ANIMALS. 143 



each jaw ; Bruta, or brutes, "With no cutting teeth; 

 Ferae, or wild beasts, with generally six cutting 

 teeth in each jaw ; Glires, or dormice, with two 

 cutting teeth, both above and below ; Pecora, or 

 cattle, with many cutting teeth above, and none 

 below ; Belluae, or beasts, with the fore-teeth blunt; 

 Cete, or those of the whale kind, with cartilagi- 

 nous teeth. I have but just sketched out this 

 system, as being, in its own nature, the closest 

 abridgment. It would take volumes to dilate it 

 to its proper length. The names of the different 

 animals, and their classes, alone makes two thick 

 octavo volumes ; and yet nothing is given but 

 the slightest description of each. I have omitted 

 all criticism also upon the accuracy of the pre- 

 ceding systems : this has been done both by Buf- 

 fon and Daubenton, not with less truth than hu- 

 mour ; for they had too much good sense not to 

 see the absurdity of multiplying the terms of 

 science to no end, and disappointing our curio- 

 sity rather with a catalogue of nature's varieties 

 than a history of nature. 



Instead, therefore, of taxing the memory and 

 teasing the patience with such a variety of divi- 

 sions and subdivisions, I will take leave to class 

 the productions of nature in the most obvious, 

 though not in the most accurate manner. In 

 natural history, of all other sciences, there is the 

 least danger of obscurity. In morals, or in meta- 

 physics, every definition must be precise, because 

 those sciences are built upon definitions ; but it is- 

 otherwise in those subjects where the exhibition 

 of the object itself is always capable of correcting 



47 



