INTRODUCTION. 



AS many persons form erroneous or confused ideas 

 of what is strictly intended by Natural History, it 

 becomes the more necessary, by way of introduction 

 to the present work, to define the object of that 

 science; and in so doing to advert to the distinctions 

 which separate it from other studies to which it is 

 more or less analogous, and with which it is too 

 often confounded. 



The word nature in our language, as in most others, 

 among its various significations, has these three: first, 

 it means the qualities derived from original consti- 

 tution, in contradistinction to those produced by 

 art ; secondly, it is used to signify the universe at 

 large ; and thirdly, the laws regulating those beings 

 which collectively compose that universe. It is 

 more especially in this latter sense that we are ac- 

 customed to personify nature, and to use its name 

 for that of its Creator. Physics, or natural philo- 

 sophy, includes the consideration of universal being 

 under these three relations, and is either general or 

 particular. 



Vol. I. B 



