68 HISTORICAL EULOGIUM 



In France, so soon as the restoration of social order per- 

 mitted a resumption of peaceful studies, a peculiar occurrence 

 took place which gave unexpected force and influence to 

 those principles. A young Naturalist, till then living in 

 obscurity in a country town, and for the honour of having 

 first noticed whom, many of our contemporaries have dis- 

 puted, (and an honour it doubtless is, and of which M. de 

 Jussieu may claim a portion), published in IT95, two Me- 

 moirs, one " On the Principles of Classification among the 

 Mammiferts" and tlie other " On the Linnrean Class Vermes," 

 and these two Memoirs were in Zoology, what those ot M. 

 de Jussieu had been to Botany ; they changed the aspect of 

 that science, and thenceforth in Zoology as in Botany, the 

 words Natural Method had their complete meaning; the 

 Natural Method being the method fon?ided on organization. 



M. Cuvier, long afterwards, paid, on a solemn occasion, 

 his homage to M. de Jussieu, and authoritatively declared, 

 in his Historical Report on the Progress that the Natural Sci- 

 ences have made since 1789, that " the work of M. de Jussieu 

 constitutes in the sciences of observation, an equally import- 

 ant epoch with the Chemistry of M. Lavoisier in the exper- 

 imental sciences." Perhaps, however, the following tribute 

 that M. Cuvier pays him in tiie former of the above mentioned 

 Memoirs, is yet more remarkable, *' Zoologists," says Cuvier, 

 " had no idea whatever of the calculation of characters 

 which botanists had seen really to exist, and which one of 

 them has so admirably demonstrated in a work, whose happy 

 influence will ere long be felt by all the other branches of 

 Natural History, though its immediate bearing is addressed 

 but to one." 



Zoology, however, offered a far wider field than Botany 

 for the application of a Natural Method, founded on reason. 

 In animals, the organs are distincter, their functions more 

 decided, and consequently, the characters more evident. 

 The modifications of the external organs depend there visibly 

 on modifications of the internal ones ; the brain, heart, and 

 lungs, for instance, cannot change without the necessarily 



