MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
75 
ever, the manner in which he has collected and stated 
them, makes them lose a considerable portion of 
their value ; not only from his mingling together the 
true and the false, but more especially from the diffi- 
culty, and sometimes the impossibility, of discover- 
ing to what creatures he alludes. He was not such 
an observer of nature as Aristotle ; still less was he 
a man of genius sufficient to seize, like that great 
philosopher, the laws and relations by which nature 
has regulated her various productions. He is in ge- 
neral nothing more than a mere compiler; and often 
too a compiler unacquainted himself with the mat- 
ters about which he treats, and unable to compre- 
hend the true force and exact meaning of the opi- 
nions which he has collected from others. The ex- 
tracts from the works of others he has arranged un- 
der certain chapters, adding thereunto from time to 
time his own reflections, which have nothing to do 
with scientific discussion, properly so called, but 
either present specimens of the most superstitious 
belief, or are the declamations of a peevish and cha- 
grined philosopher. The facts which he has accu- 
mulated, therefore, ought not to be regarded in their 
relations to the opinions tvhich he himself forms, but 
judged by the rules of sound criticism, in conformity 
with what we know of the writers themselves, and 
the circumstances in which they were placed. 
On comparing liis extracts with the originals, where 
the latter have been preserved, and more particularly 
with the writings of Aristotle, whom he professes to 
