ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 235 



tailed external and internal morphology. Both lines of 

 study, with their respective methods of observation, re- 

 search, and reasoning, were equally wanted. The former 

 was more easily attained with plants, the latter promised 

 more immediate fruit in dealing with animals. In follow- 

 ing the former, Bernard de Jussieu became the founder 

 of modern descriptive botany ; in taking up the latter, 

 in founding comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier became 

 for a long time the leader in zoology. 



Bernard de Jussieu was led to his natural system of so. 



Jussieu. 



classification, not by any theoretical considerations, but by 

 the practical task of arranging the plants in the garden 

 of Trianon, confided to his care by Louis XV., who was a 

 great lover of botany. He had with him as assistant his 

 nephew, Ant. Laurent de Jussieu, who in 1789 published 

 his ' Genera Plantarum,' which is, so far as method goes, 

 the work of his uncle. " This work produced a verit- 

 able revolution in botany, for only since its publica- 

 tion have plants been studied according to the relations 

 which they exhibit and according to the totality of 

 their organisation." l It was not one special character 

 or side of their existence, arbitrarily selected by a first 

 superficial observation, which served as a means of de- 

 scription ; their different parts or organs were conceived 

 to be correlated i.e., dependent on each other and united 

 to form the totality of their organisation their various 

 characters were all taken into account, and looked upon 

 as subordinated one to the other. 2 From the time of 



1 See ' Histoire des Sciences 

 Naturelles,' par Geo. Cuvier, com- 

 ple'te'e par T. M. de Saint Agy, 

 Paris, 1845, vol. v. p. 298. 



2 Aug. Pyrame de Candolle 

 (' The"orie elementaire de la Bo- 

 tanique,' Paris, 1819, 2nd ed., p. 

 69) gives the following account of 



