MEMOIR OF PLINY. 75 



ever, the manner in which he has collected and stated 

 them, makes them lose a considerable portion of 

 their value ; not only from his mingling together the 

 true and the false, hut more especially from the diffi- 

 culty, and sometimes the impossibility, of discover- 

 ing to what creatures he alludes. He was not such 

 an observer of nature as Aristotle ; still less was lie 

 a man of genius sufficient to seize, like that great 

 philosopher, the laws and relations by which nature 

 has regulated her various productions. He is in ge- 

 neral nothing more than a mere compiler ; and often 

 too a compiler unacquainted himself with the mat- 

 ters about which he treats, and unable to compre- 

 hend the true force and exact meaning of the opi- 

 nions which he has collected from others. The ex- 

 tracts from the works of others he has arranged un- 

 der certain chapters, adding thereunto from time to 

 time his own reflections, which have nothing to do 

 with scientific discussion, properly so called, but 

 either present specimens of the most superstitious 

 belief, or are the declamations of a peevish and cha- 

 grined philosopher. The facts which he has accu- 

 mulated, therefore, ought not to be regarded in their 

 relations to the opinions which he himself forms, but 

 judged by the rules of sound criticism, in conformity 

 with what we know of the writers themselves, and 

 the circumstances in which they were placed. 



On comparing his extracts with the originals, wheie 

 the latter have been preserved, and more particularly 

 with the writings of Aristotle, whom he professes to 



