THE JUSSIEUS AND THE NATURAL METHOD 261 



Not a few botanists have attempted, as well eiuce the deatb of Linnaaus as 

 during bis life, to di;?cover tbe key of bis names, tbe bidden principle of bis order, 

 but none has succeeded. Giseke, one of bis pupils, bud maintained at Gottingen, 

 in 17G7, atbesis on tbe Keui systcvis qfhotany, [Systemata jjl antarum recent iora.) 

 and, in reference to the natural orders of Linnaeus, bad said : " Linnaeus has 

 written a series of name?, but nothing more ; no character, no description ; a 

 genuine enigma, almost impossible to divine; one knows not why such a plant 

 is placed here, another there, nor what reason has prevailed with the author for 

 uniting or separating them." After some hesitation he sent bis thesis to Lin- 

 naeus, who answered him with bis usual good-nature : " You ask of me tbe char- 

 acters of my orders, and I confess that I cannot give them." 



Bernard would not have spoken thus lightly of his orders, and would not have 

 changed tbe arrangement he bad given them for another, and this because he 

 possessed the key, the reason, tbe ascertained principle of that admirable arrange- 

 ment — a principle which, after having carried the natural method into botany, 

 has carried it into zoology, and will carry it everywhere ; a principle which is 

 to-day so universally recognized under the name of tbe principle of tbe subordi- 

 nation of characters " In examining characters," says Laurent de Jussieu in 

 speaking of Bernard, " that botanist had remarked that some were more general 

 than others, and ought to furnish the first divisions. After having appreciated 

 them successively, he bad recognized that the germination of the seed and the 

 respective arrangement of tbe sexual organs were the two principal and most 

 invariable. He adopted them, and made them the basis of the arrangement which 

 be established at Trianon in 1759." 



There is, in effect, a visible succession, a visible suhordination of tbe organs, 

 and consequently of the characters. In plants, tbe first rank pertains to the 

 enibryo, the end and purpose of vegetation, as destined to preserve the life of 

 the species ; the second, to the organs which concur in the formation of that 

 embryo — that is to say, to the stamens and pistils — but taken together and con- 

 sidered in their reciprocal relations ; then come the organs which protect these 

 or the other parts of tbe flower, of the fruit, of the seed ; then the secondary 

 modifications of tbe essential organs themselves, considered separately; and then 

 tbe organs of vegetation, which contribute only to tlie individual life. Before Ber- 

 nard the characters ^&cq enumerated ; since his time, they are ajipreciated ; we 

 know, since then, that they have unequal values, that a character of the first rank 

 is equivalent to several of the second, one of these to several of the third, &c. 

 Neither Tournefort,nor Adanson, nor Linnaeus had discerned this controlling prin- 

 ciple ; Bernard perceived it, availed himself of it, and embodied it silently in bis 

 catalogue ; Laurent de Jussieu drew it thence, developed it, and placed it in full 

 light ; M. Cuvier transferred it, by giving it wider scope, from botany to zoology ; 

 and thus by successive steps we have been endowed with the natural method. 



§ 5. — Old age of Bernard. 

 " Convinced that principles exist ready formed in nature," (it is Laurent who 

 speaks,) " and that tbe botanist ought to confine himself to seeking them there, 

 without attempting to establish them apart from nature," Bernard had excused 

 himself from the labor of composing a book. According to iiim, tbe perfect book 

 was open to all; it was only necessary to learn to read it. When be found 

 himself intrusted with the creation of a botanic garden, he could not fail to ex- 

 perience the liveliest pleasure, for it was the living book, of which he bad in- 

 dulged a dream, that he was now commissioned to produce by arranging plants 

 in the natural order, of which be bad discovered the clue. Simply to supply an 

 aid to his memory, be bad then composted bis catalogue, and such is the charm 

 of truth that this catalogue, which is only a long series of barbarous uames, be- 

 came the poetry of a life instinctively devoted to one great task. 



