MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 197 



contented themselves with things of the most trifling 

 nature, more fitted to please the eye than to enlighten 

 the mind. The most brilliant shells, the most varied 

 pebbles, the bast cut and most brilliant gems, usually 

 formed the main body of their collections. 



Daubenton, aided by Buffon, and profiting by the 

 means which the credit of his friend obtained for him 

 from the Government, conceived and executed a more 

 extensive plan. He thought that none of the produc- 

 tions of Nature should be excluded from her temple. 

 He conceived, that such of these productions as we 

 regard as the most important, cannot be well known 

 but by comparing them with all others ; that there are 

 none of them, which, by their numerous relations, are 

 not connected more or less directly with the rest of 

 Nature. He therefore excluded none, and made the 

 greatest efforts to collect all. He executed, in parti- 

 cular, that great number of anatomical preparations 

 which for a long time distinguished the Cabinet of Paris, 

 and which, though less agreeable to the vulgar eye, are 

 most useful to the man who will not limit his researches 

 to the surface of created beings, and who endeavours 

 to render natural history a philosophical science, by 

 making it explain the phenomena it describes. 



The study and arrangement of these treasures had 

 become in him a true passion, the only one, perhaps, 

 that was ever remarked in him. He shut himself up, 

 for entire days, in the Cabinet. He reviewed, in a 

 thousand ways, the objects he had assembled there ; ha 



