BUFFON FULLER QUOTATIONS. 141 



having denominations only for its end ! For seeing 

 that nomenclature has been mistaken for knowledge, 

 men have made it their chief business to multiply 

 names, instead of limiting things ; they have crushed 

 themselves under the burden of details, and been on the 

 look out for differences where there was no distinction. 

 When they had given a new name they conceived of it 

 as a new thing, and described the smallest parts with 

 the most minutious exactness, while the description of 

 some still smaller part, forgotten or neglected by pre- 

 vious anatomists, has been straightway hailed as a 

 discovery. The denominations themselves being often 

 taken from things which had no relation to the object 

 that it was desired to denominate, have served but to 

 confound confusion. The part of the brain, for example, 

 which is called testes and nates, wherein does it so 

 differ from the rest of the brain that it should deserve 

 a name ? These names, taken at haphazard or spring- 

 ing from some preconceived opinion, have themselves 

 become the parents of new prejudices and speculations ; 

 other names given to parts which have been ill observed, 

 or which are even non-existent, have been sources of 

 new errors. What functions and uses has it not been 

 attempted to foist upon the pineal gland, and on the 

 alleged empty space in the brain which is called the 

 arch, the first of which is but a gland, while the very 

 existence of the other is doubtful, the empty space 

 being perhaps produced by the hand of the anatomist 

 and the method of dissection." * 



* Tom. vii. p. 23, 1758. See Stenon's Discourse upon this sub- 

 ject. 



