Natural History, 1 1 3 



tecdingiy defective; and, in some of the king- 

 doms of nature, few attempts of the kind had 

 been made. It is not necessary to remind the 

 intelligent reader how much this deficiency must 

 hav^e perplexed and retarded the inquirer, at every 

 step of his course. It was reserved for Linnjeus, 

 a man equally distinguished for the benevolence 

 and piety of his heart, the extent of his learning, 

 and the greatness of his views, to remedy the de- 

 fect. To his luminous and expanded mind, the 

 arduous task of generalizing and arranging seemed 

 to be an easy and familiar process. He introduced 

 new methods of classification into all the more 

 important branches of natural history; made large 

 additions to its known facts and principles; ex- 

 cited a thirst, before unequalled, for this kind of 

 knowledge ; and prepared the way for a great por- 

 tion of the improvements which have been made 

 by succeeding naturalists. 



While the last age produced much new light 

 in the philosophy of natural history, and added 

 immense riches to its former stores, it also gave 

 to this science new distinction as an object of 

 study in seminaries of learning. — At the close of 

 the seventeenth century, it is believed, few pro- 

 fessorships had been instituted, even in the most 

 distinguished universities, for instructing youth in 

 this interesting department of knowledge. Since 

 that time few important colleges or universities 

 have failed to add such professorships to their 

 former plans of instruction, and to place natural 

 history among the indispensable objects of atten- 

 tion in an academic course. By these and other 

 means new honours have been bestowed on this 

 branch of science, new encouragement given to 

 the zeal and exertions of inquirers, new roads to 

 improvement opened, and new opportunities af^ 

 forded, at once, of diffusing a taste for investi- 



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