MEMOIR OF LIXX^EUS. 71 



be found uniting in the same degree all the quali- 

 ties which constitute these different characters, 01 

 capable of achieving so wonderful a reformation in 

 all these several branches of natural history ? 



Aristotle, considered as ft Naturalist, was un- 

 doubtedly a man of powerful genius ; but independ- 

 ently of his treating more particularly of animals 

 only, we know that for want of materials, and con- 

 sequently of more extended observation, he was 

 unable to establish accurate or comprehensive classi- 

 fications. LinnaBus, on the other hand, excelled in 

 those qualifications of method and arrangement in 

 which the Greek philosopher was defective. Pliny 

 and Dioscorides succeeded in collecting a vast num- 

 ber of facts, which they arranged methodically ; but 

 they seemed incapable of appreciating their value, 

 or of assigning them their proper place in any 

 general system. Their works appear like the point 

 of transition between an age of ignorance, when 

 every thing is amassed without order, and those 

 enlightened times w r hen the human mind, better 

 informed, and consequently more inquisitive, will 

 adopt nothing on hazard, or without ascertaining 

 its relative position among other phenomena of the 

 same class. Those ancient philosophers lived when 

 natural science w T as yet in embryo. Some of the 

 materials which they supplied were admirably fitted 

 to be incorporated in the edifice reared by Linnaeus ; 

 but to institute comparisons between them, is to do 



