In the history of science the collector of specimens preceded the zoologist and followed the exponents of natural theology and magic. He had ceased to study animals in the spirit of the authors of bestiaries, for whom the ant was incarnate industry, the panther and emblem, surprisingly enough, of Christ, the polecat a shocking example of uninhibited lasciviousness. But, except in a rudimentary way, he was not a physiologist, ecologist or student of animal behavior. His primary concern was to make a census, to catch, kill, stuff and describe as many kinds of beasts as he could his hands on.
Like the earth of a hundred years ago, our mind still has its darkest Africas, its unmapped Borneos and Amazonian basins. In relation to the fauna of these regions we are not yet zoologists, we are mere naturalists and collectors of specimens. The fact is unfortunate; but we have to accept it, we have to make the best of it. However lowly, the work of collector must be done, before we can proceed to higher scientific tasks of classification, analysis, experiment and theory making.
Like the giraffe and the duckbilled platypus, the creatures inhabiting these remoter regions of the mind are exceedingly improbable. Nevertheless they exist, they are facts of observation; and as such, they cannot be ignored by anyone who is honestly trying to understand the world in which he lives.
Aldous Huxley (Heaven and Hell, 1956)
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