Chapter II: THE ENCYCLOPÆDIST TYPE.--This unwieldy title, suggestive of

an omnivorous hunger for knowledge, is conveniently, as well as technically, descriptive of a type of naturalist characteristic of the early years of the scientific renaissance. Edward Wotton (d. 1555), the Swiss Gesner (d. 1565), the Italian Aldrovandi (d. 1605), the Scotsman Johnson (d. 1675), are good examples. These encyclopædists were at least impressed with the necessity of getting close to the facts of nature, of observing for themselves, and we cannot blame them much if their critical faculties were dulled by the strength of their enthusiasm. They could not all at once forget the mediæval dreams, nor did they make any strenuous effort to rationalize the materials which they so industriously gathered. They harvested but did not thrash. Ostrich-like, their appetite was greater than their power of digesting. A hasty judgment might call them mere compilers, for they gathered all possible information from all sources, but, on closer acquaintance, the encyclopædists grow upon one. Their industry was astounding, their ambition lofty; and they prepared the way for men like Ray and Linnæus, in whom was the genius of order.

Associated with this period there were many naturalist-travellers, most of whom are hardly now remembered, save perhaps when we repeat the name of some plant or animal which commemorates its discoverer. José d’Acosta (d. 1600), a missionary in Peru, described some of the gigantic fossils of South America; Francesco Hernanded published about 1615 a book on the natural history of Mexico with 1200 illustrations; Marcgrav and Piso explored Brazil; Jacob Bontius, the East Indies; Prosper Alpinus, Egypt; Belon, the Mediterranean region; and there were many others. But it is useless to multiply what must here remain mere citations of names. The point is simply this, that, associated with the marvellous accumulative industry of the encyclopædists and with the renaissance of zoology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were numerous naturalist-travellers who described what they saw, and not what they fancied might be seen.