SCIENTIFIC METHOD 39 



of a butterfly ; a third shall see a little world on a peach 

 leaf, and publish a book to describe what his readers 

 might see more clearly in two minutes only by being 

 furnished with eyes and a microscope. Yet, believe 

 me, my friend, ridiculous as these men are to the world, 

 they set up as objects of esteem for each other. They 

 have particular places appointed for their meetings ; in 

 which one shows his cockle-shell and is praised by all 

 the society, another produces his powder, makes some 

 experiments that result in nothing, and comes off with 

 admiration and applause ; a third comes out with the 

 important discovery of some new process in the skeleton 

 of a mole, and is set down as the accurate and sensible ; 

 whilst one, still more fortunate than the rest, by pickling, 

 potting, and preserving monsters, rises into unbounded 

 reputation.' 



' The labours of such men instead of being calculated 

 to amuse the public are laid out only in diverting each 

 other. The world becomes very little the better or 

 wiser for knowing what is the peculiar food of an insect 

 that is itself the food of another, which in its turn is 

 eaten by a third; but there are men who have studied 

 themselves into a habit of investigating and admiring 

 such minutiae. To these such subjects are pleasing.' 



There runs through the whole of this delicious passage 

 that delicate humour which is so characteristic of Gold- 

 smith's writings ; as a satire, however, it is directed 

 against the opinion of the town which the Citizen of the 

 World is represented as describing. Goldsmith himself 

 had some biological interests, as evidenced by his 

 Familiar introduction to the study of Natural History 

 and by his Animated Nature}- 



1 Goldsmith was, however, in no sense a naturalist ; he was not even 

 qualified to write about science, and his so-called scientific essays are 



