The objects of nature may be considered under two points of view: first, with respect to their form, structure, habits, and individual properties, when viewed in a state of inactivity; and secondly, with respect to the mutual changes which they produce when made to act upon each other. Hence the study of nature may be divided into two parts, namely, Natural History and Natural Science,—the former considering bodies in a comparatively inactive state, and the latter in a state of mutual action. Natural history, then, is that part of natural knowledge which teaches us to distinguish and describe the objects of nature—to examine their appearance, structure, properties, and uses—and to collect, preserve, and arrange them. Some writers divide natural history into general and particular, which have been accurately defined by Cuvier. General natural history considers, under a single point of view, all natural bodies, and the common result of all their actions in the great whole of nature. It determines the laws of the co-existence of their properties; it establishes the degrees of resemblance which exist between different bodies; and it classes them according to these degrees. The particular natural history of any body, to be perfect, should comprehend, first, the description of all the sensible properties of that body, and of all its parts; secondly, the mutual relations of these parts, the motions which they produce, and the changes which they undergo whilst they remain united; thirdly, the active and passive relations of this body with every other body in the universe; and fourthly, the explanation of all these phenomena.

(Detailed information respecting the various branches of NATURAL HISTORY will be found under ANIMAL KINGDOM, at the end of which will be found the systematic and alphabetical arrangement of the different sections of the animal kingdom; also under METEOROLOGY, PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, MINERALOGICAL SCIENCE, and BOTANY.)