Mar. 21, 1872] 



NATURE 



413 



THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY 

 A LECTURE under this title delivered at the Royal Artil- 

 •^ lery Institution, Woolwich, by the Rev. Canon Kingsley, 

 has just been published, containing some admirable remarks on 

 the relation between the soldier and the naturalist, from which 

 we cannot forbear making the following extracts. 



After some introductory matter, he proceeded: — 



" It seemed to me, therefore, that I might, without imperti- 

 nence, ask you to consider a branch of knowledge which is 

 becoming yearly more and more important in the eyes of well- 

 educated civilians — of which, therefore, the soldier ought at least 

 to know something, in order to put him on a par with the general 

 intelligence of the nation 



"Let me, however, reassure those who may suppose, from the 

 title of my lecture, that I am only going to recommend them 

 to collect weeds and butterflie?, *rats and mice, and such small 

 deer.' Far from it. The honourable title of Natural History 

 has, and unwisely, been restricted too much of late years to the 

 mere study of plants and animals ; but I desire to restore the 

 words to their original and proper meaning — the History of 

 Nature ; that is, of all that is born, and grows — in short, of 

 all natural objects. 



*' If any one shall say, by that definition you make not only 

 geology and chemistry branches of natural history, but meteor- 

 ology and astronomy likewise — I cannot deny it ; they deal, 

 each of them, with realms of Nature. Geology is, literally, the 

 natural history of soils and lands ; chemistry the natural history 

 of compounds, organic and inorganic ; meteorology the natural 

 history of climates ; astronomy the natural history of planetary 

 and solar bodies. And more, you cannot now study deeply any 

 branch of what is popularly called Natural History — th.it is, 

 plants and animals — without finding it necessary to learn some- 

 thing, and more and more as you go deeper, of those very 

 sciences. As the marvellous interdependence of all natural objects 

 and forces unfolds itself more and more, so the once separate 

 sciences, which treated of different classes of natural objects, are 

 forced to interpenetrate, as it were, and supplement themselves 

 by knowledge borrowed from each other. Thus — to give a 

 single instance — no man can now be a first-rate botanist unless 

 he be also no mean meteorologist, no mean geologist, and — as 

 Mr. Darwin has shown in his extraordinary discoveries about the 

 fertilisation of plants by insects — no mean entomologist 

 likewise. 



"It is difficult, therefore, and indeed somewhat unwise and 

 unlair, to put any limit to the tenn Natural History, save that it 

 shall deal only with nature and with matter, and shall not pre- 

 tend — as some %vouId have it do just now — to go out of its own 

 sphere to meddle with moral and spiritual matters. But, for 

 practical purposes, we may define the natural history of any 

 given spot as the history of the causes which have made it what 

 It is, and filled it with the natural objects which it holds. And 

 if any one would know how to study the natural history of a 

 place, and how to write it, let him read— and if he has read its 

 delightful pages in youth, read once again — that hitherto unri- 

 valled little monograph, White's ' History of Selborne ; ' and 

 let him then try, by the light of improved science, to do for any 

 district where he may be stationed what White did for Selbome 

 nearly 100 years ago. Let him study its plants, its animals, its 

 soils and rocks, and last, but not least, its scenery, as the total 

 outcome of what the soils, and plants, and animals have made 

 it. I say, have made it. How far the nature of the soils and 

 the rocks will affect the .<:cerery of a district may be well leaint 

 from a very clever and interesting little book of Pr. if. Geikie'son 

 'The Scenery of Scotland, as affected by is Geological Struc- 

 ture.' How far the plants and tree; affect not merely the 

 general beauty, the richntss or barrenness of a country, but also 

 its very shape ; the rate at which the hills are destroyed and 

 wasV ed into the lowland ; thi rate at which the seaboard is being 

 removed by the action of waves — all these are branches of study 

 which is beco-ning more and more important. 



" And even in the study of animals and their effects on the 

 vegetation, questions of really deep interest will arise. You 

 will find that certain plant> and trees cannot thrive in a district, 

 while others can, because the former are browsed down by 

 cattle, or their seeds eaten by birds, and the latter are not ; that 

 certain seeds are can led in the coats of animals, or wafted abroad 

 by winds — others are not ; certain trees destroyed wholesale by 

 insects, while others are not ; that in a hundred ways the 

 animal and vegetable life of a district act and react upon each 



other, and that the climate, the average temperature, the maxi- 

 mum and minimum temperatures, the rainfall, act on them, and 

 in the case of the vegetation, are reacted on again by them. 

