72 HISTORICAL EULOGIU.^t 



good and sufficient causes, censured and prohibited by a 



pavlianientary decree." Our author proceeds to mention 



the illustrious individuals to whom this noble establishment 



has owed its brightest lustre, Tournefort, Duvernay, Bernard 



de Jiissieu, Vicq d'Azyr, antl BufTon, pausing at the date of 



the latter writer, so that one cannot but regret diat he did 



not pursue the theme through a later and no less splendid 



epoch. For in this more I'ecent epoch it has been, that 



Haliy, unveiling the mechanism of the fornuition of crystals, 



has subjected the very phenomena of natm-e to the laws of 



calculation; while Jussieu was bringing to the test of other 



laws, those of reasoning founded on experiment, the new 



forms of vegetation that were poured in with unexampled 



profusion from almost every part of the world ; and Cuvier, 



piercing through the layers of our globe itself, detected there 



unknown generations, and invented the art by which these 



ruins and fragments of bygone creations were re-assembled, 



so that the laws of comparative anatomy endowed them with 



fresh life, and as it were with a new existence; and thus to all 



these itdiabitants of ancient worlds reanimated by him, his 



powerful voice has seemed to issue the fiat, to rise up and 



walk ! 



I would not w^illingly omit to notice any of the produc- 

 tions of M, de Jussieu's pen. His Thesis, published in 1770, 

 gives the first clear ideas on those multiplied analogies ot 

 Vegetables and Animals, which seem to unite the two organic 

 kingdoms; views, then quite new, for Pallas only had slightly 

 hinted at them, and containing the same profound and lucid 

 ideas as have since been so strikingly developed by Vicq 

 d'Azyr and Cuvier. One single writing of M, de Jussieu's 

 alone, may pass by with little notice, and might perhaps be 

 as well entirely omitted, for it is quite foreign to Natural 

 History, his Report on Animal Magnetism, published in 1784. 

 There is nothing in this production, which belongs to the 

 deep and incontestable subjects, which formed the habitual 

 theme of our great Naturalist's thoughts; and, consequently, 

 it can cost us little to confess here that it is by no means 



