The plan of his work
is good, his classification distinguished for its good sense, his
dividing lines well marked, his descriptions sufficiently
accurate--monotonous it is true, but painstaking; the historical part
of his work is less good; it is often confused and fabulous, and the
author shows too manifestly the credulous tendencies of his mind.
"While going over his work, I have been struck with that defect, or
rather excess, which we find in almost all the books of a hundred or a
couple of hundred years ago, and which prevails still among the
Germans--I mean with that quantity of useless erudition with which
they intentionally swell out their works, and the result of which is
that their subject is overlaid with a mass of extraneous matter on
which they enlarge with great complacency, but with no consideration
whatever for their readers. They seem, in fact, to have forgotten
what they have to say in their endeavour to tell us what has been said
by other people.
"I picture to myself a man like Aldrovandus, after he has once
conceived the design of writing a complete natural history. I see him
in his library reading, one after the other, ancients, moderns,
philosophers, theologians, jurisconsults, historians, travellers,
poets, and reading with no other end than with that of catching at all
words and phrases which can be forced from far or near into some kind
of relation with his subject.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208