202 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Europe, according to Theoplirastiis, a pupil of Aristotle, justly 

 gtyled the second naturalist of antiquity; whose studies, pursued 

 in his botanical garden at Athens, have in reality founded the 

 science of botany. 



Pliny and his cotemporary, Dioscorides, labored some four hun- 

 dred years later. Pliny, as is well known, was suffocated at the 

 eruption of Vesuvius in A. D. 79. 



From this time the chain of progress seems for ages obscured 

 in dark waters. It re-appears in the times of Luther and Bacon, 

 and henceforth science marches upon sure bases in place of assump- 

 tions and fancies. 



Henceforth the portraitures of Deity are to be received by the 

 human mind in freedom, that Truth may have its perfect work. 



It has often been said that more has been done in the depart- 

 ment of zoology, during the fifty years commencing with the 

 French revolution, than all which had been previously done. 



Among the chief means of progress we enumerate the re-organi- 

 zation of the Garden of Plants in June, 1793, and the creation of 

 the Menagerie five months later. That this became the school of 

 Comparative Anatomy, is due to the bold, initiative and perse- 

 vering labors of Geoffrey St. Hilaire, and his co-laborers, Cuvier 

 and Lamarck. 



It was in 1800 that first were published the " Lessons on Com- 

 parative Anatomy " by Cuvier, while that of Blumenback appeared 

 in Germany five years later. 



It was when Cuvier published his Comparative Anatomy that 

 Bichat gave to the w^orld his " General Anatomy," reserving in 

 part physiology, and through it medicine. 



Now, in order to realize the true position of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 

 to comprehend what is his " method," his Philosophic Anatomy, 

 to seize the characteristic of his noble work, it remains for us to 

 pass in review the three cotemporaneous schools of Natural His- 

 tory : the school of Cuvier, that of Schelling, and that of Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire : 



1. The school of Cuvier was one of observation, of the direct 

 study of nature in all its phenomena, in all its manifestations 

 accessible to our senses; whence comes our knowledge of ^cic^y. 

 According to Cuvier the science was essentially the history, the 

 descriptive and the methodical exposition oi \\\e facts. 



2. The school of Schelling recognized the necessity of observa- 



