Biographical Memoir irf' Michel Adanson. % 



has the defect of supposing another sort of knowledge, which, 

 though merely historical, is not less extensive nor less difficult to 

 acquire, namely, that of all the species, and of all the organs of 

 each species. The neglect of a single organ may lead to the 

 most erroneous results ; and M. Adanson himself, notwithstand- 

 ing the immense number of his observations, furnishes some ex- 

 amples of false relations thus introduced. 



This is what he called his universal method^ and it is also the 

 leading idea which predominates in all iiis works, printed or in 

 ^lanuscript. 



He published in 1757 a sort of trial of it in the Traite des 

 Coquillages^ which terminates his first volume of his Voyage au 

 Senegal. This opened to him, when only thirty years of age, 

 the gates of the Academic des Sciences, and of the Royal So- 

 ciety of London, not because he had gone to seek some shells 

 on the coast of Africa, but because he announced himself as a 

 man of genius, full of new views, of great activity, and capable 

 of doing still higher honour to these illustrious societies by many 

 similar undertakings. 



The work, in fact, was such as might rationally enough ex- 

 cite these hopes, and its author deserved these marks of regard, 

 especially from the attention which he had bestowed upon the 

 animals of shells, which before his time had been entirely ne- 

 glected^ and some of which have not even yet been described. 

 His methodical distribution, founded upon a score of those par- 

 tial systems of which we have already given an idea, was much 

 superior to all those of his predecessors. Nevertheless there 

 still remained some defects in it, for a reason which we have 

 already hinted at, namely, because, from the want of anato- 

 mical dissections, he could not have become acquainted with 

 the internal organs, and especially the heart. This omission 

 made him even err in the general description of the class, in 

 which he does not comprehend the moUusca which are desti- 

 tute of shells. 



His project at first was to treat in this manner, in eight vo- 

 lumes, the whole history of Senegal, and^ in fact, a great por^ 

 tion of it is completed in his manuscripts ; but judging that the 

 utility of his method would be better perceived by a more general 

 application, he soon ceased to publish this first work, in order to 



