74? STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



and lie has this merit, which no others possess, that 

 he gave a much fuller compilation upon all that was 

 then known of the animal kingdom, than is to be 

 met with in the records of our science. 



(31.) Having now traced the progress of that 

 school, which, under the guidance of Linnaeus, com- 

 menced about the year 1754, we must cany the at- 

 tention of the reader back to the middle of the last 

 century, when there arose, as we have before stated, a 

 formidable rival to the luminary of the North, in the 

 celebrated BufFon, who, with a pertinacity unworthy 

 of his talents, set out with despising all system, and 

 all technical helps to the communication of know- 

 ledge ; and thus formed a school of his own. It is 

 the character and the progress of this school which 

 we are now to trace. That it had plausible, and 

 even valid, grounds for dissent, is readily admitted ; 

 but had there been a cordiality of spirit between the 

 respective founders and their disciples, their talents 

 might have been united without prejudice to either, 

 and science would have advanced, probably, in a 

 double ratio to that in which it really proceeded. 

 It is easy to despise that which requires trouble to 

 learn ; and to call an animal by a name of our own, 

 regardless of that by which it is known to the world, 

 is obviously neither a proof of sound sense or of 

 good judgment. Yet such was one of the charac- 

 teristics of the school of BufFon, who set out with 

 rejecting the classic names of all his predecessors, 

 substituting for them a barbarous nomenclature, 

 composed of words half savage, half French, with- 

 out meaning or without sense. Natural history, 

 i ider such a principle, would have become unin- 



