A scientist who seeks to explain the actual universe, or any (nonhuman) part of it, in detail as it is, in terms of its concrete history, can properly be called a natural historian - he is literally concerned with the history of nature. The natural philosopher on the other hand is devoted to the search for fundamental laws of the highest possible generality – laws which he hopes will apply throughout space and time. For the natural historian, the laws of natural philosophy are not ends in themselves, but tools for the understanding of the actual universe … The mode of thought typical of the natural historian … is much more akin to that of Sherlock Holmes than to those of Newton, Einstein, Bohr or Rutherford.