117The term “natural history” has a quaint and old- fashioned air about it, no
doubt partly on account of its mental association with museums, partly
because it refers to a discipline that, from about the end of the nine-
teenth century, seems to have receded into the background to make way
for the contemporary biological sciences. On refl ection, the discipline is
also designated by a decidedly odd combination of words that imply a
subject matter—nature—for which a chronological approach of the kind
suggested by “history,” seems entirely inappropriate. The strangeness of
“natural history” is only compounded when we consider the ways in
which the discipline was regarded by its practitioners in previous ages.
Wolfgang Franz, writing in the seventeenth century on natural history,
describes his enterprise in these terms:
The history of Brutes, which by some is not unjustly called Ζωογραφια
[zoographia], or a Description of living creatures, is that part of Physicks
which treateth of Brute beasts. We may properly call this one part of Phys-
icks, because it treateth of the nature of things; for Physicks is either Phys-
icks properly so called, or you may divide it into Metaphysicks, and Math-
ematicks. Physicks properly so called comprehendeth under it the nature
of Meteors, Metals, Plants, Stars, the four Elements, men, and Brutes. Some
would have the consideration of Brutes be brought under Medicine, which I
think belongeth more properly to Philosophy.^1CHAPTER 5Natural History
Peter Harrison