4 PRECISE AND COMPLETE SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 



many other branches of natural knowledge. The extreme ac- 

 curacy of many of the anatomical details, and the sagacity 

 and truth of the classification, contained in Aristotle's His- 

 tory of Animals, has been either abundantly shown, ostensibly, 

 by Cuvier and Macleay, or may be gathered from many pas- 

 sages in their works. On one interesting subject, already 

 mentioned in these pages, the History of Meteorites, which is 

 intimately related both to Astronomy and Geology, and re- 

 quires for its complete investigation the exercise also of con- 

 siderable knowledge in Chemistry and Mineralogy, I have 

 myself had occasion to institute an extensive examination of 

 the relations of the ancients. This examination I have found 

 highly useful, in conducting a detailed inquiry on the subject. 

 The ancient and modern relations of the fall of iron and stones 

 from the heavens, mutually illustrate and explain each other; 

 and the former, when scrutinized by our present knowledge of 

 the atmosphere and the laws of combustion, &c., afford many 

 points of information, which contribute to elucidate the in- 

 timate history of modern instances, in which these phseno- 

 mena have been witnessed. 



For those students, therefore, who may have to direct the 

 critical pursuits of future times, and who may become en- 

 gaged in the cultivation of Classical Literature for the sake 

 of the knowledge to be derived from it, we have in the facts 

 which have just been related, a still stronger reason than that 

 already urged, why they should unite some degree of the 

 knowledge of nature, especially in the departments compre- 

 hended under Natural History, with their acquirements in 

 those languages in which the literature they are to investigate 

 is composed. The actual knowledge of the ancients we can 

 never become fully acquainted with, and never adequately ap- 

 preciate, until profound scholarship shall be united with ex- 

 tensive acquirements in Physical Science, and both with the 

 knowledge of what may already have been effected, in those 

 departments of either study which bear reciprocally upon the 

 other. 



It must be remembered, however, that the scientific know- 

 ledge required in the investigation of ancient history, and 

 generally in elucidating the relations of ancient authors, must 

 be as precise and complete as it is extensive. Imperfect and 

 merely popular information on the subjects of science, when 

 applied to critical inquiries, will serve only to introduce con- 

 fusion into statements originally clear, and to involve difficult 

 points in still greater obscurity. An instructive example of 

 this is presented by the main object of the researches of Mr. 

 Baily, which have already been cited, with which the history 



