X 
PREFACE. 
and leave her productions with the greatest 
indifference when once they have gratified 
their sight. Many, on the contrary, anxi- 
ously collect every specimen throughout the 
wide field of Nature, that will either deco- 
rate their museum or increase their cabinet; 
they arrange them with the most studious 
care, class them with the greatest correct- 
ness, and are never satisfied with looking at 
their treasures : but they go no further. 
The animal is admired for its singularity, 
the bird for its beautiful plumage, the shell 
for its varied tints, the plant because it 
came from some one of our distant colonies, 
and the mineral for its glittering surface ; 
while the instructive history which is at- 
tached to all these different objects, and 
which would tend to lead us by gentle and 
pleasing steps to the knowledge of an all- 
powerful Being, is totally neglected. To 
use the words of the celebrated Derham, 
“ r Ihe Creator did not bestow so much cu- 
riosity and workmanship on his creatures, to 
be looked on with a careless incautious eye, 
