49 
seems to me, been sufficiently appreciated. ,Si la raison do- 
minait sur la terre, il ne s’y passerait rien,“ said one of the 
cleverest of Frenchmen (1). 
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, during the whole of 
the Middle Ages, up to the second half of the XVIIth century, 
the perpetuation of the belief in the Bugonia among the edu- 
cated classes was likewise the produce of a two-fold influence: 
an intellectual deficiency, and a sentimental bias; the former 
consisted in the confusion between bee and fly; the latter in the 
immoderate and irrational worship of the ancients, which for a 
long time has hampered the acquisition of knowledge. I cannot 
do better than introduce on this subject a chapter from Réau- 
mur, the man who more than anybody else contributed to the 
confutation of all superstition in matters of science. He combined 
the gift of a marvellous closeness of observation, with an in- 
domitable logic, and a delightfully transparent style of writing. 
To those who understand French, I recommend the following 
chapter in the original; to those who do not, I offer my feeble 
effort at a translation. 
Tit 
On the gradual revival of Natural Science in the XV IIth and XV I[Ith 
centuries; a chapter translated from Réaumur, Mém. ete. 
Vol. I, p. 28—81 (1734). 
During the long succession of centuries when barbarism 
reigned supreme, Natural History shared the fate of all other 
sciences; as soon however as the taste for knowledge began 
to revive, the study of nature was likewise taken up. It was 
believed at that time that every kind of truth could be reco- 
vered in the writings of the ancients, that the ancients knew 
everything, understood everything. The history of animals was 
principally studied in Aristotle. If Aldrovandi, Gessner, Moufet 
(1) Fontenelle, Dialogne de Démétrins et (iérostrate. 
