RISE AND PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 25 
talent which left her without a rival. It is difficult 
to trace, at this present time, the real causes which 
led to this new and vigorous prosecution of science ; 
yet we are disposed to trace it, at least in part, to 
the writings of the immortal Bacon, the effect of 
whose sound philosophy first began to appear in the 
land of his birth, where it disencumbered science 
from the trammels of scholastic lore and ancient 
tradition, teaching men to think for themselves, 
and not to pin their faith upon the legends of 
antiquity. Certain, however, it is, that simplicity 
and perspicuity in writing upon the works of 
nature first originated in this country, and that the 
introduction of order and of system in the arrange- 
ment of his works, in this age of the world, entirely 
originated from the great and united talents of 
Lister, Ray, and Willughby, contemporaries of each 
other, and alike directing their labours, though in 
different departments, to one and the same object. 
Of Lister we have already spoken, while the labours 
of Ray and Willughby are so much interwoven, 
that at first it appears difficult to decide which was 
the most pre-eminent. Ray, with that candour and 
simplicity which pervades all his writings, assigns 
to his learned friend and patron the whole merit of 
that ornithological arrangement which subsequent 
writers have so erroneously given to himself *; nor 
does it appear that Ray did more than augment the 
‘‘ descriptions and histories” of his deceased friend's 
* « Viewing his manuscripts after his (Willughby’s) death, 
I found the several animals in every kind, both birds, beasts, 
fishes, and insects, digested into a method of his own contriving.” 
Ray’s Preface, p. 4. 
