Remarks on M. Bory dc Si-Vincent's Species of Man. 33 



Aet. VI. — Remarks on M. le Colonel Bory de St-Vincents 

 proposed species of the Genus Homo. By a Correspondent. 



" What a piece of work is Man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in 

 faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how 

 like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! — the beauty of the world 



— the paragon of animals !" 



Shakspeare, Hamlet. 



The men of science in France are the most indefatigable of 

 human beings; and, so far as regards some of the departments 

 of Physical Science, have certainly outstripped, by their mi- 

 nute industry, most of their contemporaries in the other coun- 

 tries of Europe. In the different branches of Natural Histo- 

 ry, in particular, which seems to have attracted a more than 

 usual portion of attention, the liberality of their government 

 in fitting out exploratory expeditions, and the zeal and abili- 

 ty of their observers, has greatly increased the number of 

 species ; and the teachers of those branches of science at home 

 have powerfully exerted themselves in examining the struc- 

 ture of these in every particular, and thrown light, in many 

 cases, upon what w*as before not at all or but imperfectly 

 known. While we award to the French naturalists, therefore, 

 all the praise that is due to perseverance and acute observation, 

 and give them the merit of a great many of the recent disco- 

 veries in Botany and Zoology, we do so with the most sincere 

 feelings of respect and gratitude. But we are not very cer- 

 tain that their zeal and industry has always been accompanied 

 by those higher qualities of mind, which enable their posses- 

 sors to generalize isolated observations, and to form extended 

 and philosophical views of those portions of nature which they 

 are so successful in cultivating in detail. 



In point of fact, the great characteristic of Frenchmen is 

 Nationality. They chanced to give birth to Tournefort, his 

 successors the Jussieus, and BufFon — and, of course, in a coun- 

 try which makes the most of every thing national, the simple 

 and beautiful arrangement of the objects of nature proposed by 

 the great Linna'us, had comparatively few followers in France. 

 That this system was triumphant everywhere else, only whet- 



VOL. V. NO. I. JULY 1826. c 



