ANIMALS. 137 



ral, seem to think that they are improvers of natu- 

 ral history, when in reality they are but guides ; 

 they seem to boast that they are adding to our 

 knowledge, while they are only arranging it. 

 These authors also seem to think, that the read- 

 ing of their works and systems is the best method 

 to attain a knowledge of nature. But setting 

 aside the impossibility of getting through whole 

 volumes of a dry long catalogue, the multiplicity 

 of whose contents is too great for even the strong- 

 est memory, such works rather tell us the names 

 than the history of the creatures we desire to in- 

 quire after. In these dreary pages, every insect 

 or plant that has a name makes as distinguished a 

 figure as the most wonderful or the most useful. 

 The true end of studying nature is to make a just 

 selection, to find those parts of it that most con- 

 duce to our pleasure or convenience, and to leave 

 the rest in neglect. But these systems, employ- 

 ing the same degree of attention upoivall, give 

 us no opportunities of knowing which most de- 

 serves attention ; and he who has made his know- 

 ledge from such systems only, has his memory 

 crowded with a number of trifling or minute par- 

 ticulars, which it should be his business and his 

 labour to forget. These books, as was said be- 

 fore, are useful to be consulted, but they are very 

 unnecessary to be read ; no inquirer into nature 

 should be without one of them, and without any 

 doubt, Linnseus deserves the preference. 



One fault more in almost all these systematic 

 writers, and that which leads me to the subject of 

 the present chapter, is, that seeing the necessity 



