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55-487: Richard Lydekker ( / l ɪ ˈ d ɛ k ər / ; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist , geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history . Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. His father was Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, a barrister-at-law with Dutch ancestry. The family moved to Harpenden Lodge soon after Richard's birth. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge , where he took

110-470: A bed have no tendency to become a bed.) In terms of Aristotle's theory of four causes , the word natural is applied both to the innate potential of matter cause and the forms which the matter tends to become naturally. According to Leo Strauss , the beginning of Western philosophy involved the "discovery or invention of nature" and the "pre-philosophical equivalent of nature" was supplied by "such notions as 'custom' or 'ways'". In ancient Greek philosophy on

165-445: A doctrine about how it is possible that people know things: "If nothing exists apart from individual things, nothing will be intelligible; everything will be sensible, and there will be no knowledge of anything—unless it be maintained that sense-perception is knowledge". Those philosophers who disagree with this reasoning therefore also see knowledge differently from Aristotle. Aristotle then, described nature or natures as follows, in

220-681: A first-class in the Natural Science tripos (1872). In 1874 he joined the Geological Survey of India and made studies of the vertebrate palaeontology of northern India (especially Kashmir ). He remained in this post until the death of his father in 1881. His main work in India was on the Siwalik palaeofauna; it was published in Palaeontologia Indica . He was responsible for the cataloguing of

275-416: A human-like consciousness involved in the causation of all things, even things which are not man-made. Nature itself is attributed with having aims. The artificial, like the conventional therefore, is within this branch of Western thought, traditionally contrasted with the natural. Technology was contrasted with science , as mentioned above. And another essential aspect to this understanding of causation

330-476: A naturalist, studies the world by observing plants and animals directly. Because organisms are functionally inseparable from the environment in which they live and because their structure and function cannot be adequately interpreted without knowing some of their evolutionary history, the study of natural history embraces the study of fossils as well as physiographic and other aspects of the physical environment". A common thread in many definitions of natural history

385-400: A pair of letters to The Times in 1913, when he wrote on 6 February that he had heard a cuckoo , contrary to Yarrell's History of British Birds which doubted the bird arrived before April. Six days later on 12 February 1913, he wrote again, confessing that "the note was uttered by a bricklayer's labourer". Letters about the first cuckoo became a tradition in the newspaper. He received

440-544: A part of science proper. In Victorian Scotland, the study of natural history was believed to contribute to good mental health. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds , butterflies, seashells ( malacology / conchology ), beetles, and wildflowers; meanwhile, scientists tried to define a unified discipline of biology (though with only partial success, at least until

495-471: A philosophical term derived from the verb for birth , which was used as a translation for the earlier ( pre-Socratic ) Greek term phusis , derived from the verb for natural growth. Already in classical times, philosophical use of these words combined two related meanings which have in common that they refer to the way in which things happen by themselves, "naturally", without "interference" from human deliberation, divine intervention, or anything outside what

550-461: A source of motion; for the matter is called "nature" because it is capable of receiving the nature, and the processes of generation and growth are called "nature" because they are motions derived from it. And nature in this sense is the source of motion in natural objects, which is somehow inherent in them, either potentially or actually. It has been argued, as will be explained below, that this type of theory represented an oversimplifying diversion from

605-498: A way quite different from modern science: " Nature " means: (a) in one sense, the genesis of growing things — as would be suggested by pronouncing the υ of φύσις long—and (b) in another, that immanent thing from which a growing thing first begins to grow. (c) The source from which the primary motion in every natural object is induced in that object as such. All things are said to grow which gain increase through something else by contact and organic unity (or adhesion, as in

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660-534: Is Aristotle 's principal work on nature. In Physics II .1, Aristotle defines a nature as "a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily". In other words, a nature is the principle within a natural raw material that is the source of tendencies to change or rest in a particular way unless stopped. For example, a rock would fall unless stopped. Natural things stand in contrast to artifacts, which are formed by human artifice, not because of an innate tendency. (The raw materials of

715-416: Is "by nature" is contrasted to what is "by convention". The concept of nature taken this far remains a strong tradition in modern Western thinking . Science , according to Strauss' commentary of Western history is the contemplation of nature, while technology was or is an attempt to imitate it. Going further, the philosophical concept of nature or natures as a special type of causation - for example that

770-416: Is already present, we say that they have not their nature yet unless they have their form and shape. That which comprises both of these exists by nature; e.g. animals and their parts. And nature is both the primary matter (and this in two senses: either primary in relation to the thing, or primary in general; e.g., in bronze articles the primary matter in relation to those articles is bronze, but in general it

