BTJFFON. 155 



to the utility he may be enabled to derive from them ; 

 he mil consider them in measure as they present them- 

 selves more familiarly to his eyes ; and he will arrang 

 them in his mind relatively to this order of his know- 

 ledge, because such is, in fact, the order in which he has 

 acquired them, and according to which it is necessary 

 he should preserve them. This order, the most natural 

 of all, is that which we have believed it our duty to 

 adopt. Our method is not more mysterious than the 

 one we have just seen." 



On reading this quotation we cannot but wonder when 

 we perceive to what lengths prejudice or prepossession 

 for a favourite doctrine may lead an author, and when 

 the period at which Buff on wrote these remarks is 

 taken into consideration, surprise will increase. AVhen 

 he wrote the foregoing more than half a century had 

 elapsed since Ray and Tournefort had published their 

 great works on method; the ideas of Bernard de 

 Jussien had begun to spread, and Iinnseus had given 

 to the world his " Fundamenta Botanica," the first 

 germ of a new philosophy of the science. 



After the completion of his history of quadrupeds 

 in 1767, Buff on was interrupted in the progress oi 

 his labours by a severe illness, and therefore the 

 two first volumes of his " History of Bird-" did not 

 appear till the year 1771. In the composition of the 

 greatest part of these he was indebted to the labours 

 of M. G-ulneau de Montbeillard, who adhered s«» dnsely 

 to Buffon's mode of thinking and of expression that 

 the public could not perceive any difference between 

 the style of writing of the two. The four subsequent 



