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. 



