296 THE HISTORY AND SCOPE OF ZOOLOGY IX 



practitioner and a student of the laws of mechanics, 

 heat, light, and electricity (but not of chemistry), 

 whilst the word " naturalist " is very usually limited to 

 a lover and student of living things, to the exclusion 

 of the so-called physicist, the chemist, and the astro- 

 nomer. It is probable that Physiology acquired its 

 present significance, viz. the study of the properties 

 and functions of the tissues and organs of living things, 

 by a process of external attraction and spoliation 

 which gradually removed from the original physiologus 

 all his belongings and assigned them to newly-named 

 and independently -constituted sciences, leaving at 

 last, as a residuum to which the word might still be 

 applied, that medical aspect of life which is concerned 

 with the workings of the living organism regarded as 

 a piece of physico-chemical apparatus. 



Whatever may be the history of the word " Physi- 

 ology," we find Zoology, which really started in the 

 sixteenth century with the awakening of the new 

 spirit of observation and exploration, for a long time 

 running a separate course uninfluenced by the progress 

 of the medical studies of Anatomy and Physiology. 

 The history of every branch of science involves a 

 recognition of the history, not only of other branches of 

 science, but of the progress of human society in every 

 other relation. The century which destroyed the 

 authority of the Church, witnessed the discovery of 

 the New World, and in England produced the writings 

 of Francis Bacon is rightly regarded as the starting- 

 point of the modern knowledge of natural causes or 

 science. The true history of Zoology as a science lies 



