ather than a triumph to have undergone such a
change. The change is an effect rather than a cause.

When little or nothing was known it was necessary to begin by
examining the phenomena which first met the eyes of the observer, such
as the customs of animals and the characters which distinguished them
from each other. Their differences and resemblances were studied; they
were formed into groups, classed and arranged in an order recalling as
much as possible their natural relations. In classifying it is
impossible to consider all the facts or the result would be chaos; it
is necessary to choose the characters and to give preponderance to
certain of them. This sorting of characters has been executed with the
sagacity of genius by the illustrious naturalists of the last century
and the beginning of the present. But the frames which they have
traced are fixed and rigid; nature with her infinite plasticity
escapes from them. We render a great homage to the classifiers when we
say that they have confined the facts as closely as it is possible to
do. The catalogues which they have prepared are of a utility which is
unquestionable, although their _role_ is to be useful only; we cannot
pretend to make them the expression, the symbol, the formula in which
all natural phenomena are to be enclosed. To confound classification
with science is to confound the lever with the effect which we expect
from it.

Curiosity, moreover, always impels towards that which is least known.
External appearances having been studied, the form and function of
internal organs were investigated. Physiology and comparative anatomy
were born and developed; researches abounded and observers abandoned
the field for the laboratory.

The difference in methods of research and the pushing of precision to
its extreme limits--an inevitable result of the different nature of
the observations to be made--did not however yet render legitimate the
claim for natural studies to be called "science."

_Natural history and the natural sciences._--A more important event
has taken place. The ancient naturalists, like their contemporaries,
had firm beliefs which they used as unquestionable principles for the
comprehension of all facts. The explanation of an observation was
ready in advance. The study of facts invariably brought to the pen of
the writer the same enthusiastic admiration of the marvellous part
played by Providence in nature.[1] The phenomena in which this acti