36 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
true worth, he entrusted the statement of his opinions to 
Réaumur, who was to conceal his name. Even in this choice 
he was unfortunate, though probably at the time he could 
not have selected a better. Réaumur stated his opinions, 
but so far was he from supporting them that he wrote an 
essay, with objections to what he considered a new theory, and 
gave a preference to the theory which regarded them as vege- 
table productions. 
It is recorded of Galileo, when he rose from his knees 
after making the humbling recantation of his novel and then 
heretical doctrine of the revolutions of the earth, that he 
said, sotto voce, “ It still moves ;’—so we doubt Peyssonnel, 
in spite of the taunts and sneers of the Academicians, would 
persist mn saying they are neither flowers nor crystallizations, 
but living creatures. He had all the world against him till 
1741, when,—owing to the discoveries of M. Trembley, re- 
specting the animality of the fresh-water Hydra, and the Plu- 
matella, which excited such wonder,—the tide fairly turned. 
Bernard de Jussieu and some other distinguished naturalists 
were led to examine the marine corals and corallines, and 
soon found that Peyssonnel’s doctrine was the true one, and 
extended to many more zoophytes than he had examined. 
Even Réaumur was convinced, and did justice at last to 
