THE JUSSIEDS AND THE NATURAL METHOD. 257 



inquiry respecting his projected publication of tbe Plantcs of Pluraier* In reply 

 Beniaid says : " The Pluntes have not yet appeared, and will not appear before 

 I have gucceeded in arranging them in an order conl'ormable to the natural 

 method, or at least approximating to that method." In the following letter he 

 felicitates Linnaeus on his nomination to the chair of botany at Upsal. " I have 

 received this news," he says, "with great joy, for, devoted as you are to the study 

 of plants, your new position will give you new means of ascertaining that natural 

 method which is the hope and desire of all botanists." What we have been 

 reading above was written by Bernard from 1739 to 1742, and it was not until 

 nearly twenty years later, in 1759, that he ventured to make, in the garden of 

 Trianon, the first experimental trial of his ideas. 



The memoir on the polypes exhibits Bernard under another aspect ; he reveals 

 to us, in this remarkable study, that singular sagacity which seemed instinctively 

 to guide him to the truth in everything.t Nothing had more interested the 

 naturalists of the XVIII century, and nothing was better calculated to do so, 

 than the experiments of Trembley on the polype, that animal which is repro- 

 duced from a slip like a plant, which may be turned inside out like the finger of 

 a glove, and every portion of which when cut off becomes a separate and entire 

 animal. Tlae polypes of Trembley's experiments were those of fresh water ; the 

 polypes of Bernard are those of the sea, animals not less surprising than the 

 former, having equally the property of reproduction from a slip, like plants ; 

 composite, multiple animals, of which several live united together by a common 

 trunk, having a common sensibility, a common movement and even a common 

 nutrition, for what is eaten by one nourishes and suffices for all. 



These animals had long been taken for plants ; they were called marine plants ; 

 it was even thought that the flower had been discovered, and the author of the 

 discovery, Marsigli, had become famous. Peyssonnel was the first who, in the 

 pretended flower of the coral, had the sagacity to recognize, in 17^7, a real animal, 

 the coralline animal, as he called it, the polype of the coral, as we say at present; 

 a fact which then appeared so strange that Reaumur, charged with the duty of 

 announcing it to the Academy, did not venture to name the author. " The esteem," 

 said he at a later period, " which I felt for M. Peyssonnel made me avoid naming 

 him as the author of an opinion which could not fail to appear incredible." 



Bernard wrote to Linnajus : " I have made some excursions, and, last autumn, 

 traversed the coasts of Normandy, where I discovered things of no little novelty, 

 and you will wonder, some day, to see how much the animal kingdom is enriched." 

 In his memoir he says : "The diversity of opinions on the nature of the marine 

 plants, so far from satisfying a botanist, has seemed to me only the more capable 

 of stimulating his curiosity, and 1 acknowledge that mine has been excited by 

 the desire of making some researches on this subject." He repairs therefore to 

 the sea-coast, repeats the observations of Peyssonnel, finds them at all points 

 exact, and, at his return to Paris, hastens to announce this to the Academy. 

 Thereupon the question was considered to be decided, and a whole class of beings 



* Since Bernard's time, the museum has received several manuscripts of Plumier, and in a 

 rather sins^ular manner. " Plumier had left a large number of manuscripts, some of great 

 value , but his monastic brethren, among- whom there was neither botanist nor naturalist, 

 held them in very little estimation. At the epoch of the revolution, when the convents were 

 wisited and the libraries of the moubs carried off, some of these manuscripts were found which 

 had served for fire-screens. M. Laurent de Jussieu had them carried to the Jardin du Hoi, 

 and deposited in the library. (Cuvier: Lecons sur I' Histoirc dcs Sciences Naturellcs.) 



t In proof of this " singular sagacity," we are told that "Bernard de Jussieu's scholars 

 used to bring him flowers which they had mutilated or compounded with others, for the pur- 

 pose of testing his knowledge, and he always recognized them immediately. Some of them 

 having made the same experiment on Linnaeus, he said, ' God or your teacher (Jussiou) can 

 alone answer your questions.' " Cuvier, in a biographical memoir on Richard, calls Bernard 

 " the most nu)dest and perhaps the most profound botanist of the eighteenth century, who, 

 although he has scarcely published anything, is, nevertheless, the inspiring genius of modern 

 botanists." — (Encyc. Americana.) — Tu. 



17 S 



