Synopsis
Excerpt from A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History
To form a just estimate of the relative position of any science at a given period, it is necessary that the prominent events in its history he rightly under stood. It seems, therefore, expedient to commence this discourse with a slight sketch of the rise and progress of zoological science; or, more properly, of the progressive discovery of the forms, structures, and habits belonging to the animal world; a world replete with such an infinity of beings, each pos sessing so many peculiarities Of habit and economy, that, notwithstanding the united efforts of human research for thousands of years, there is not one of them whose history, as yet, can be pronounced complete.
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Book Description
William Swainson (1789–1855) considers here the successful pursuit of zoology. Emphasising the key importance of taxonomy, Swainson advocated the now defunct 'quinary' system of classification. More than a mere historical curiosity, this work was one of the many which provided an intellectual context for the theory of evolution.
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