Abstract

The author considers that the basic principles and concepts of natural history that distinguish it from biology, namely, the law of continuity, interpretation of a living being as a natural body, focus on the description of the surface of the living body, recognition of equivalence of properties, use of procedures of 'identy and differences' for the designation of place of living being in the universe, the denial of naturalness of classification hierarchy, the interpretation of the taxon as a place in the universe, the dependence of taxon name from its location. He claims that the law of continuity of natural history should be considered as the basis of modern concepts in the taxonomy and theory of evolution. He notes that the geometric approach that was typical for natural history is now widely used to describe the living beings. The author argues that in the context of modern phylogenetics biodiversity is interpreted as only spacely structured.