word '' Botany " has 

 always been understood, and is at the present day 

 understood, as embracing the study, not only of the 

 external forms of plants, their systematic nomenclature 

 and classification, and their geographical distribution, 

 but also the study of their minute structure, their 

 organs of nutrition and reproduction, and the mode 

 of action of the mechanism furnished by those organs, 

 the word " Zoology " has been limited to such a know- 

 ledge of animals as the travelling sportsman could 

 acquire in making his collections of skins of beasts 

 and birds, of dried insects and molluscs' shells, and 

 such a knowledge as the museum curator could acquire 

 by the examination and classification of these portable 

 obj ects. Anatomy and the study of animal mechanism, 

 animal physics, and animal chemistry, all of which 

 form part of a true Zoology, have been excluded from 

 the usual definition of the word by the mere accident 

 that the zooloo;ist of the last three centuries has had 

 his museum but has not had his garden of living 

 specimens as the botanist has had ; ^ and, whilst the 



1 Tlie mediajval attitude towards both plants and animals liad no 

 relation to real knowledge, but was part of a peculiar and in itself 

 higlily interesting mysticism. A fantastic and elaborate doctrine of 

 symbolism existed wbicli comprised all nature ; witchcraft, alchemy, 

 and medicine were its practical expressions. Animals as well as plants 



