96 



MAMMALIA. 



differences among them, they are, taken altogether, 

 much more intelligent, docile, and capable of train- 

 ing, than any of the other animals. 



They are also the animals which are most useful 

 to man ; and, if the expression may be allowed, they 

 are most kindred to him. They bear a part with him 

 in his labour, their flesh supplies him with his best 

 food, and their covering furnishes him with his wannest 

 and most wholesome clothing. They also show 

 attachments to man which are not shown by any 

 other animals ; and many of them have their affection 

 unshaken by even very severe chastisement. 



Mammalia are also more easily studied than any of 

 the other classes of animals. They, generally speak- 

 ing, are, like ourselves, inhabitants of the surface of 

 the earth ; for though a few live habitually in the 

 water, a few others underground, and a few others still 

 make their way through the air by means of flying 

 membranes, yet the characteristic locality of the whole 

 mammalia is the surface of the ground. Generally 

 speaking, too, they do not retreat into holes and 

 hiding places, as is the case with most ground animals 

 of other orders ; they come out openly, and in the 

 majority of instances, to the day, so that their man- 

 ners are much more easily studied than those of any 

 other animals. 



The mammalia have accordingly attracted the 

 attention of mankind in all ages. We find some of 

 the most beautiful allusions to their habits in the 

 writings of the prophets and poets of the Jews, which 

 leave not the least doubt that, whether they had a 

 regular system of the natural history of mammalia 

 or not, they were well acquainted with the nature of 

 the animals. 



That the Greeks and Romans, and other civilised 

 nations of antiquity, paid great attention to this 

 department of nature there is no reason to doubt, 

 though the fragments of their science which have 

 been handed down to us are very imperfect, and in 

 many instances ridiculous. We must not, however, 

 blame them altogether for this ; for the greater num- 

 ber of their works are lost, and of the few that remain 

 the major part have been vitiated by the ignorance 

 of transcribers. It was somewhat unfortunate for the 

 science of the ancients that their language was an 

 object of study in the middle ages, and at the first 

 revival of learning, when the world was destitute of 

 anything worthy the name of science. The conse- 

 quence has been, that transcribers have greatly vitiated 

 the works of the ancients, and they have vitiated 

 none more than the works on natural history ; for 

 they have in many instances so blended together the 

 fanciful allegory of the poet and the true story of 

 the philosopher, that they have turned the whole into 

 something approaching to the ridiculous. Notwith- 

 standing the great learning, and the pure and com- 

 mendable spirit with which the Sacred Volume was 

 rendered into English, in which form it has probably 

 communicated more real knowledge to the people of 

 this country than all the other volumes that ever were 

 written, it is to be feared that there was a sad defi- 

 ciency on the subject of natural history, and that 

 many of the animals as well as the plants which are 

 called by names familiar to us, are not the same 

 species which we call by those names. These, how- 

 ever, are matters which, though they must be regretted, 

 cannot be repaired. 



Among the ancients, the name of Apuleius stands 

 high as an investigator of the animgl kingdom, and of 



the mammalia in particular ; and it is reported of 

 him, that he not only encouraged others to bring to 

 him animals of all kinds, in order that he might study 

 their structure, but that he himself made many long 

 journeys for the same purpose. These works are 

 lost, however, as are those of most of the earlier stu- 

 dents of nature ; and this is much to be regretted, 

 because it is possible that some of those races of 

 mammalia which are now extinct, and found only 

 monumental in the dust, may have been living at the 

 time when those ancients composed their treatises. 

 Of the ancients whose labours are partially known to 

 us, the foremost in respect to the mammalia are Aris- 

 totle the Greek and Pliny the Roman ; the former a 

 most acute thinker and original inquirer, and the 

 second a very laborious but credulous compiler. 

 When we think of the labours of Aristotle in the field 

 of nature, we cannot help associating with his name 

 that of Alexander of Macedon, who perhaps more 

 truly deserves the name of "great" than any conqueror 

 that ever drew sword. Trained under the Stagyrite, 

 and deeply imbued with that love of knowledge and 

 of nature, and that high tone of feeling which such a 

 tutor was calculated to inspire, the Macedonian hero 

 always sought to benefit as well as to conquer ; and 

 though other things are said of him, it is true that he 

 lost his life by a marsh fever, when occupied in a careful 

 investigation as to how the fens in the neighbourhood 

 of Babylon might be drained, and the navigation of the 

 Euphrates improved, so as to admit vessels of burden 

 to his favourite city. 



When, on the death of Philip, Alexander set out 

 on his grand Asiatic expedition, his philosophic tutor 

 declined the hardships of a camp, and preferred the 

 philosophic ease of a residence at Athens. But under 

 these circumstances the pupil and the preceptor did 

 not forget each other ; for there perhaps never was 

 monarch so zealous in promoting science as Alexander. 

 He employed, at an enormous expense, and in all 

 parts of the world over which his sway or his influence 

 extended, many thousands of persons, for the purpose 

 of collecting animals and transmitting them to Aris- 

 totle, in order that that eminent philosopher might 

 render his account of the living world as complete as 

 possible. Every one knows of the severe penalty 

 under which Alexander forbade his army to kill or 

 even disturb the peacocks of India ; and it is also 

 pretty well known that our first tolerable account of 

 the animals of that most abounding laud was attained 

 by him and his followers. 



There is in the popular mind a strong prejudice 

 against Aristotle ; and in so far as his philosophy of 

 the mind was concerned, this prejudice is well founded. 

 But we must not blame Aristotle for this, we must 

 blame those who blindly followed him when he ought 

 not to have been followed, and made his philosophy 

 occupy a place which, in the nature of things, it 

 could not with justice occupy. Without revelation 

 there could have been no proper system of intel- 

 lectual philosophy, because the nature and the exist- 

 ence of mind are revealed truths ; and therefore to 

 set up Aristotle in Christian colleges was exactly the 

 same kind of absurdity as it would be to set up the 

 idols of the Greeks in Christian churches. But these 

 matters have nothing to do with Aristotle as an ob- 

 server and describer of nature ; and in so far as these 

 are concerned, to us unquestionably he is the father 

 of the science, and as such entitled to our warmest 

 gratitude. There is every reason to believe that as 



