ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY*

by Thomas H. Huxley




[footnote] *A Lecture delivered at the South Kensington
Museum in 1861.

NATURAL HISTORY is the name familiarly applied to the study of the
properties of such natural bodies as minerals, plants, and animals; the
sciences which embody the knowledge man has acquired upon these
subjects are commonly termed Natural Sciences, in contradistinction to
other so-called "physical" sciences; and those who devote themselves
especially to the pursuit of such sciences have been and are commonly
termed "Naturalists."

Linnaeus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his 'Systema Naturae'
was a work upon natural history, in the broadest acceptation of the
term; in it, that great methodising spirit embodied all that was known
in his time of the distinctive characters of minerals, animals, and
plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnaeus gave to the
investigation of nature soon rendered it impossible that any one man
should write another 'Systema Naturae,' and extremely difficult for any
one to become even a naturalist such as Linnaeus was.

Great as have been the advances made by all the three branches of
science, of old included under the title of natural history, there can
be no doubt that zoology and botany have grown in an enormously greater