MARINE ZOOLOGY 195 



Raymond and von Helmholtz began to apply the methods of 

 physics to physiology. In France, Claude Bernard was at 

 the height of his activity, rivalled by workers almost as great. 

 The doctrine of the conservation of energy was established 

 about this same time. 



Between the cell-theory on the one side, and physiology 

 on the other, it was a wonder that morphology kept alive at 

 all. The only thing that preserved it was the return to the 

 sound Cuvierian tradition which had been made by many 

 zoologists in the 'thirties and 'forties. It is a significant fact 

 that this return to the functional attitude coincided in the 

 main with the rise of marine zoology, and that the man who 

 most typically preserved the Cuvierian attitude, H. Milne- 

 Edwards, was also one of the first and most consistent of 

 marine biologists. Milne-Edwards describes in his interesting 

 Rapport sur les Progres recents des Sciences zoologiques en 

 France" (Paris) 1867, how " About the year 1826, two young 

 naturalists, formed in the schools of Cuvier, Geoffrey and 

 Majendie, considered that zoology, after having been purely 

 descriptive or systematic and then anatomical, ought to take 

 on a more physiological character ; they considered that it 

 was not enough to observe living objects in the repose of 

 death, and that it was desirable to get to understand the 

 organism- in action, especially when the structure of these 

 animals was so different from that of man that the notions 

 acquired as to the special physiology of man could not 

 properly be applied to them" (p. 17). The two young 

 naturalists were H. Milne-Edwards and V. Audouin. In 

 pursuance of these excellent ideas they set to work to study 

 the animals of the seashore, producing in 1832-4 two volumes 

 of Recherches pour servir a Ihistoire naturelle du littoral de la 

 France. After Audouin's early death A. de Quatrefages was 

 associated with Milne-Edwards in this pioneer work, and 

 their valiant struggles with insufficient equipment and lack 

 of all laboratory accommodation, and the rich harvest they 

 reaped, may be read of in Quatrefage's fascinating account of 

 their journeyings. 1 Note that though they called themselves 



1 Souvenirs (fun Naturaliste, 2 vols., Paris, 1854. Eng. Trans, as 

 Rambles of a Naturalist on the Coasts of France, Spain, and Italy, 2 

 vols.j 1857. 



