Natural history society

“ We appear indeed to be still only on the threshold of knowledge, to have merely touched the fringe of the vast and infinite life-history which the living world, that p. 87inexhaustible stream of life which we see everywhere around us, contains. We are proud of the amount of our natural history knowledge. We think to have accumulated a large store of information as to that especially of our own district. We can point to the lists of animals and plants which the research of the members of our Society, and others, has so laboriously gathered together. ”

“ For natural history stands to man’s power over Nature, that is, to his power of being useful to himself and to mankind, in the same relation as do geography, grammar, arithmetic, geometry, political economy ”

“ Consequently it is a spot worthy of a local natural historian, and when a body of naturalists unite to describe its fauna, flora, geology, and other natural features, and do so in an exhaustive manner, we recognize a very useful addition to British natural history. ”

“ Experiments with civilization have been conducted in highly selective surroundings possessing the volume and range of natural resources and the isolation and remoteness necessary to build and maintain a high level of culture over substantial periods of time. ”

“ It is a pleasing reflection to consider the great strides natural history is making in this kingdom, as well as in other parts of the world; and the many publications on the various subjects of nature, that have made their appearance within these last three or four years, is a circumstance that must give every man of a liberal mind the greatest satisfaction. We see persons, skilled in natural history, receiving encouragements and reward from men of rank and property, according to their respective abilities. ”

“ The improvements of the savage races whose history we can distinctly trace are borrowed and imitative, and our theories as to the origin and natural development of industrial art are conjectural. Of course, the relative antiquity of particular branches of human industry depends much upon the natural character of soil, climate, and spontaneous vegetable and animal life in different countries; and while the geographical influence of man would, under given circumstances, be exerted in one direction, it would, under different conditions, act in an opposite or a diverging line. ”

“ That hypothesis attributes the origin of folk-tales, as of every other species of tradition, to the constitution of the human mind. A similar environment acting upon the mind will everywhere produce similar results. And it is the variations of the environment, both physical and social, as well the moral and material products of civilisation as the natural features of the earth, its fauna and flora, which give rise to the variety of stories all presenting perpetual coincidences, and all evolved from a few leading ideas common to the race. ”

“ The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards. ”

“ But nature is always the immediate subsoil of the artificial groundwork, and it is the environment which contains us. The industrial arts have put between us social animals, and nature, certain intermediaries which modify, set aside or remove the natural influences ”

“ We shall now see an instance of development operating within the production of what approaches to the character of variety of species. It is fully established that a human family, tribe, or nation, is liable, in the course of generations, to be either advanced from a mean form to a higher one, or degraded from a higher to a lower, by the influence of the physical conditions in which it lives. ”

“ The Natural Environment.—The early sociologists put the emphasis on the physical more than the psychic [341] factors, and especially on biological analogies in society. It seemed to them as if it was nature that brought men together. Mountains and ice-bound regions were inhospitable, impassable rivers and trackless forests limited the range of animals and men, violent storms and temperature changes made men afraid. Avoiding these dangers and seeking a food-supply where it was most plentiful, human beings met in the favored localities and learned by experience the principles of association. ”

“ At this stage in the history of earth's conservation, when so much is waiting to be done, if each family, each village and town, each city state and nation will do its bit to conserve, plan, shape, utilize, beautify, improve what remains of the natural environment, the results will be impressive enough to justify the time and means devoted to the enterprise. ”

“ In truth, nothing could be further from explaining the facts of universal history than the theory that civilization is the result of a course of natural selection which operates to improve and elevate the powers of man. ”

“ Mankind, exclusive of their original mould, as issued from the mint of the Creator, are afterwards diversified by climate, soil, diet, government, religion, association, occupation, and habit.
By Civilization, mankind are arranged and connected into an infinite series of descending and dependent links. In a state of nature there are few gradations in society ”

“ Moreover, although there is no heritage of accumulated knowledge amongst the lower animals, as there is amongst us, they are in some degree susceptible of those modifications of natural character, and capable of those accomplishments, which we call education. The taming and domestication of animals, and the changes thus produced upon their nature in the course of generations, are results identical with civilization amongst ourselves ”

“ Natural history ought to be studied as a collection of facts; not as the history of our guesses or opinions. Nature varies in an infinite manner; and Providence has diversified the instinct of animals, and their œconomy, and adapted it to the various seasons and climates. ”

“ Its flora and fauna have been described, and thereby its capacity for supporting human life approximately calculated. The other physical conditions which govern the development of man, such as temperature, rainfall, and the direction of prevalent winds have been examined. Thus we have acquired a treasury of facts relating to the causes and conditions which help the growth of civilisation and mould it into diverse forms, conditions whose importance I shall presently discuss in considering the relation of man to his natural environment. ”

“ By these researches into the state of the earth and its inhabitants at former periods, we acquire a more perfect knowledge of its present condition, and more comprehensive views concerning the laws now governing its animate and inanimate productions. When we study history, we obtain a more profound insight into human nature, by instituting a comparison between the present and former states of society. ”

