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THE

PREFACE

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DOCTOR BROOKES'S

NEW AND ACCURATE SYSTEM OF

NATURAL HISTORY.

PUBLISHED IN MDCCLXIII.

PREFACE.

Of all the studies which have employed the industrious or amused the idle, perhaps natural history deserves the preference: other sciences generally terminate in doubt, or rest in bare speculation; but here every step is marked with certainty; and, while a description of the objects around us teaches to supply our wants, it satisfies our curiosity.

The multitude of nature's productions, however, seems at first to bewilder the inquirer, rather than excite his attention; the various wonders of the animal, vegetable, or mineral world, seem to exceed all powers of computation, and the science appears barren from its amazing fertility. But a nearer acquaintance with this study, by giving method to our researches, points out a similitude in many objects which at first appeared different; the mind by degrees rises to consider the things before it in general lights, till at length it finds nature, in almost every instance, acting with her usual simplicity.

Among the number of philosophers who, undaunted by their supposed variety, have attempted to give a description of the productions of nature, Aristotle deserves the first place. This great philosopher was furnished, by his

In

pupil Alexander, with all that the then known world could produce to complete his design. By such parts of his work as have escaped the wreck of time, it appears, that he understood nature more clearly, and in a more comprehensive manner, than even the present age, enlightened as it is with so many later discoveries, can boast. His design appears vast, and his knowledge extensive; he only considers things in general lights, and leaves every subject when it becomes too minute or remote to be useful. his History of Animals, he first describes man, and makes him a standard with which to compare the deviations in every more imperfect kind that is to follow. But if he has excelled in the history of each, he, together with Pliny and Theophrastus, has failed in the exactness of their descriptions. There are many creatures, described by those naturalists of antiquity, which are so imperfectly characterized, that it is impossible to tell to what animal now subsisting we can refer the description. This is an unpardonable neglect, and alone sufficient to depreciate their merits; but their credulity, and the mutilations they have suffered by time, have rendered them still less useful, and justify each subsequent attempt to improve what they have left behind. The most laborious, as well as the most voluminous naturalist among the moderns, is Aldrovandus. He was furnished with every requisite for making an extensive body of natural history. He was learned and rich, and during the course of a long life, indefatigable and accurate. his works are insupportably tedious and disgusting, filled with unnecessary quotations and unimportant digressions. Whatever learning he had he was willing should be known, and, unwearied himself, he supposed his readers could never tire: in short, he appears a useful assistant to those who would compile a body of natural history, but is ut

But

terly unsuited to such as only wish to read it with profit and delight.

Gesner and Jonston, willing to abridge the voluminous productions of Aldrovandus, have attempted to reduce natural history into method, but their efforts have been so incomplete as scarcely to deserve mentioning. Their attempts were improved upon, some time after, by Mr Ray, whose method we have adopted in the history of quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, which is to follow. No systematical writer has been more happy than he in reducing natural history into a form, at once the shortest, yet most comprehensive.

The subsequent attempts of Mr Klein and Linnæus, it is true, have had their admirers, but, as all methods of classing the productions of nature are calculated merely to ease the memory and enlighten the mind, that writer who answers such ends with brevity and perspicuity, is most worthy of regard. And, in this respect, Mr Ray undoubtedly remains still without a rival: he was sensible that no accurate idea could be formed from a mere distribution of animals in particular classes; he has therefore ranged them according to their most obvious qualities; and, content with brevity in his distribution, has employed accuracy only in the particular description of every animal. This intentional inaccuracy only in the general system of Ray, Klein and Linnæus have undertaken to amend; and thus by multiplying divisions, instead of impressing the mind with distinct ideas, they only serve to confound it, making the language of the science more difficult than even the science itself.

All order whatsoever is to be used for the sake of brevity and perspicuity; we have therefore followed that of Mr Ray in preference to the rest, whose method of classing

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