A HISTORY OF THE EARTH, AND ANIMATED NATURE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. By OLIVER GOLDSMITH. A NEW EDITION. VOLUME I. YORK: Printed by and for T. WILSON and R. SPENCE, High-Ousegate. PREFAC E. NATURAL ATURAL HISTORY, considered in its utmost extent, comprehends two objects. First, that of discovering, ascertaining, and naming all the various productions of Nature. Secondly, that of describing the properties, manners, and relations which they bear to us, and to each other. The first, which is the most difficult part of this science, is systematical, dry, mechanical, and incomplete. The second is more amusing, exhibits new pictures to the imagination, and improves our relish for existence, by widening the prospect of Nature around us. Both, however, are necefsary to those who would understand this pleasing science, in its utmost extent. The first care of every inquirer, no doubt, should be, to see, to visit, and examine every object, before he pretends to inspect its habitudes or its history. From seeing and observing the thing itself, he is most naturally led to speculate upon its uses, its delights, or its inconveniences. Numberless obstructions, however, are found in this part of his pursuit, that frustrate his diligence, and retard his curiosity. The objects in Nature are so many, and even those of the same kind are exhibited in such a variety of forms, that the inquirer finds himself lost in the exuberance before him, and, like a man who attempts to count the stars, unafsisted by Art, his powers are all distracted in the barren superfluity. To remedy this embarrassment, artificial systems have been devised, which grouping into mafses those parts of Nature more nearly resembling each other, refer the inquirer for the 3 name of the single object he desires to know, to some one of those general distributions, where it is to be found by further examination. If, for instance, a man should, in his walks, meet with an animal, the name, and consequently the history of which, he desires to know, he is taught by systematic writers of natural history, to examine its most obvious qualities, whether a quadruped, a bird, a fish, or an insect. Having determined it, for explanation sake, to be an insect, he examines whether it has wings; if he finds it possessed of these, he is taught to examine whether it has two or four; if possessed of four, he is taught to observe, whether the two upper wings are of at shelly hardness, and serve as cases to those under them; if he finds the wings composed in this manner, he is then taught to pronounce, that this insect. is one of the beetle kind of the beetle kind, there are three different classes, distinguished from each other by their feelers; he examines the insect before him, and finds that the feelers are clavated or knobbed at the ends; of beetles, with feelers thus formed, there are ten kinds; and, among those, he is taught to look for the precise name of that which is before him. If, for instance, the knob be divided at the ends, and the belly be streaked with white, it is no other than the Dor or the May-bug; an animal, the noxious qualities of which give it a very distinguished rank in the history of the insect creation. In this manner a system of natural history may, in some measure, be compared to a dictionary of words. Both are solely intended to explain the names of things; but with this difference, that in the dictionary of words we are led from the name of the thing to its definition; whereas in the system of natural history, we are led from the definition to find out the name. Such are the efforts of writers, who have composed their works with great labour and ingenuity, to direct the learner in his progress through Nature, and to inform him of the name of every animal, plant, or fofsil substance, that he happens to meet with; but it would be only deceiving the reader, to conceal the truth, which is, that books alone can never teach him this art in perfection; and the solitary student can never succeed. Without a master, and a previous knowledge of many of the objects of Nature, his book will only serve to confound and disgust him. Few of the individual plants or animals, that he may happen to meet with, are in that precise state of health, or that exact period of vegetation, from whence their descriptions were taken. Perhaps he meets the plant only with leaves, but the systematic writer has described it in flower. Perhaps he meets the bird before it has moulted its first feathers, while the systematic description was made in its state of full perfection.He thus ranges without an instructor, confused, and with sickening curiosity from subject to subject, till at last he gives up the pursuit, in the multiplicity of his disappointments. Some practice, therefore, much instruction, and diligent. reading, are requisite to make a ready and expert naturalist, who shall be able, even by the help of a system, to find out the name of every object he meets with. But when this tedious, though requisite part of study is attained, nothing but delight and variety attend the rest of his journey.-Wherever he travels, like a man in a country where he has many friends, he meets with nothing but acquaintances and allurements in all the stages of his way. The mere uninformed spectator passes on in gloomy solitude; but the naturalist, in every plant, in every insect, and every pebble, finds something to entertain his curiosity, and excite his speculation. From hence it appears, that a system may be considered as a dictionary in the study of Nature. The ancients, however, who have all written most delightfully on this subject, seem entirely to have rejected those humble and mechanical helps to science. They contented themselves with seizing upon the greatoutlines of history, and pafsing over what was common, as not worth the detail, they only dwelt upon what was new, great, and surprising, and sometimes even warmed the imagination at the expense of truth. Such of the moderns as revived this science in Europe, undertook the task more methodically, though not in a manner so pleasing. Aldro |