THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 

 PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Biographical Memoir of Michel Adanson. Read to the In- 

 stitute of France. By Baron Cuvier. 



W HEN we appear at this tribunal, it is almost always for 

 the purpose of presenting the picture of a life at once happy 

 and useful. The men whom we praise have possessed the two- 

 fold advantage of enlightening their fellows, and gaining their 

 esteem and affection. Pubhc opinion loudly dictates to us their 

 eulogy, and the certainty of having only the general sentiment 

 of the friends of learning to express, supports us under the dis- 

 trust which we entertain of our own powers. But it sometimes 

 also happens, that we have to recal the attention to a man of 

 merit too much neglected during his life, and to plead in favour 

 of his memory against the indifference of his contemporaries. 

 A motive not less powerful, then, animates us. Our functions, 

 having become more difficult, only appear the more honourable 

 and the more touching ; they assume, in some measure, in our 

 eyes, the august character of a public magistracy, and we exer- 

 cise them with all the warmth which a sacred duty inspires. 



The most unremittingly pursued labours, and the most fertile 

 conceptions, have but too often received only this tardy justice ; 

 and perhaps, by multiplying examples, we should only be in- 

 creasing discouragements, if these examples did not, along with 

 this unjust neglect, also present a preservative against its influ- 

 ence, and a consolation under its inflictions, — I mean, if we did 

 not see in them, at the same time, both the causes which pro- 

 APRIL JULY 1827. A 



