178 French National InJUtute. 



throw light upon each other. Thus anatomy furnifhes zoo- 

 logy with the bafes of its grand divifions; it affords it the 

 means of characterizing, with precifion, the different clafiea 

 and families of animals, and of explaining the caufes of their 

 manners and habits, and of the mode in which they feed. 



The philofophy of vegetables ought to render the lame 

 fervice to botany. By the exertions of Grew, Malpighi, 

 Licwcnhoek, Duhamel, Bonnet, Sennebier, and other re- 

 fpeclable philofophcrs, it has been already enriched with a 

 great number of infill ated observations, which may ferve as 

 guides in future researches. It has exhibited to us in thofe 

 of C. Desfontaincs, the difference which exiles in the difpo- 

 fition of the ligneous and utricular parts of the monocoty- 

 ledon and dicotyledon plants. This labour, which has en- 

 abled the Science to make a great progrefs, deferves to be 

 followed in the Subdivisions or thefe two grand claffes, and 

 in the plants known by the name of acotyledons, compofing 

 the cryptogamia fyiiem of Linnaeus. We mult aflure our- 

 felves, by ftudying the internal organization, whether the 

 latter ought to continue to form a third divinon, or whether 

 they ought to be joined to one of the other two. The fcience 

 has (till a great intereft to determine the internal ftruclure 

 of vegetables compoiing the grand families acknowledged by 

 all botanifts. It ought to verify, whether each of them has 

 a peculiar internal organization, common to all the plants of 

 its order, and different from that of the other families. It 

 will endeavour to difcover their affinity determined ac- 

 cording to their external characters, and confirmed in the 

 fame degree by inSpecting their internal organs. It will 

 examine what caute determines the union or reparation of 

 the fexes ; the exigence or non-exifience of the corolla ; the 

 unity or plurality of its parts ; the number and relative fitua- 

 tion of its Sexual organs : in a word, the characters of the 

 iirlt line, derived from the effentiai organs, are invariable in 

 all the known families. Thefe grand external differences are 

 the confequence only of a concealed compofition, which it is 

 necefiary to unveil. The iirft discoveries pave a way to new 

 ones, and the Secondary differences will fuccefiively become 

 objects of attention when the firfl have been confirmed. 



From thefe confiderations, the clais, circumfcribing their 

 views, reduce their queftion to the following: 



To eftablifh the general relations which exift between the 

 internal and external organization of vegetables, particularly 

 in the grand families of plants, generally acknowledged by 

 an botanifts. 



The authors are requefted to accompany their defcriptrons 

 with -drawings, carefully representing the organs deScribed ; 



and 



