MEMOIR OF DUCROTAY DE BLAINVILLE. 177 



theatres and hospitals, he proved himself a not umvorthy competitor even of 

 Bichat, by a remarkable disquisition on experimental and comparative physi- 

 ology.* 



The report of this transformation of character, which must have been a mat- 

 ter of no little surprise, and perhaps chagrin, to the noble and gay companions 

 of his early youth, penetrated at length into the paternal manor-house, where 

 the eldest of the family of De Blainville still resided. " Do you know what has 

 become of your younger brother ?" said one day a communicative traveller. 

 " Nothing good, I suppose." " Let me tell you, then, that lie is in a path which 

 will lead to great renown." "Impossible!" exclaimed the feudal Norman; "he 

 never had the least inclination for employment of any sort." 



The range of his earliest labors, his address, his birth, the singularity of his 

 outset, caused this new adept of science to be remarked from the first. In pur- 

 suing all the branches of instruction at the museum he met everywhere with 

 generous sympathy ; and it was in this great and first school of modern natural 

 history that were developed, during years of profound study, the pre-emi- 

 nent faculties of an intelligence destined to mark its passage by force of medita- 

 tion, boldness of views, and tenacity in controversy. 



He first attached himself to zoology, and to this he gave a distinctive charac- 

 ter. Especially is this character observable in what he has left us respecting 

 the mollusks and the zoophytes.] When he began to occupy himself with these 

 two groups of beings, all the principal divisions had already been established, 

 the type had been definitely determined, the classes formed, these classes 

 divided into orders ; but there remained the genera, a labor which required 

 peculiar sagacity, and in this De Blainville excelled. | His conceptions of 

 the genera wei-e such as Linnaeus had entertained ; nor is this the sole parallel 

 which I discover between himself and that naturalist of so rare a cast. These 



* This disquisition, which was his thesis, bore the following title: Propositions 

 extracted from an Essay on Respiration, folloiced by some experiments on the influence of the 

 eighth pair Hf nerves on respiration, presented and maintained at the School of Medicine of 

 Paris, August 30, 1808. 



t His researches on the mollusks are his best labors in practical zoology. His Manual 

 of Malacology forms an eminent work in anatomy, physiology, and especially analytical 

 classification. This work, undertaken in 1814 for the Supplement of the British Encyclopedia, 

 was not published till 18"25. Several fragments of it had appeared in the Dictionaire dcs 

 Sciences Naturelles, and the article Conchology of that compilation is reproduced in the 

 Supplement, with numerous additions. The article Mollusks is also given, with extensive 

 developments and new monographs. "I have drawn much," says M. de Blainville, "upon 

 the work of Lamarck for the number and distribution of living shells, and upon that of 

 Defrance for fossil shells. I think," he adds, very judiciously, "that the species have been 

 generally too much multiplied. We may sometimes derive benefit from these approxima- 

 tions of identical or analogous fossil species, althougii, as I intentionally repeat, we ought 

 not to place an unlimited confidence in them. In all parts of the natural sciences, what is 

 laid down to-day is almost always susceptible of being modified to-morrow." (He had 

 adopted as a general device of his writings, Dies diem docet — day teaches day.) He thus 

 recapitulates the spirit of his book: "It has been my object to show that the classification of 

 molluscous animals may very well accord with that of shells, and that consequently their 

 simultaneous study must have an influence on that of each of them." 



The Manual of Actinology or Zoophytology is also an important work, but must be ranked 

 after the former. It is the reproduction of the article Zoophytes of the Dictionary of Natm-ul 

 Sciences, but much improved. "The plan I have followed," he says, "is the same with 

 that which I had adopted for my Manual of Malacology ; I have stated, in distinct chapters, 

 the generalities pertaining to the organization, physiology, and natural history of all the 

 animals heretofore confounded under the name of zoopAz/«e.«. * ^ * * * I have had 

 in view to cite all the genera which have been proposed, in order to supply the lacunte 

 which might exist in the Dictionary of Natural Sciences, which is not a proof, however, that 

 we adopt them all. * * * *." Xhe last phrase is, by its turn, characteristic of the man- 

 ner of M. do Blainville. 



t Here de Blainville had two peculiar merits — merits which also distinguished 

 Linnaeus — that of marking the true character of each gemis, and that of ranging the genera, 

 one in relation to the others, agreeably to an analytical view. See in another note what I 

 shall say of the series of beings. 



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