BIOGKAPFIICAL SKETCH OF HENKY MrLNE:-El)WARDS,* 



MEMBKR OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



By M. Berthelot, 



I'ermunoit Secretartj of Ihe Acadenn/ of Science)*. 



Tlie learned man whom I j^resent to your attention to-day — Henry 

 Milne-Edwards — is a peculiar and interesting- fignre among Frencli nat- 

 uralists, equally distiuguislied by liis origin, by the period to wliicli be 

 belonged, by liis discoveries, his system of instruction, the pupils he 

 trained, and by the lasting intluence he exercised upon natural history 

 during a long life entirely devoted to sciince and his country. He 

 filled a great place in our academy and rendered service to zoology 

 and to higher education that will not be forgotten. 



His life exhibits many interestinf? changes. The son of a foreigner, 

 an Englisliman, lie was eager to be identified with. France, furnishing a 

 new proof of that assimilating power which has always been one of the 

 strong points of our nation. This i)roof was all the more marked that 

 the young Edwards api)ears to have been at first rich enough not to 

 depend upon any special advantage he might derive from his title to 

 French citizenship. Afterwards, however, to the benefit of mankind 

 and the honor of our country, necessity urged our fnture brother to the 

 scientific career in which he was to fill so important a position. This 

 was about the first third of the century which is now so near its eud. 

 The great founders of modern zoology of the nineteenth century, Cuvier 

 and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, had nearly reached the term of their careers. 

 After a struggle, which will long be celebrated in the history of the 

 sciences, Cuvier stood victorious, and his pnpils were almost the sole 

 leaders in the line of instruction, following the methods of their mas- 

 ter and striving to complete, according to his principles, the framework 

 of a theory which seemed henceforth to be based upon a strong and 

 immovable foundation, with distinct boundary lines, in the ]>crmanence 

 of species. The classification founded upon the so-called natural method 

 and supported by observations of comparative anatomy Avas then con- 

 sidered the ultimate end of zoology. 



* Read at the aunnal pul)hc session of the Acadeiuy of Sciences, heht December 21,. 

 1891. Translated from Aunnlen des Sciences NatureUes. 1892, Tome Xiii, pp. 1-30. 



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