710 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HENRY MILNE-EDWARDS. 



Just at this time appeared Milne-Edwards. His Natural History of 

 Crustaceans appeared at first sight to be a simple development of the 

 teachings of Cuvier, but lie infused into them an entire order of new 

 and fruitful ideas drawn from physiology which greatly modified the 

 conception of the principle then held — that of the subordination of 

 types, Milne-Edwards placed side by side with this another i^rinciple 

 prolific in consequences — that of thedivisiou of labor — and it contributed 

 to the inauguration of a great system of studies and theories which 

 shivered the conventional framework of classification, placed in doubt 

 and rendered purely relative that permanence of species — the corner- 

 stone of Cuvier's system — propounded in short the great problems of 

 the origin and i)rogress in evolution of the types of organized beings. If 

 the light is not yet and never can be perfectly clear on the question of 

 origin, it will not lessen the glory of the scientific generations that 

 have followed during the last fifty years, bringing these questions into 

 the foremost rank and breaking the mould of exclusive dogmatism. 



Without doubt the sagacious and temperate mind of Milne-Edwards 

 sometimes refused to handle these problems ia all their bearings, but 

 no less has he the great and lasting honor of having taken a personal 

 share in their elaboration and of supplying some of their fundamental 

 principles. Silence would be unjust to his memory, and I shall ask 

 permission to express my sentiments later with regard to this work of 

 his, as the time for hesitation is jiast. Everywhere in the civilized 

 world these questions are continually agitated, and an excess of timidity 

 would enfeeble the authority even of the Academy and French science. 

 However uncertain and obscure they may seem, their interest to phi- 

 losophy and human destiny is too great for us to refuse to present them 

 here, with the gravity and reservations that respect for truth and the 

 dignity of science demand. 



I. — HI8 CAREER. 



Henry Milne-Edwards was born at Bruges, October 23, 1800. We 

 lost him on the 20th of July, 1885, his long life having been full of work 

 profitable to humanity. He was the twenty-eighth child of William 

 Edwards, planter and colonel of militia at Jamaica. His father was mar- 

 ried twice. After leaving the colonies and then residing sometime in 

 England he established himself in Belgium. There our fellow scientist 

 was born, and he took advantage of the place of his birth, at that time 

 part of France, to claim the title of French citizen after 1811. The 

 sympathetic and hospitable genius of France has always known how 

 to gain the affection of foreigners who dwell on her soil, and to associ- 

 ate them by national ties with her own destiny she turns to account the 

 inherent qualities of the races that cultivate her soil and those of 

 neighboring ones, which she has always had the art and energy to 

 assimilate by voluntary attraction. Few acquisitions of this kind have 

 been more fruitful than that of Edwards. 



