!natural history. 
of their country, yet the greatest contributor to its 
political well-being is the man who adds to the 
health or happiness of the poor, the great mass of the 
community. It is true that renown and wealth may 
make a nation great ; but with nations as with 
individuals, a truer criterion of happiness is to be 
found in the superior state of health, and length 
of days of the inhabitants. I do not appeal to the 
mere increase of population, as indicative of our 
prosperity, for we see too clearly that in the worst 
parts of Ireland, the population increases more rapid- 
ly than in the places where the people are better off ; 
but if, along with an increase of population, we find 
a general increase in the duration of life, we may 
safely say of such a community, however unhealthy 
certain portions of it may be, that, collectively, there 
is a correspondent improvement in health, and a 
diminution of those causes which militate against 
longevity. - 
II. Zoology. According to the full import of the 
term, zoology is that science which contemplates 
the attributes and systematic arrangements of living 
creatures ; including not only those animals which 
are of complicated organization and function, as man 
and quadrupeds, but also the more simple forms of 
existence, in which the animal structure, as in the 
medusae and zoophytes, scarcely differs from that 
of the vegetable kingdom. 
Man is placed at the head of the whole animal 
creation^ which is made subservient to the gratifiqa- 
H 
