Antoine-Laurent Jussieu. 5 



ties, and submitted to liim his doubts ; though, at the same 

 time, Ave ought to add, that, even in those discussions wliich 

 he then originated, he was often less influenced by scientific 

 curiosity than by filial afFection. For, suice the death of his 

 brother Antoine, Bernard had become sadly melancholy, and 

 shortly after this he lost his sight. The only links, then, which 

 bound the venerable old man to hfe, were those supplied by a 

 young man, who unceasingly watched to reanimate, by search- 

 ing and difficult inquiries, a genius which was wont to be 

 ardently bent upon meditation. 



In the year 1773, a vacancy occurred in the Academy, and 

 Bernard urged his nephew to become a candidate for the ho- 

 nour ; but Laurent had liitherto published nothing. It was, 

 therefore, necessary for him to prepare some memoir, and for 

 the subject of his first work he chose '• The examination of 

 the family of the BammcuUr The subject selected was of no 

 great moment, for, whatever it might have been, it supplied an 

 occasion for manifesting his powers, and developing his en- 

 larged ideas. Hence, it was, in fact, by a powerful reaction 

 upon his uncle's opinions that he conceived those ideas under a 

 new form, a form which was his own ; and that he, in his turn, 

 conferred upon them the uBpress of his own thoughts and of his 

 OAA-n genius. He used often to mention that it was this memoir 

 which made him a botanist ; that the curtain was then raised, — 

 le voile s'etait leve — was his expression ; and that then, for the 

 first time, he recognised those grand principles, the demonstra- 

 tion of which henceforth became the constant aim of all his 

 efforts and researches. 



This memoir produced the strongest possible impression. 

 It introduced to notice a completely new set of ideas. After 

 its pubUcation, a new element, — the constituent principle of 

 the Natural Arrangement — then received its place in science, 

 and speedily effected a change upon its whole character. Up 

 to this period, and particularly since the time of Linnaeus, 

 science had very much tiu-ned upon nomenclature ; but now, 

 and in obedience to an impulse which conducted it nearer to 

 its true object, the nature of beings, it caused the study of cha- 

 racters to take the place of the study of nomenclature. " No- 

 menclature," says the author himself, "ought not to be neglect- 



