OMtuary — Henri Ililne Edwards. i77 



claimed descent from Sir Nicholas Vanx of Harrowden, first Baron 

 Vaux. Henri was his father's twenty-seventh child. Daring the 

 incarceration of Colonel Edwards in Belgium, on suspicion of aiding 

 the escape of some prisoners, Henri was placed in the care of his 

 eldest brother William, the eminent physiologist. Most reputations 

 may be traced to the fostering of early inclinations, and that of 

 Henri Milne Edwards had its incipience in a scientific analysis he 

 essayed in his boyhood of Buffon's Histoire des Animanx. Educated 

 for the medical profession, but dividing his leisure between painting 

 and music, he took his M.B. degree at Paris in July, 1823, in which 

 year he married Laure, daughter of Colonel Trezel. This union, 

 which was one of affection, stimulated Edwards in the noble aims of 

 bis career. Thus early he addressed several memoirs to the Academy 

 of Sciences, Paris, one of which, carefully elaborated with the 

 assistance of F. Vavasseur, on the Influence du systeme nerveux sur la 

 digestion stomacale, attracted considerable notice. It was a subject 

 he continued later on in his memoire, with G. Breschet, on the 

 ^Mnomenes de la digestion. Another paper printed at this dawning 

 period (1823) deserves mention. It was his Memoire sur la structure 

 elementaire des principaux tissus organiques des animaux. Two years 

 later the necessities of an increasing family further stimulated his 

 exertions. He published elementary treatises on medicine, and, 

 conjointly with Vavasseur, the well-known Manuel de matiere medicale, 

 translated into the principal European languages. Edwards's 

 passion for the study of Natural History at this time developed itself, 

 and the numerous and admirable works which he brought out year 

 by year threw new light on many of the problems of animal life. 

 Hitherto, naturalists had been content to base their work on exterior 

 characteristics, and the new and more philosophic departui'e in- 

 augurated by Cuvier, namely, that in order to judge of the true 

 relationship of animals, all their organs must be well understood, 

 was followed up by Edwards with keenness and activity, especially 

 in regard to modes of development ; and the study of comparative 

 anatomy and comparative physiology, pari passu, thus started, has 

 been since accepted as the only true method of investigation in 

 scientific research. Edwards may be said to have taken the lead in 

 biological inquiry, and to have pioneered the geographical distribution 

 of the lower forms of animal life. In order to arrive at a reason- 

 able understanding of the plan governing the constitution of the 

 animal kingdom he endeavoured to judge of causes by their effects ; 

 not that, for a single moment, he says, did he believe himself to be 

 able to divine the mother-thought from which emanated the vast 

 conception of life, nor to determine the route followed by the Gkeat 

 Author in the execution of His work. But Edwards went thus far 

 to declare that, though he found that organisms are not really 

 identical, the first condition imposed upon Nature in the formation 

 of animals appears to be diversity of productions. It was his com- 

 prehensive and analytical method of exploitation constantly applied 

 which realized the laws presiding over the organization of animated 

 nature — laws which, put by him on a sure foundation, must be 



