INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE
ON THE
RISE AND PROGRESS
OF
NATURAL HISTORY
DELIVERED BY THE PRESIDENT, APRIL 8, 1788.
THE Study of Nature, that is an attention to the ground on which we tread, the vegetables which clothe and adorn it, and the boundless variety of living creatures presenting themselves to our notice on every side, must have been one of the first occupations of man in a state of nature. In no country hitherto discovered, however barbarous and unenlightened, is the human race found so negligent and helpless as not to have investigated the natural bodies around them, so far at least as from thence to supply
B
their
