INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE 
ON THE 
RISE AND PROGRESS 
OF 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
DELIVERED BY THE PRESIDENT, APRIL 8, 1788. 
HE Study of Nature, that is an attention to the ground on 
which we tread, the vegetables which clothe and adorn it, 
and the boundlefs variety of living creatures prefenting themfelves 
to our notice on every fide, muft have been one of the firft occu- 
pations of man in a ftate of nature. In no country hitherto dif- 
covered, however barbarous and unenlightened, is the human race 
found fo negligent and helplefs as not to have inveftigated the 
natural bodies around them, fo far at leaft as from thence to fupply 
B their 
