68 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



whence we may fairly conclude, that their silence 

 in respect to the small quadrupeds, and their ne- 

 glect in distinguishing the species which very 

 nearly resemble each other, as the various species 

 of antelopes, and of some other genera, were occa- 

 sioned by want of attention and ignorance of me- 

 thodical arrangement, rather than by any diffi- 

 culty proceeding from climate. We may also 

 conclude, with equal certainty, that, as the lapse 

 of eighteen or twenty centuries, together with the 

 advantages of circumnavigating Africa, and of pe- 

 netrating into India, have added nothing in this 

 department to the information left us by the an- 

 cients, there is no probability that succeeding 

 ages will add much to the knowledge of our po- 

 sterity. 



But perhaps some persons may be disposed to 

 employ an opposite train of argument, and to al- 

 lege that the ancients were not only acquainted 

 with as many large qradupeds as we are, as has 

 already been shewn, but that they have described 

 several others which we do not now know, that 

 we act rashly in considering these animals as fabu- 

 lous, that we ought to search for them before 

 concluding that we have exhausted the history 

 of the present animal creation, and, in fine, that 

 among those animals which we presume to be fa- 

 bulous, we may, perhaps, discover, when we be- 

 come better acquainted with them, the originals 



