Natural History

As a field of inquiry, natural history has commonly been defined in one of two ways: by its objects and by its methods. First, it has been used to refer to the study of all natural objects, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral; in this sense, natural history might be seen as an umbrella discipline encompassing zoology, botany, and mineralogy, together with other subdisciplines dealing with natural phenomena (e.g., meteorology). Second, natural history has also been used to refer to empirical or descriptive modes of investigation, to be contrasted with the more theoretical or mathematical methods of natural philosophy. Both of these senses of the term suggest the breadth of areas that have been considered to be natural history over time. Though the ancients wrote natural histories, and most societies throughout the world have acquired extensive knowledge of their local environments, natural history as a discipline rose to particular prominence during the Scientific Revolution, when it captured the attention of scholars, physicians, virtuosi, and members of the new scientific societies alike. What had, in antiquity, been primarily a literary tradition became one of the major focuses of scientific activity during the early-modern period.