Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/311

 ly that no Old Descriptions of these Animals which should go beyond the parts immediately visible have been considerable. There is hardly one eminent Modern Discovery in Anatomy, which was not first found in Brutes, and afterwards adjusted to humane Bodies. Many of them could never have been known without the Help of Live-dissections; and the rest required Abundance of Trials upon great Numbers of different sorts of Beasts, some appearing plainer in one sort of Animals, and some in another, before the Discoverers themselves could frame such a clear Idea of the things which they were then in Pursuit of, as that they could readily look for them in Humane Bodies; which could not be procured in so great Plenty, and of which they had not always the Convenience. All which things extremely tended to the perfecting of the Anatomy of all sorts of Brutes. About the other Part, which may comprehend an Account of their Way of Living, their Uses to humane Life, their Sagacity, and the like; the Ancients took much Pains, and went very far: And there are a great many admirable things in Aristotle's History of Animals concerning all these Matters. What Helps he had from Writers that lived before him Errata