MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON, 
197 
contented themselves with things of the most trifling 
nature, more fitted to please the eye than to enlighten 
the mind. The most brilliant shells, the most varied 
pebbles, the best cut and most brilliant gems, usually 
formed the main body of their collections. 
Daubenton, aided by Buffbn, and profiting by the 
means which the credit of his friend obtained for him 
from the Government, conceived and executed a more 
extensive plan. He thought that none of the produc- 
tions of Nature should be excluded from her temple. 
He conceived, that such of these productions as we 
regard as the most important, cannot be well known 
but by comparing them with all others ; that there are 
none of them, which, by their numerous relations, are 
not connected more or less directly with the rest of 
Nature. He therefore excluded none, and made the 
greatest efforts to collect all. He executed, in parti- 
cular, that great number of anatomical preparations 
which for a long time distinguished the Cabinet of Paris, 
and which, though less agreeable to the vulgar eye, are 
most useful to the man -who will not limit his researches 
to the surface of created beings, and who endeavours 
to render natural history a philosophical science, by 
making it explain the phenomena it describes. 
The study and arrangement of these treasures had 
become in him a true passion, the only one, perhaps, 
that was ever remarked in him. He shut himself up, 
for entire days, in the Cabinet. He reviewed, in a 
thousand ways, the objects he had assembled there ; he 