825-460: Is also echoed by H.W. Greene and J.B. Losos: "Natural history focuses on where organisms are and what they do in their environment, including interactions with other organisms. It encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do". Some definitions go further, focusing on direct observation of organisms in their environments, both past and present, such as this one by G.A. Bartholomew: "A student of natural history, or

880-434: Is considered normal for the natural things being considered. Understandings of nature depend on the subject and age of the work where they appear. For example, Aristotle 's explanation of natural properties differs from what is meant by natural properties in modern philosophical and scientific works, which can also differ from other scientific and conventional usage. The Physics (from ta phusika "the natural [things]")

935-400: Is most often defined as a type of observation and a subject of study, it can also be defined as a body of knowledge, and as a craft or a practice, in which the emphasis is placed more on the observer than on the observed. Definitions from biologists often focus on the scientific study of individual organisms in their environment, as seen in this definition by Marston Bates: "Natural history is

990-442: Is not limited to it. It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms, so while it dates from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world , through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature. The meaning of

1045-441: Is perhaps water—that is if all things which can be melted are water) and the form or essence , i.e. the end of the process, of generation. Indeed from this sense of "nature," by an extension of meaning, every essence in general is called "nature," because the nature of anything is a kind of essence. From what has been said, then, the primary and proper sense of "nature" is the essence of those things which contain in themselves as such

1100-481: Is produced; e.g., bronze is called the "nature" of a statue and of bronze articles, and wood that of wooden ones, and similarly in all other cases. For each article consists of these "natures," the primary material persisting. It is in this sense that men call the elements of natural objects the "nature," some calling it fire, others earth or air or water, others something else similar, others some of these, and others all of them. Again in another sense "nature" means (e)

1155-399: Is the inclusion of a descriptive component, as seen in a recent definition by H.W. Greene: "Descriptive ecology and ethology". Several authors have argued for a more expansive view of natural history, including S. Herman, who defines the field as "the scientific study of plants and animals in their natural environments. It is concerned with levels of organization from the individual organism to

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1210-538: The American Society of Naturalists and Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists . Professional societies have recognized the importance of natural history and have initiated new sections in their journals specifically for natural history observations to support the discipline. These include "Natural History Field Notes" of Biotropica , "The Scientific Naturalist" of Ecology , "From the Field" of Waterbirds , and

1265-566: The Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1902. Natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms , including animals , fungi , and plants , in their natural environment , leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian . Natural history encompasses scientific research but

1320-476: The Natural History Society of Northumbria founded in 1829, London Natural History Society (1858), Birmingham Natural History Society (1859), British Entomological and Natural History Society founded in 1872, Glasgow Natural History Society, Manchester Microscopical and Natural History Society established in 1880, Whitby Naturalists' Club founded in 1913, Scarborough Field Naturalists' Society and

1375-525: The Renaissance , making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history books. From the ancient Greeks until the work of Carl Linnaeus and other 18th-century naturalists, a major concept of natural history was the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being , an arrangement of minerals, vegetables, more primitive forms of animals, and more complex life forms on a linear scale of supposedly increasing perfection, culminating in our species. Natural history

1430-567: The biological and geological sciences. The two were strongly associated. During the heyday of the gentleman scientists , many people contributed to both fields, and early papers in both were commonly read at professional science society meetings such as the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences —both founded during the 17th century. Natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus' aspiration to improve

1485-464: The fossil mammals , reptiles, and birds in the Natural History Museum (10 vols., 1891). He named a variety of taxa including the golden-bellied mangabey ; as a taxon authority he is named simply as "Lydekker". He was influential in the science of biogeography . In 1896 he delineated the biogeographical boundary through Indonesia , known as Lydekker's Line, that separates Wallacea on

1540-497: The humanities (primarily what is now known as classics ) and divinity , with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. The study of nature revived in the Renaissance , and quickly became a third branch of academic knowledge, itself divided into descriptive natural history and natural philosophy , the analytical study of nature. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry , while natural history included

1595-638: The modern evolutionary synthesis ). Still, the traditions of natural history continue to play a part in the study of biology, especially ecology (the study of natural systems involving living organisms and the inorganic components of the Earth's biosphere that support them), ethology (the scientific study of animal behavior), and evolutionary biology (the study of the relationships between life forms over very long periods of time), and re-emerges today as integrative organismal biology. Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building

