ON A. LAURENT 1)E JUSSIEU. 65 



perceive that the peculiar turn of each may be distinctly 

 seen. Bernard, by the strength of his penetrating powers, 

 descried the principles of Natural Order, but he derived little 

 advantage from the sight, and others derived still less through 

 him ; Laurent saw them too, while availing himself and aid- 

 ing otliers also to make use of them ; thus tiie principles, if I 

 may so speak, spring up in the one Jussieu, and ripen in the 

 other; one perceives, the other explains; to the former be- 

 longs the early period when genius makes its discoveries, 

 to the latter the period when genius reasons on what it 

 has discovered ; for, most entirely analogous to the differ- 

 ence that exists between these two ages, is the disparity be- 

 tween the labours, the style and turn of mind of the two 

 MM. de Jussieu. 



If, after having thus compared the work of M. L. de Jus- 

 sieu, with what had appeared before it, we equally try it by 

 what has come since, its merit will prove quite as striking 

 and unique. 



It has been stated above that this author established one 

 hundred primitive families. Not one of these families has 

 been subsequently suppressed, and more than fifty have 

 undergone no modification. Three of the others have been 

 united (and united entire) to neighbouring groups, which 

 is only a different mode of association. Most of those which 

 remain, from the unavoidable effect of the immense number 

 of species that nearly half a century has added to our herba- 

 ria and gardens, liave necessarily required division and sub- 

 division, but almost all these sections have proceeded on 

 grounds already indicated by M. de Jussieu himself. Finally 

 there are five, and five only, which were found to be natural 

 but in part. The errors therefore solely affect some scattered 

 genera and fragments of families; and even there, a note, a 

 hint, a doubt, almost invariably comes in to put us in the 

 Way of attaining the truth; a trutli which nothing short of 

 the most astonishing sagacity could then have detected, when 

 the materials which the author possessed from whence to 

 deduce it were so scanty, and while so many new ones have 

 Vol. TIL — Xo. 18. ' K 



