Baron Cuvier on the state nf' Natural History. 13 



pei-suasion that so many beauties purely relative to man, ai-e an 

 attraction for man. The wonders of the earth, like those of 

 the heavens, are destined to captivate our mind, to excite our 

 genius. It is the continuation of the command to see and name, 

 with which the life of our species opens ; it is the path that is 

 to lead us, whether to higher contemplations or to inventions 

 only useful. 



In fact, natural history makes no step vvithout physiology and 

 philosophy marching with an equal step, and without society 

 receiving their common tribute. Nor does the epoch of which we 

 have been speaking shine less for the sciences of experiment and 

 combination, and for their applications to our wants, than for 

 those enormous accumulations of the objects of our studies; and 

 it would not require less time than I have already occupied, to 

 present a mere enumeration of the benefits these sciences have con- 

 ferred. I would shew all that botany has gained for us. The 

 araucaria cedar, brought from Brazil by M. St Hilaire, and 

 which will form so fine an ornament for our southern woods, I 

 would speak of the Pho?'mmm tenax, formerly imported by M. de 

 la Billardiere, and whose propagation in France is now insured. 

 Its threads, which are smaller, and at the same time stronger, 

 than those of hemp, will be of the greatest utility for our navy. I 

 would make known the services which M. Leschenault has ren- 

 dered to the Island of Bourbon, by teaching the inhabitants, what 

 they were previously ignorant of, the mode of applying their cin- 

 namon-trees to use, and the new source of riches which he has 

 ^ven to Cayenne, by transporting there the tea-plant of China. 

 In reality, our colonies live only on the gifts of our botanists, and 

 it is surprising they have not erected monuments to Jussieu and 

 Desclieux, who procured for them the cofFee-tree, or to Poivre 

 and Sonnerat, who went, amid so many perils, to seek out spice 

 trees for them. I would explain how the discoveries of botany 

 are rendered doubly useful by those of chemistry, which, in 

 these later times, has succeeded in unfolding the medicinal 

 principles, and in appreciating, almost mathematically, the de- 

 gree of virtue of each substance. The labours of M. Sertiirner, 

 of MM. Pelletier and Caventon, would appear here with lustre. 

 I would join those of M. Chevreul on the principles of animals, 

 which open new views in physiology ; those of M. Mitscher- 



