XVi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
the system of common education, will become, perhaps, the 
principal one. By it, the student is exercised in that part of 
logic which is termed method, just as he is by geometry in 
that of syllogism, because natural history is the science which 
requires the most precise methods, as geometry is that which 
demands the most rigorous reasoning. Now this art of me- 
thod, once well acquired, may be applied with ‘nfinite advan- 
tage to studies the most foreign to natural history. Every dis- 
cussion which supposes a classification of facts, every research 
which demands a distribution of matters, is performed accord- 
ing to the same laws; and he who had cultivated this science 
merely for amusement, is surprised at the facilities it affords 
him in disentangling and arranging all kinds of affairs. 
It is not less useful in solitude. Sufliciently extensive to 
satisfy the most powerful mind, sufficiently various and inte- 
resting to calm the most agitated soul, it sheds consolation in 
the bosom of the unhappy, and stills the angry waves of envy 
and hatred. Once elevated to the contemplation of that har- 
mony of nature irresistibly regulated by Providence, how weak 
and trivial appear those causes which it has been pleased to 
leave dependent on the will of man! How astonishing to be- 
hold so many fine minds, consuming themselves so uselessly for 
their own happiness or that of others, in the pursuit of vain 
combinations, whose very traces a few years suflice to sweep 
away. 
I avow it—these ideas have always been present to my mind, 
the companions of my labours; and if I have endeavoured by 
every means in my power to advance this peaceful study, it is 
because, in my opinion, it is more capable than any other of 
supplying that want of occupation, which has so largely con- 
tributed to the troubles of our age—but I must return to my 
subject. : 
There yet remains the task of accounting for the principal 
changes I have effected in the latest received methods, and 
to acknowledge the amount of my obligations to those natu- 
ralists, whose works have furnished or suggested a part of 
them. 
