INTRODUCTION. 



The state of society in which the works of Creation are duly investigated, is not 

 its state of infancy or boyhood, but that of its maturity and confirmed manhood; 

 for, in its earlier and ruder stages, the sciences in general are looked upon with 

 indifference, and not seldom with contempt ; but, in proportion as civilization 

 advances, they acquire daily more and more importance. The last, probably, that 

 is raised to its proper rank in the public estimation, is the study which is distin- 

 guished by the name of Natural History : hence it happens that the patronage 

 and fostering care of princes and statesmen have been usually extended later to this 

 branch of science than to any other; and a just sense of the value of it, in public 

 men, seems an indication of a very advanced state of society, and a proof that the 

 public mind is wholly liberated from all the trammels of prejudice. When the 

 inspired wisdom of the most powerful and magnificent of the Hebrew monarchs 

 was directed to this object, and he composed treatises, for the instruction of his 

 people, both upon plants and animals, then the Israelitish nation had attained the 

 acmd of its civilization and glory ; and that celebrated Graeco-Macedonian prince 

 and conqueror, whose highest privilege it was to have been the pupil of Aristotle, 

 at the period when science in Greece had attained its zenith, is related to have 

 given it in charge to his tutor to pay particular attention to the study of animals, 

 and, in order to furnish him with materials, employed several thousand men, both 

 in Europe and Asia, 1 in collecting them. 



But it is seldom that sovereigns, or their ministers, have extended their fostering 

 patronage to the science in question, till their attention has been excited by the 



1 Plin. Hist. Nat. 1, viii, c, 16. 



