218 Notice of British Naturalists. 



nature, are exempt from the influence of time and the immuta- 

 bihty of learning. Had this extraordinary man left us no other 

 memorial of his talents than his researches in zoology, he would 

 still be looked upon as one of the greatest philosophers of ancient 

 Greece, even in its highest and brightest age. 



" With pecuhar tact he brought the rules of philosophic reason- 

 ing to bear upon a subject to that time neglected ; upon the ex- 

 tent and depth of his personal researches ; upon the clearness 

 with which he arranged his results ; and above all, upon those 

 obscure perceptions which he acquired while so employed, of hid- 

 den truths which were to be developed only in subsequent ages. 



" He discarded from his work all those popular tales, and fan- 

 cies, and beliefs, which were received by the mass of his coun- 

 trymen as religious truths sanctioned by antiquity, interwoven in 

 their history and consecrated in their poetry. The death of this 

 great father of the science, was the death of natural history in 

 the Grecian era. The splendor of his discoveries passed like a 

 comet. He left no luminary behind to follow his wake, still less, 

 to throv/ additional light upon realms which he had but glanced 

 upon." 



After nearly four hundred years, Pliny appeared and strove to 

 emulate Aristotle, but without his erudition or genius ; his vo- 

 luminous works are chiefly compilations ; they abound in fables 

 and prodigies evincing credulity rather than a disposition to in- 

 vestigate truth; and this is the more surprising, as Rome pos- 

 sessed the most wonderful menagerie that has ever been col- 

 lected, containing not only lions and other ferocious beasts des- 

 tined for the circus ; but probably all that was rare and curious 

 in more peaceable tribes, since these were often exhibited in tri- 

 umphal processions. Pliny informs us that Sylla exhibited the 

 terrific spectacle of a combat of one hundred male lions. Csesar 

 had four hundred, and Pompey had six hundred lions at one time. 

 Natural history now declined in Rome, and with the fables and 

 absurdities of jElian and one or two others, all records of science 

 expired for nearly fourteen hundred years. Nor was there, A. D. 

 1500, much more sound knowledge, as regarded the works of 

 the Creator, and the wonders of the earth and of the heavens, 

 than there had been in past ages.* 



* As an instance of the ridiculous extravagancies into whicli some, calling 

 themselves Philosophers, rushed, even as late as the seventeenth century, we 

 copy the following actual Patents, of the period of 1634, as recorded in Ry- 



