117 



BOOK VII/ 



M-\X, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVEN- 

 TION OF THE ARTS. 



CHAP. 1. MA3f. 



Such then is the present state of the world, and of the coun- 

 tries, nations, more remarkable seas, islands, and cities which it 

 contains.^ The nature of the animated beings which exist 

 npon it, is hardly in any degree less worthy of our contem- 

 plation than its other features ; if, indeed, the human mind 

 is able to embrace the whole of so diversified a subject. Our 

 first attention is justly due to Man, for whose sake all other 

 things appear to have been produced by Nature : though, on 

 the other hand, with so great and so severe penalties for the 

 enjoyment of her bounteous gifts, that it is far from easy to 

 determine, whether she has proved to him a kind parent, or a 

 merciless step-mother. 



In the first place, she obliges him alone, of all animated 

 beings, to clothe himself with the spoils of the others ; while, to 

 all the rest, she has given various kinds of coverings, such as 

 shells, crusts, spines, hides, furs, bristles, hair, down, feathers, 

 scales, and fleeces.^ The very trunks of the trees even, she has 

 protected against the effects of heat and cold by a bark, which 

 is, in some cases, twofold.* Man alone, at the very moment of 



^ "We here enter upon the third division of Pliny's Natural History, 

 which treats of Zoology, from the 7th to the 11th inclusive. Cu\ier 

 has illustrated this part by many valuable notes, which originally appeared 

 in Lemaire's Bibliotheque Classiqm, 1827, and were afterwards incorporated, 

 with some additions, by Ajasson, in his translation of Pliny, published in 

 1829 ; Ajasson is the editor of this portion of Pliny's Natui-al History, 

 in Lemaire's Edition. — B. 



2 This remark refers to the five preceding books, in which these sub- 

 jects have been treated in detail. — B. 



3 We have a similar remark in Cicero, De. Nat. Deor. ii. 47.— -B. 



* Ajasson remarks, that trees have two barks, an outer, and an inner and 

 thinner one ; but seems to think that by the word " gemino" here, Pliny 

 only means that the bark of trees is sometimes double its ordinary 

 thickness. 



