MONSTERS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 735 



When we analyze the works of all these writers we are 

 astonished to find, side by side, so much science and credu- 

 lity, so much exactness and error ! Thus Scheuchzer, a 

 naturalist deeply imbued with religion, in his "Itinerary of 

 Switzerland," describes with minute precision all the locali- 

 ties in the Alps, all the animals to be found there, and every 

 flower that blooms in their valleys. Every object is drawn 

 with extraordinary skill ; there is so much delicacy in his 

 engravings that the humblest moss may be recognized. But 

 along with these faithful representations of nature we find 

 frightful aerial monsters ; winged dragons, which swarm in 

 the obscure windings of roads, and stop the alarmed trav- 

 eller. The perusal of the work of this author might well 

 have sufficed to prevent our credulous ancestors from ven- 

 turing into the gorges of the Alps, or searching into their 

 dark caverns ! 



Kircher the Jesuit, who was one of the most progressive 

 men of his epoch, fell into the most deplorable errors. He 

 represents frightful dragons which guard the riches of the 

 earth, and which must be vanquished before obtaining pos- 

 session of them. And, as we sometimes find in caverns the 

 bones of bears, hyenas, and other mammals, this was enough 

 in times of such credulity to make men assign (as was par- 

 ticularly the case in Franconia) the fossilized remains of 

 these ancient animals to fabulous reptiles. 



It is particularly at the height of the Renaissance that we 

 see this love of monstrosity reach its climax ; every author 

 then thought himself obliged to devote a few chapters of 

 his work to it. Aldrovandus, a naturalist of Bologna, a 

 profoundly learned man, even wrote a big work on mon- 



