A SHORT HISTORY 



OF 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



As THIS little work is to be a history of Natural Science, 

 it will be as well to begin by trying to understand what 

 Science is. 



The word itself comes from scio^ I know, and means 

 simply knowledge. The science of botany is therefore the 

 knowledge of plants ; and the science of astronomy j the know- 

 ledge of the heavenly bodies. 



But now comes the question, What kind of knowledge is 

 required ? You might be able to tell the names of all the 

 plants in the world, and of all the stars in the sky, and yet 

 have scarcely any real knowledge of botany or astronomy. 

 You will easily understand this if we compare it with some- 

 thing you meet with in daily life. Suppose I took you into 

 a large school and told you the names of all the children 

 there ; even if you learnt these names by heart, you could 

 not say you knew the children, or anything about them, 

 beyond their names. One might be ill-tempered, another 

 good-tempered ; one might have a home and a father and 

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