Some portions of his museum have successfully struggled with the destructive energies of time, and are still to be seen in the collection of the Institute of Bologna. His manuscripts, of which there is an immense mass, are preserved in the public library of the same city; and the drawings from which the engravings for his work were taken were carried, at the time of the Revolution, to the Museum of Natural History at Paris.
Such were the dawnings of zoological science after the revival of learning in Europe. The authors of those times, it is manifest, looked less to nature than to the writings of Aristotle, Pliny, and their other predecessors; so that in their works we find little more than a repetition of what had been previously said. Their descriptions are rude, frequently incorrect, and in few cases characteristic. They had no idea of disposing the objects of which they treated in a manner resembling that to which we have been accustomed since the period of Ray and Linnæus. The alphabetical arrangement was followed by some, while others possessed a rude notion of the affinity of species; but although attempts were made to separate the animal creation into classic groups, yet from the days of Aristotle to those of Swammerdam, Ray, and Reaumur, we find no traces of the anatomical knowledge necessary for the accomplishment of such an undertaking. We have, indeed, little reason to expect in the writings of the ancients, or in those of the succeeding naturalists, any example of a just classification; still we cannot but marvel when we find, that very few of them endeavoured to represent objects as they might have seen them with their own eyes. Whatever may be the causes of this defect, those who are extensively conversant with the publications of our own times must be aware, that the practice of copying from books, instead of having recourse to Nature herself, has not yet been relinquished; though nothing is more clear than that there can be no real progress in natural history without authenticating the observations of preceding writers by examining the objects which they have described, and by noting the particulars in which they are erroneous.
FOOTNOTES:
[G] Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Poissons.
JONSTON, GOEDART, REDI, AND SWAMMERDAM.
Zoologists of the Seventeenth Century.
Brief Account of the Lives and Writings of John Jonston, John Goedert, Francis Redi, and John Swammerdam—Notice respecting the principal Works of Swammerdam—His Birth and Education—He studies Medicine, but addicts himself chiefly to the Examination of Insects—Goes to France, where he forms an Acquaintance with Thevenot—Returns to Amsterdam, takes his Degree, improves the Art of making Anatomical Preparations—Publishes various Works—Destroys his Health by the Intensity of his Application—Becomes deeply impressed with religious Ideas—Adopts the Opinions of Antoinette Bourignon—Is tortured by conflicting Passions—Endeavours to dispose of his Collections—Is affected with Ague and Anasarca, and dies after protracted Suffering—His Writings published by Boerhaave—His Classification of Insects.