 The diminution of rainfall by the destruction of forest.=, its in- 

 crease by re-planting them, and the effect of both on the healthi- 

 ness or unhealthiness of a place — as in the case of the Mauritius, 

 where a once healthy island has become pestilential, seemingly 

 from the clearing away of the vegetation on the banks of streams 

 — all this, though to study it deeply requires a fair knowledge of 

 meteorology, and even a science or two more, is surely well 

 worth the attention of any educated man who is put in charge of 

 the health and lives of human beings. 



"You will surely agree with me that the habit of mind required 

 for such a study as this, is the very same as is required for success- 

 ful military study. In fact, I should say that the same intellect 

 which would develop into a great milit.ary man, woulddcvelop also 

 into a great naturalist. I say, intellect. Themilitary man would 

 require — what the naturalist would not — over and above liis in- 

 tellect, a special force of will, in order to translate his theories 

 into fact, and make his campaigns in the field and not merely on 

 paper. But I am speaking only of the habit of mind required 

 for study ; of that hiductive habit of mind which works, steadily 

 and by rule, from the known to the unknown — that habit of 

 mind of which it has been said : — 'The habit of seeing; the 

 habit of knowing what we see ; the habit of discerning diffe- 

 rences and likenesses ; the habit of classifying accordingly ; the 

 habit of searching for hypotheses which shall connect and ex- 

 plain those classified facts ; the habit of verifying these hypo- 

 theses by applying them to fresh facts ; the habit of throwing 

 them away bravely if they will not fit ; the habit of general 

 patience, diligence, accuracy, reverence for facts for their own 

 sake, and love of truth for its own sake ; in one word, the habit 

 of reverent and implicit obedience to the laws of Nature, what- 

 ever they may be — these are not merely intellectual, but also 

 moral habits, which will stand men in practical good stead in 

 every affair of life, and in every question, even the most awful, 

 which may come before us as rational and social beings.' And 

 specially valuable are they, surely, to the military man, the very 

 essence of whose study, to be successful, lies first in continuous 

 and accurate observation, and then in calm and judicious arrange- 

 ment. 



" Therefore it is that I hold, and hold strongly, that the study 

 of physical science, far from interfering with an officer's studies, 

 much less unfitting for them, must assist him in them, by keeping 

 his mind always in the very attitude and the very temper which 

 they require 



" I should like to see the study of physical science an integral 

 part of the curriculum of every military school. I would train 

 the mind of the lad who was to become hereafter an officer in 

 the army — and in the navy likewise — by accustoming him to 

 careful observation of, and sound thought about, the face of 

 nature — of the commonest objects under his feet, just as much 

 as of the stars above his head ; provided always that he learnt, 

 not at second-hand from books, but where alone he can really 

 learn either war or natuie — in the field, by actual observation, 

 actual experiment. A laboratory for chemical experiment is a 

 good thing, it is true, as far as it goes ; but I should prefer to 

 the laboratory a naturalists' field club, such as are prospering 

 now at several of the best public schools, certain that the boys 

 would get more of sound inductive habits of mind, as well as 

 more health, manliness, and cheerfulness, amid scenes to remem- 

 ber which will be a joy lor ever, than they ever can by bending 

 over retorts and crucibles, amid smells even to remember which 

 is a pain for ever. 



" But I would, whether a field club existed or not, require of 

 every young man entering the army or navy — indeed, of every 

 young man entering any liberal profession whatsoever — a fair 

 knowledge, such as would enable him to pass an examination, in 

 what the Germans call Erd-kundi (earth-lore) — in that know- 

 ledge of the face ol the earth and of its products for which we 

 English have as yet cared so little that we have actually no 

 English name for it, save the clumsy and questionable one of 

 physical geography, and, I am sorry to say, hardly any readable 

 school books about it, save Keith Johnston's ' Physical Atlas ' 

 — an acquaintance with which last I should certainly require of 

 young men. 



" It does seem most strange — or rather will seem most strange 

 too years hence — that we, the nation of colonies, the nation of 

 sailors, the nation of foreign commerce, the nation of foreign 

 military stations, the nation of travellers for travelling's sake, the 



