117 
BOOK VII.^ 
MAN, HIS BIKTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INYEN- 
TION OF THE ARTS. 
CHAP. 1. MAIT. 
Such then is the present state of the world, and of the coun- 
tries, nations, more remarkable seas, islands, and cities which it 
contains.^ The nature of the animated beings which exist 
upon it, is hardly in any degree less worthy of our contem- 
plation than its other features ; if, indeed, the human mind 
is able to embrace the whole of so diversified a subject. Our 
first attention is justly due to Man, for whose sake all other 
things appear to have been produced by Nature ; though, on 
the other hand, with so great and so severe penalties for the 
enjoyment of her bounteous gifts, that it is far from easy to 
determine, whether she has proved to him a kind parent, or a 
merciless step-mother. 
In the first place, she obliges him alone, of aU animated 
beings, to clothe himself with the spoils of the others ; while, to 
all the rest, she has given various kinds of coverings, such as 
shells, crusts, spines, hides, furs, bristles, hair, down, feathers, 
scales, and fleeces.'^ The very trunks of the trees even, she has 
protected against the effects of heat and cold by a bark, which 
is, in some cases, twofold.* Man alone, at the very moment of 
1 We here enter upon the third division of Pliny's Natural History, 
which treats of Zoology, from the 7th to the 11th inclusive. Cuvier 
has illustrated this part by many valuable notes, which originally appeared 
in Lemaire's Bibliotheque Glassique, 1827, and were afterwards incorporated, 
with some additions, by Ajasson, in his translation of Pliny, published in 
1829; Ajasson is the editor of this portion of Pliny's Natural History, 
in Lemaire's Edition. — B. 
2 This remark refers to the five preceding books, in which these sub- 
jects have been treated in detail. — B. 
3 We have a similar remark in Cicero, De. Nat. Deor, ii. 47. — B. 
^ Ajasson remarks, that trees have two barks, an outer, and an inner and 
thinner one ; but seems to think that by the word " gemino" here, Pliny 
only means that the bark of trees is sometimes double its ordinai-y 
thickness. 
