MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 
191 
brief administration, to rescue the Jardin des Plantes 
from the state of disorder into which it had been allow- 
ed to fall by the carelessness of former curators, hitherto 
born to the office of superintendents of this establish- 
ment, having intrusted him with this duty, Buffon’s 
choice became fixed for ever on Natural History, and 
he saw opening before him that extensive career which 
he ran with such wide-spread reputation. 
From the very first he formed an estimate of the 
whole extent of it. He perceived at one glance what 
was requisite to be done, what he had it in his power 
to do, and what he required from the assistance of 
others. 
Overloaded, from its birth, by the indigested erudi- 
tion of the Aldrovands, Gesners, and Johnstons, natural 
history appeared, so to speak, mutilated by the scissors 
of nomenclators — the Rays, Kleins, and even Linnmus 
himself, presented us with nothing but naked catalogues, 
written in a barbarous language, and which, with their 
apparent precision, and the care their authors seemed 
to have taken to include in them nothing but what could 
at any time be verified by observation, contained never- 
theless a multitude of errors, both in the details, in the 
distinctive characters, and in the systematical arrange- 
ments. 
To restore life and motion to this cold and inanimate 
body ; to paint Nature as she really is, always young 
and always in action ; to sketch with a comprehensive 
pencil the admirable agreement of all her parts, the laws 
