NATURAL HIS-TORY embraces a very extensive field of human knowledge. It is, indeed, somewhat difficult to determine the objects which it legitimately comprehends, as the notions generally entertained on the subject are exceedingly vague and indefinite. It appears to embrace a description of all the phenomena presented by the ma terial world—of the forins and changes of the heavenly bodies, and the objects which present themselves on the earth. It may thus be considered as paving the way for the researches of the Natural Philosopher, the chemist, and the physiologist, by stating the conditions of the dif ferent problems which each, in his respective depart ment, is called upon to resolve. The naturalist, how ever, does not content himself with a mere description of the appearances of nature. He attempts to classify the phenomena, and, availing himself of the discoveries in those sciences to which his labours have paved the way, he ventures to trace and explain their mutual dependence. He thus endeavours to forrn what has been termed a SYSTEM OF NATURE, ill WhiCI1 all the objects which pre sent themselves to our notice are designated by appro priate names, distinguished by particular characters, and have their various changes and mutual relations distinctly determined. Natural history may, therefore, be consi
dered as the art of ascertaining the names of objects, and the science of determining their habitudes and relations. It is intended, in this article, to give a brief summary of its leading divisions, and to recommend it as an agreeable and useful employment of the human mind.
The objects which present themselves to our notice on this globe, (for the naturalist has abandoned the celes tial phenomena to the astronorner,) though differing in form, texture, and motions, range themselves under two very distinct heads, termed the inorganic and organized. The division is obvious, and has been universally recog nised. The chain of being, which poets and philoso phers have talked so much about, by which minerals are connected with vegetables, these last with animals, and man with his Maker, is a fiction of the imagination, and the offspring of ignorance. The reader will find a de monstration of this statement in Dr. Fleming's "Philo sophy of Zoology," vol. i. p. 3-7.