IS6 Trench National Institute, 



lumes of " Lectures on comparative Anatomy, by M< Cu- 

 vier;" and thus terniina'ed a work ia which anatomy and 

 physiology are considered in the most general manner. 



M. Dumas, correspondent and professor at Monlpelier, 

 has not yet finished his "Grand Physiology," announced by 

 us some lime ago; and he has been obliged to give a new 

 edition of that which he had already published. 



M. Barthey, correspondent and professor also of Mont-? 

 pelier, has reproduced his celebrated work upon "The Ele- 

 ments of the Science of Manj" which is likely to produce :\ 

 happy revolution in physiology. 



The natural but premature desire of referring to the ge-. 

 neral laws of physics and chemistry the phaenomena of 

 living bodies, had suggested to the physiologists of the 17th 

 and of one-half of the 18th century, a crowd of hypotheses 

 cquallv gratuitous as they are complicated, and which were 

 very far from conducting then) to their object. 



Some men of genius, disgusted with this way of contra- 

 dicturv suppositions, thought of applying to living bodies the 

 IDCthod so usefully employed in physical astropomy since the 

 days of Newton. 



That great maii uiocovcred that the movement of the stars, 

 $ocorp plicated in appearance, was regulated according to cer- 

 tain laws which he succeeded in ascertaining; in a word, 

 universal gravitation : and admitting, once for all, in our cal- 

 culations, this general fact, rigorously defined and appreciated, 

 without examining the cause of it, we may effectually suc- 

 ceed in explaining every phaenomcnon with precision, and 

 foretel the time and place of each with even more exactitude 

 than we could have dune by the longe^jt cqntinucd observa- 

 tions. 



This rejection of the iiiquiry into first causes, in order to 

 attitch ourselves merely to an exact determination nf secon- 

 dary causes, or the immediate elements of motion, has tlui^ 

 been a fortunate and productive idea. 



Physiologists, therefore, have done right in imitating it, 

 9nd much is due to M. Barthes for having invited them lo 

 jt from his own success. 



But now that the utility of this method is no longer con- 

 tested. 