1650-571: The "Natural History Miscellany section" of the American Naturalist . Natural history observations have contributed to scientific questioning and theory formation. In recent times such observations contribute to how conservation priorities are determined. Mental health benefits can ensue, as well, from regular and active observation of chosen components of nature, and these reach beyond the benefits derived from passively walking through natural areas. Nature (philosophy) How to understand

1705-806: The English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin historia naturalis ) has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast, the meaning of the related term "nature" has widened (see also History below). In antiquity , "natural history" covered essentially anything connected with nature , or used materials drawn from nature, such as Pliny the Elder 's encyclopedia of this title , published c.  77 to 79 AD , which covers astronomy , geography , humans and their technology , medicine , and superstition , as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two main divisions:

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1760-659: The Natural History Institute (Prescott, Arizona): Natural history – a practice of intentional focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy – is the oldest continuous human endeavor. In the evolutionary past of our species, the practice of natural history was essential for our survival, imparting critical information on habits and chronologies of plants and animals that we could eat or that could eat us. Natural history continues to be critical to human survival and thriving. It contributes to our fundamental understanding of how

1815-539: The Sorby Natural History Society, Sheffield , founded in 1918. The growth of natural history societies was also spurred due to the growth of British colonies in tropical regions with numerous new species to be discovered. Many civil servants took an interest in their new surroundings, sending specimens back to museums in the Britain . (See also: Indian natural history ) Societies in other countries include

1870-477: The case of embryos). Organic unity differs from contact; for in the latter case there need be nothing except contact, but in both the things which form an organic unity there is some one and the same thing which produces, instead of mere contact, a unity which is organic, continuous and quantitative (but not qualitative). Again, "nature" means (d) the primary stuff, shapeless and unchangeable from its own potency, of which any natural object consists or from which it

1925-403: The diversity of the natural world. Natural history was understood by Pliny the Elder to cover anything that could be found in the world, including living things, geology, astronomy, technology, art, and humanity. De Materia Medica was written between 50 and 70 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides , a Roman physician of Greek origin. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted in

1980-489: The economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits. Modern definitions of natural history come from a variety of fields and sources, and many of the modern definitions emphasize a particular aspect of the field, creating a plurality of definitions with a number of common themes among them. For example, while natural history

2035-410: The ecosystem, and stresses identification, life history, distribution, abundance, and inter-relationships. It often and appropriately includes an esthetic component", and T. Fleischner, who defines the field even more broadly, as "A practice of intentional, focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy". These definitions explicitly include the arts in

2090-710: The emergence of professional biological disciplines and research programs. Particularly in the 19th century, scientists began to use their natural history collections as teaching tools for advanced students and the basis for their own morphological research. The term "natural history" alone, or sometimes together with archaeology, forms the name of many national, regional, and local natural history societies that maintain records for animals (including birds (ornithology), insects ( entomology ) and mammals (mammalogy)), fungi ( mycology ), plants (botany), and other organisms. They may also have geological and microscopical sections. Examples of these societies in Britain include

2145-411: The field of botany, be it as authors, collectors, or illustrators. In modern Europe, professional disciplines such as botany, geology, mycology , palaeontology , physiology , and zoology were formed. Natural history , formerly the main subject taught by college science professors, was increasingly scorned by scientists of a more specialized manner and relegated to an "amateur" activity, rather than

2200-634: The field of natural history, and are aligned with the broad definition outlined by B. Lopez, who defines the field as the "Patient interrogation of a landscape" while referring to the natural history knowledge of the Eskimo ( Inuit ). A slightly different framework for natural history, covering a similar range of themes, is also implied in the scope of work encompassed by many leading natural history museums , which often include elements of anthropology, geology, paleontology, and astronomy along with botany and zoology, or include both cultural and natural components of

2255-456: The meaning and significance of nature has been a consistent theme of discussion within the history of Western Civilization , in the philosophical fields of metaphysics and epistemology , as well as in theology and science . The study of natural things and the regular laws which seem to govern them, as opposed to discussion about what it means to be natural, is the area of natural science . The word "nature" derives from Latin nātūra ,

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2310-416: The other hand, Nature or natures are ways that are "really universal" "in all times and places". What makes nature different is that it presupposes not only that not all customs and ways are equal, but also that one can "find one's bearings in the cosmos" "on the basis of inquiry" (not for example on the basis of traditions or religion). To put this "discovery or invention" into the traditional terminology, what

2365-546: The study of animals and Plants—of organisms. ... I like to think, then, of natural history as the study of life at the level of the individual—of what plants and animals do, how they react to each other and their environment, how they are organized into larger groupings like populations and communities" and this more recent definition by D.S. Wilcove and T. Eisner: "The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior, and their relationships with other species". This focus on organisms in their environment

