IRONICAL CHARACTER OF BUFFONS WORK. 79 



same country and climate as himself, as ior example 

 stag^, hares, and all wild animals ; nor will it be till after 

 he has familiarized himself with all these that curiosity 

 will lead him to inquire what inhabitants there may 

 be in foreign climates, such as elephants, dromedaries, 

 &c. The same will hold good for fishes, birds, insects, 

 shells, and for all nature's other productions; he will 

 study them in proportion to the profit ,which he can 

 draw from them ; he will consider them in that order 

 in which they enter into his daily life ; he will arrange 

 them in his head according to this order, which is in 

 fact that in which he has become acquainted with 

 them, and in which it concerns him to think about 

 them. This order — the most natural of all — is the one 

 which I have thought it well to follow in this volume. 

 My classification has no more mystery in it than the 

 reader has just seen .... it is preferable to the most 

 profound and ingenious that can be conceived, for 

 there is none of all the classifications which ever have 

 been made or ever can be, which has not more of an 

 arbitrary character than this has. Take it for all in 

 all," he concludes, " it is more easy, more agreeable, and 

 more useful, to consider things in their relation to our- 

 selves than from any other standpoint." * 



" Has it not a better effect not only in a treatise or 

 natural history, but in a picture or any work of art to 

 arrange objects in the order and place in which they are 

 commonly found, than to force them into association in 

 virtue of some theory of our own ? Is it not better to 

 let the dog which has toes, come after the horse which 

 • Vol. i. p. 34, 1749 



