XVJ PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



the system of common education^ will become, perhaps, the 

 principal one. By it, the student is exercised in that part of 

 logic which is termed method, just as he is by geometry in 

 that of syllogism, because natural history is the science which 

 requires the most precise methods, as geometry is that which 

 demands the most rigorous reasoning. Now this art of me- 

 thod, once well acquired, may be applied with infinite advan- 

 tage to studies the most foreign to natural history. Every dis- 

 cussion which supposes a classification of facts, every research 

 which demands a distribution of matters, is performed accord- 

 ing to the same laws; and he who had cultivated this science 

 merely for amusement, is surprised at the facilities it affords 

 him in disentangling and arranging all kinds of affairs. 



It is not less useful in solitude. Sufiiciently extensive to 

 satisfy the most powerful mind, sufiiciently various and inte- 

 resting to calm the most agitated soul, it sheds consolation in 

 the bosom of the unhappy, and stills the angry waves of envy 

 and hatred. Once elevated to the contemplation of that har- 

 mony of nature irresistibly regulated by Providence, how weak 

 and trivial appear those causes which it has been pleased to 

 leave dependent on the will of man ! How astonishing to be- 

 hold so many fine minds, consuming themselves so uselessly for 

 their own happiness or that of others, in the pursuit of vain 

 combinations, whose very traces a few years suffice to sweep 

 away. 



I avow it these ideas have always been present to my mind, 

 the companions of my labours ; and if I have endeavoured by 

 every means in my power to advance this peaceful study, it is 

 because, in my opinion, it is more capable than any other of 

 supplying that want of occupation, which has so largely con- 

 tributed to the troubles of our age but I must return to my 

 subject. 



There yet remains the task of accounting for the principal 

 changes I have effected in the latest received methods, and 

 to acknowledge the amount of my obligations to those natu- 

 ralists, whose works have furnished or suggested a part of 

 them. 