“ Such acquisitions of external culture accompany man during the transition from his subsistence by the pure products of Nature to the cultivation of natural resources, cattle-breeding and agriculture—occupations necessitating the greatest unrest and mobility. The simple life in Nature incites men to wander forth that they may discover land adapted for their support ”

“ That extensive tract of the earth, containing so great a variety of situation, climate, and soil, should, in the manners of its inhabitants, exhibit all the diversities which arise from the unequal influence of the sun, joined to a different nourishment and manner of life. Every question, however, on this subject, is premature, till we have first endeavoured to form some general conception of our species in its rude state, and have learned to distinguish mere ignorance from dulness, and the want of arts from the want of capacity. ”

“ In Chapters VIII to XII of this volume I have given in briefest outline a summary of the growth during the nineteenth century of the actual social environment in the midst of which we live.
We see a continuous advance of man's power to utilise the forces of Nature, to an extent which surpasses everything he had been able to do during all the preceding centuries of his recorded history. ”

“ Where all was chaos, every man was useful who could contribute a single spot of organized standing ground in the shape of a fact or a specimen. But it is a question whether Natural History would have ever attained its present honours, had not Geology arisen, to connect every other branch of Natural History with problems as vast and awful as they are captivating to the imagination. ”

“ Explorations of the earth and of the heavens continually add new knowledge of the extent and creation of the universe. The study of anthropology and archaeology throw new light upon the origin and early history of man. Experimental study of animals, food, soils, and crops adds increased means of sustenance for the race. Recent investigations of scientific education, along with psychology, are throwing much light on mental conditions and progress. And more recently serious inquiry into social life through the study of the social sciences is revealing the great problems of life. ”

“ Those animals which are independent and can chuse for themselves both their food and climate, are those which best preserve their original impressions, and we may believe the most ancient of their species are the most faithfully represented by their descendants. But those which mankind have subdued, transported from climate to climate, whose food, customs, and manners of living he has changed, may also be those which have changed most in their forms ”

“ The Societies which have joined our Union are almost exclusively Natural History Societies. They are quite friendly to philosophy and literature, to mathematics and chemistry, to agriculture and political economy, to astronomy and the use of the globes, but they find their own more special and serious employment in zoology, botany, and geology. ”

“ The nature and extent of a material civilization is in large measure determined by the natural resources available. Climate, weather, and numerous physical conditions are factors in the evolution of culture. ”

“ This movement gave great opportunity for the study of {63} geology, paleontology, and the archeology of man. That is, the story of the relationship of the earth to plant, animal, and man was revealed. The regularity of these movements and the amount of material evidence found furnish a great opportunity for measuring geological time movements and hence the life of plants and animals, including man. ”

“ We have seen in the preceding chapter how every form of organic life during all the vast extent of geological time has been subject to the law of natural selection, which has incessantly moulded their bodily form and structure, external and internal, in strict adaptation to the successive changes of the world around them ”

“ We saw, too, that great uniformity of surface, of mineral products, of flora, of fauna, are impediments; and that on the special characters of the flora and fauna, as containing species favorable or unfavorable to human welfare, in part depends the individual prosperity required for social growth. ”

“ He disembowels it, scrutinizing the internal evidences of its structure and history, and thence infers the causes of past vicissitudes, existing relations, and appearances. These disposed of, the surface is explored, the phenomena of animal and vegetable existence contemplated, and the sources of vital action, sexual differences, and diversities of species assigned. Man, as the supreme head and last work of progressive creation, challenges a distinct consideration ”

“ And within the village-farming community was the seed of civilization. The way in which effective domestication of plants and animals came about, however, must also be linked closely with the natural environment. Thus the archeologists will not solve the how and why questions alone—they will need the help of interested natural scientists in the field itself.
PRECONDITIONS FOR THE REVOLUTION
Especially at this point in our story, we must remember how culture and environment go hand in hand. Neither plants nor animals domesticate themselves; men domesticate them. ”

“ They seek to ascertain the facts of the Creation, and the yet hidden causes which bind them together in relations of eternal harmony and peace. They seek in the atmosphere for signs to lead to the comprehension of the laws which regulate its movements; they study the vegetable growths of forest and field to learn how to increase the products of the soil; they inquire into the nature and habits and structure of the living inhabitants of the air, the earth, and the seas, to know the best and easiest modes of rendering them profitable to society ”

“ It seeks to bring to bear upon the problem of man the full joint force of geology, zoology, and history. To do this is a no mean task, a task which offers the greatest possible scientific opportunity of the age. ”

“ Anthropology, therefore, in the widest sense of the word, aims at discovering the general laws which have regulated human history in the past, and which, if nature is really uniform, may be expected to regulate it in the future. ”

“ But also the relation of man to external nature as the occupant of specific geographical areas, and subject to certain influences of climate, food, material appliances and conditions of life, involves conclusions of growing importance, in view of many novel questions to which the enlarged inquiry as to his true place in nature has given rise. ”

“ There was time enough, before these late and special movements which led to civilisation, for man, in the course of peopling the earth, to be brought at various stages to a standstill, and such a change in his life-history would have its own special results. One of the most momentous of these results is the fossilisation of social and mental conditions. ”