XXIV PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



amusement, is surprised, wlien he makes the experiment, at the facilities 

 it affords him in disentangling all kinds of affairs. 



It is not less useful in solitude. Sufficiently comprehensive to satisfy 

 the most powerful mind, sufficiently various and interesting to calm the 

 most agitated soul, it consoles the unhappy, and calms animosities. Once 

 elevated to the contemplation of that harmony of nature irresistibly re- 

 gulated by Providence, how weak and insignificant appear those causes 

 which it has been pleased to leave dependent on the arbitrary will of man! 

 How astonishing to behold so many examples of fine genius consuming 

 themselves so vainly for their own happiness, or that of others, in the pur- 

 suit of empty speculations, whose very traces a few years suffice to sweep- , 

 away ! 



I boldly avow it — these ideas have always been present to my mind in 

 my laborious hours ; and if I have endeavoured by every means in my 

 power to diffuse this peaceful study, it is because, in my opinion, it is 

 more capable than any other of supplying that want of occupation which 

 has so largely contributed to the disorders of our age — but I must return 

 to my subject. 



There yet remains the task of accounting for the principal changes I 

 have effected in the latest received methods, and to acknowledge the 

 amount of my obligations to those naturalists whose works have furnished 

 or suggested a part of them. 



To anticipate a remark which will naturally present itself to many, I 

 must observe that I have neither desired nor pretended to class animals 

 so as to form one single line, or so as to mark their relative superiority. 

 I even consider every attempt of this kind impracticable. Thus, I do 

 not mean that such of the Mammalia or of the Birds as come last are 

 the most imperfect of their class; still less do I believe that the last of 

 the Mammalia are more perfect than the first of the Birds, the last of 

 the Mollusca more so than the first of the Annulata or of the Radiata, 

 even confining the meaning of this vague expression, most perfect, to 

 that of most completely organized. I regard my divisions and subdivi- 

 sions as merely the graduated expression of the resemblance of the 

 beings which enter into each of them ; and although in some we observe 

 a sort of degeneration or transition from one species to the other, which 

 cannot be denied, this disposition is far from being general. The pre- 

 tended scale of beings is but an erroneous application to the whole crea- 

 tion of those partial observations, which are only true when confined to 

 the limits within which they were made — and this application has, in my 

 opinion, prejudiced the progress of natural history in modern times, to an 

 extent which it is not easy to imagine. 



It is in conformity with these views that I have established my general 

 tiivision into four sections, which have already been made known in a se- 



