86 ARISTOTLE'S HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 



not unfrequently a broken and confused one. 

 In Aristotle I find a great quantity of infor- 

 mation, indicating extraordinary acuteness on 

 his part as an observer, and uncommon in- 

 dustry and perseverance; but as regards its 

 communication, expressed too often so gene- 

 rally as to be of little avail. 



PISCATOR. His history of animals is a re- 

 markable treatise ; and in considering it, we 

 should remember the time when it was written, 

 and the plan of the work, how, it may be 

 presumed, the author had little help from the 

 writings of others, was chiefly dependent on 

 his own observations ; and how he undertook 

 not to enter on the history of animals in detail, 

 that boundless expanse of created living 

 things, but merely to give a general sketch 

 of the more remarkable families. 



AMICTTS, What you say may be just ; I will 

 not question it ; or that Aristotle was the father 

 of Natural History, and that we are under 

 great obligations to him; but surely, it wag 

 unfortunate that so great a master, who became 

 so great an authority, should have adopted such 

 a method. 



PISCATOR. Let us think of him in his ex 



