本文所要提出的問題是：古人認知自然界物種的方式為何？在古代中國的學術傳統裡，這類學問大概可以歸類在「博物知識」的範疇裡。不過，近現代之前中國具有博物旨趣的著作雖然頗多，但卻鮮少提及「博物」的「取徑」。然而，具有博物旨趣的文本，長期以來還是成為傳統中國知識分子理解自然界物類的窗口。然而，問題在於，倘若窗口原本就開得未臻完美，那倚窗瞭望的人們又能看見多少「真實的世界」？
本文的主旨亦不在校正對錯。本文所意欲探討的，乃是一種存在於傳統博物知識裡的形象堆疊方式，以及這種方式何以能存續不絕的原因。本文的設想是：一種在體質上傾向於「認知世間事物」的文本，儘管受到各種因素的影響，以致與「真實」有所落差，但它仍然能夠在長時間裡穩坐人們認知自然的主要範本。那麼，究竟是什麼樣的機制，使得該類文本的編者與讀者，都一致咸信他們所認知的「真實」乃是「真正的真實」？關於這點，由於可供研討的史料卷秩繁浩，因此本文擬以「犀角」與「犀牛」來進行個案研究。

The major issue of this article is: How did ancients identify species of the natural world? This subject may be categorized within the scope of ”natural history” in the traditional science of ancient China. Even though huge numbers of documents involved in natural history were produced before modern times in China, very few mentioned their ”access” to the natural history. However, for a long time, those documents have been deemed as the ”window” for traditional Chinese intellectuals to see through the various kinds of species in the world of nature. The question is: How much people could observe if the ”window” itself had been set on an incorrect angle?
The purpose of this article is not to tell right or wrong, but to study the method of image creation in the knowledge of traditional natural history, and the reason why such method could exist for a long period of time. The idea of this article is even though being affected by different kinds of elements and having sort of gap with the so-called ”reality,” a document which is applied to identify the ”nature of things” could still be used by people as a sample to recognize the nature for such a long term. What kind of mechanism could persuade the editors and readers of such documents to believe that the ”reality” in their perception is the true reality? Because there is enormous amount of documentation could be used as reference on this subject, this article will be focus on ”rhinoceros” and ”rhinoceros horns” as an example.