Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus

Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus - with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History

At no period in the progress of civilisation have the advantages to be derived from the study of nature been so highly appreciated as at the present day, when descriptions and representations of the various objects by which we are surrounded, or which have been observed in distant countries, are issuing from the press in a variety of forms calculated to attract the attention and to gratify the taste of almost every class of society. Only a few years ago, Natural History was held in some degree of contempt by the enlightened as well as by the ignorant; its cultivators[Pg 18] were considered as triflers, wasting their energies upon that which could profit nothing; and the information which it affords was looked upon as unworthy of the attention of persons fitted for intellectual pursuits. Now, it is raised in popular estimation to the highest dignity, and is pronounced to be a science capable of exercising the most splendid talents, and of affording pleasure to the most improved minds. Of the several changes that have recently taken place in society this is not the least important. The diversified productions of Nature,those objects, in the formation of which have been exercised unlimited wisdom and power,are not now considered beneath the notice of the wisest of the sons of men. It still, however, remains to be perceived, that in the construction of the familiar fly that buzzes through our apartments, not less than in the frame of the mighty elephant,in the simple blade of grass that springs from between the stones of the pavement, not less than in the knotted oak or the graceful palm,in the small cube of salt, not less than in the granitic mountain or the volcanic cone,there is something of a mysterious nature, the comprehension of which would be a much more glorious achievement than any that the human intellect has yet performed. The ship that carries the adventurous merchant over the great ocean is an object worthy of our admiration; but how complicated is its apparatus, compared with the fins of the most common fish! The balloon that floats calmly in the atmosphere,what an unwieldy instrument is it, compared with those beautiful organs of Divine workmanship by which the swallow is conveyed[Pg 19] from the equatorial to the polar lands, or pursues its prey through the pathless air! Man, in the early stages of his existence, is drawn by an instinctive power to observe and admire nature. The love of it, too, glows in the breast of every child. We have never, indeed, witnessed the actions of men in the infancy of society, and therefore cannot estimate the influence exercised upon them by external objects; for the savages whom the European, wandering over the globe in quest of gold or knowledge, finds in the deserts or in the remote isles of the ocean, are evidently degraded beings who have degenerated from a nobler stock. But the history and traditions of most of the tribes with which we are acquainted, and especially of those inhabiting the American continent, show that at some remote period they must have possessed more knowledge than they exhibited at our first acquaintance with them. Revelation, too, assures us that man was made perfect; and philosophy has not succeeded in forming a theory to account for the physical or moral diversities exhibited by our race, approaching in consistency to that which may be drawn from the pages of the Sacred Writings. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 34160
Author: MacGillivray, William
Release Date: Oct 29, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English