2420-420: The substance of natural objects; as in the case of those who say that the "nature" is the primary composition of a thing, or as Empedocles says: Of nothing that exists is there nature, but only mixture and separation of what has been mixed ; nature is but a name given to these by men. Hence as regards those things which exist or are produced by nature, although that from which they naturally are produced or exist

2475-515: The system of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus . The British historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham calls Li Shizhen "the 'uncrowned king' of Chinese naturalists", and his Bencao gangmu "undoubtedly the greatest scientific achievement of the Ming". His works translated to many languages direct or influence many scholars and researchers. A significant contribution to English natural history

2530-626: The way particular humans are is partly caused by something called "human nature" is an essential step towards Aristotle 's teaching concerning causation , which became standard in all Western philosophy until the arrival of modern science. Whether it was intended or not, Aristotle's inquiries into this subject were long felt to have resolved the discussion about nature in favor of one solution. In this account, there are four different types of cause: The formal and final cause are an essential part of Aristotle's " Metaphysics " - his attempt to go beyond nature and explain nature itself. In practice they imply

2585-515: The west from Australia-New Guinea on the east. It follows the edge of the Sahul Shelf , an area from New Guinea to Australia of shallow water with the Aru Islands on its edge. Along with Wallace's Line and others, it indicates the definite effect of geology on the biogeography of the region, something not seen so clearly in other parts of the world. Lydekker attracted amused public attention with

2640-475: The world works by providing the empirical foundation of natural sciences, and it contributes directly and indirectly to human emotional and physical health, thereby fostering healthier human communities. It also serves as the basis for all conservation efforts, with natural history both informing the science and inspiring the values that drive these. As a precursor to Western science , natural history began with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who analyzed

2695-600: The world's large natural history collections, such as the Natural History Museum, London , and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Three of the greatest English naturalists of the 19th century, Henry Walter Bates , Charles Darwin , and Alfred Russel Wallace —who knew each other—each made natural history travels that took years, collected thousands of specimens, many of them new to science, and by their writings both advanced knowledge of "remote" parts of

2750-564: The world. The plurality of definitions for this field has been recognized as both a weakness and a strength, and a range of definitions has recently been offered by practitioners in a recent collection of views on natural history. Prior to the advent of Western science humans were engaged and highly competent in indigenous ways of understanding the more-than-human world that are now referred to as traditional ecological knowledge . 21st century definitions of natural history are inclusive of this understanding, such as this by Thomas Fleischner of

2805-777: The world—the Amazon basin , the Galápagos Islands , and the Indonesian Archipelago , among others—and in so doing helped to transform biology from a descriptive to a theory-based science. The understanding of "Nature" as "an organism and not as a mechanism" can be traced to the writings of Alexander von Humboldt (Prussia, 1769–1859). Humboldt's copious writings and research were seminal influences for Charles Darwin, Simón Bolívar , Henry David Thoreau , Ernst Haeckel , and John Muir . Natural history museums , which evolved from cabinets of curiosities , played an important role in

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2860-785: Was basically static through the Middle Ages in Europe—although in the Arabic and Oriental world, it proceeded at a much brisker pace. From the 13th century, the work of Aristotle was adapted rather rigidly into Christian philosophy , particularly by Thomas Aquinas , forming the basis for natural theology . During the Renaissance, scholars (herbalists and humanists, particularly) returned to direct observation of plants and animals for natural history, and many began to accumulate large collections of exotic specimens and unusual monsters . Leonhart Fuchs

2915-402: Was made by parson-naturalists such as Gilbert White , William Kirby , John George Wood , and John Ray , who wrote about plants, animals, and other aspects of nature. Many of these men wrote about nature to make the natural theology argument for the existence or goodness of God. Since early modern times, however, a great number of women made contributions to natural history, particularly in

2970-405: Was one of the three founding fathers of botany, along with Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock . Other important contributors to the field were Valerius Cordus , Konrad Gesner ( Historiae animalium ), Frederik Ruysch , and Gaspard Bauhin . The rapid increase in the number of known organisms prompted many attempts at classifying and organizing species into taxonomic groups , culminating in

3025-411: Was the distinction between the accidental properties of a thing and the substance - another distinction which has lost favor in the modern era, after having long been widely accepted in medieval Europe. To describe it another way, Aristotle treated organisms and other natural wholes as existing at a higher level than mere matter in motion. Aristotle's argument for formal and final causes is related to

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