Antoine- Laurent Jussieu. 19 



and it appears to us, that the peculiar characters of their re- 

 spective geniuses may here be unravelled and distinguished 

 by distinct traits. Bernard, by the power of an acute percep- 

 tion, recognised the principles of the natural order, but he 

 discovered them without explaining them, and much more for 

 his individual guidance than for the advantage of others. Lau- 

 rent gi'ouped them, especially when explaining them and 

 making them familiar to others. These principles, if I may 

 so speak, sprung up in the one, and were matured in the 

 other ; the one discovered them, the other propounded them ; 

 in a word, the one is that earlier age in which genius descried 

 them, and the other that later age in which genius drew de- 

 ductions from what had been discovered ; and there is between 

 M. de Jussieu and his uncle, — between their labours, their 

 methods, and the impress of their thoughts, — all the difference 

 which exists between these two ages. 



If, after thus contrasting the work of M. de Jussieu with 

 what had been done previous to its appearance, we compare 

 it with what has followed, its position will remain not less 

 singular. We have seen that the author established one hun- 

 dred primitive families, and not one of these families has 

 been suppressed, whilst more than the half of them have not 

 undergone the slightest modification. Three of them have 

 been carried over, and entirely, into neighbouring groups ; 

 which, however, is nothing more than a different mode of as- 

 sociation. The majority of the others, as a natural result of 

 ' the immense number of new species which have been collected 

 within the last half century, have been necessarily subdivided 

 and separated, but almost the whole of them precisely into 

 those sections and gi-oups which M. de Jussieu himself had 

 indicated. Finally, there have been five, and five only, vrhich 

 have been found only partially to be natural. The errors, 

 therefore, are connected only with some fragments of families, 

 — with some scattered genera ; and, even as it regards them, 

 there usually occurs some note, or other indication, some query, 

 which directs the eye towards the truth, and in a way which 

 the most wonderful sagacity only could at the time perceive, 

 so few were the elements which the author then had at his 

 disposal, and so many new ones, it was necessary for him to 



