ANIMALS. 43'J 



we sedulously attend to each in its place, and regularly class 

 them, they will soon be found to diminish, and come within a 

 very scanty computation. 



Method is one of the principal helps in natural history, and 

 without it very little progress can be made in this science. It 

 is by that alone we can hope to dissipate the glare, if I may so 

 express it, which arises from a multiplicity of objects at once 

 presenting themselves to the view. It is method that fixes the 

 attention to one point, and leads it, by slow and certain degrees, 

 to leave no part of nature unobserved. 



All naturalists, therefore, have been very careful in adopting 

 some method of classing or grouping the several parts of nature , 

 and some have written books of natural history with no other 

 view. These methodical divisions some have treated with con- 

 tempt,' not considering that books, in general, are written with 

 opposite views ; some to be read, and some only to be occasion, 

 ally consulted. The methodists in natural history stem to be 

 content with the latter advantage ; and have sacrificed to order 

 alone, all the delights of the subject, all the arts of heightening, 

 awakening, or continuing curiosity. But they certainly have 

 the same use in science, that a dictionary has in language ; but 

 with this difference, that in a dictionary we proceed from the 

 name to the definition ; in a system of natural history, we pro- 

 ceed from the definition to find out the thing. Without the aid 

 of system, nature must still have lain undistinguished, like fur- 

 niture in a lumber-room : every thing we wish for is there in- 

 deed, but we know not where to find it. If, for instance, in a 

 morning excursion, I find a plant, or an insect, the name of 

 which I desire to learn ; or, perhaps, am curious to know whe- 

 ther already known ; in this inquiry I can expect information only 

 from one of these systems, which being couched in a methodi- 

 cal form, quickly directs me to what I seek for. Thus we will 

 suppose that our inquirer has met with a spider, and tliat he has 

 never seen such an insect before. He is taught by the writer of 

 a system* to examine whether it has wings, and he finds it has 

 none. He, therefore, is to look for it among the wingless in- 

 sects, or the Ajjtera, as Linnceus calls them : he then is to see 

 whether the head and breast make one part of the body, or are 



1 Mr Bufiun in Iiis Iiitroductiuu, &c. 2 Liiiiia:ii3. 



