£05. 
This crust, however, teems with the 
fossil remains of organized beings, an in- 
contestable proof of great revolutions, and 
_ objects worthy of the curiosity Prine 
‘ists. Pallas, Camper, and Lamarck, 
have examined and found them for the 
most part different, not only from those 
now living in the same climates, but also 
fram those which have beeu collected on 
the surface of the globe. ~ 
The natural history of living bodies, 
infinitely more vast and. more compli- 
cated, than that of inanimate bodies, nas 
excited. works still more numerous, and 
which have not had less success. 
Their general theory is, what we call 
physiology ; it is divided into three parts; 
one chemical, which determines the sub- 
stances composing them, and compares 
them with those which they attract, and 
those which are extracted; one anatomi- 
cal, shewing the passages which these 
substances pursue, from the time of their 
ingress, until their issue; Jastly, one dy- 
namic, which considers the forces by 
which these complicated motions are ex- 
ecuted,, 
The first belongs almost entirely to the 
present period ;-it is by the successive la- 
bours of Pr iestley, Ingenhouz, Lavoisier, 
Fourcroy, Sennebier, * Spallanzani, Theo- 
zor de Saussure, that we clearly see, 
amongst the numerous transformations, 
ef’ which animal and vegetal life is 
_ composed, the decomposition of the car- 
bomic acid and of water, leaving the car- 
bon and hydrogen bare to predominate, 
as the essential character of vegetalisati- 
6n; and as that of animalisation, the in- 
verse operation; the recomposition of 
this acid, and this water, to deprive the 
animal body of its superfluous carbon 
and bydrogen, and to restore to the azote 
in, it the proportion necessary to the 
funcuons of life. 
The anatomical part had been culti- 
vated earlier, but yet it i¢in our period 
that it has been almost brought to pertec- 
tion, with respect to‘man, by the labours 
of Mascagni, on the lymphatic vessels, 
and that. it advances towards it with re- 
spect to other animals, by the researches 
of Vieq-d’Azyr, Camper, Blumenbach, 
Tessa, Home; and for vegetals, by 
thosé of Gaertner, Jussieu, Desfontaines, 
Mirbel, Link, Decandolle ; and a great 
number of other men as assiduous as they 
aye ingenious. 
The dynamic part, or physiology pro- 
perly so called, is by its nature that 
Progress of the Stiences since 1780. 
[Nov. 1 
which-would remain longest imperfect ; it 
has had at least the good fortune, with 
sage minds, to disencumber itself of those 
occult and general principles which were 
sv vaguely applied to all difficult cases 
under the names of archeus, of vegetative 
soul, of vital povser and others similar ; 
the real powers attached to each organic 
element, suchas the muscular irritabi- 
lity, the nervous influence,. the celular 
contractility, have been determined ; the 
share which they take in each phenome- 
non has been analysed; and although, 
not being rationally explained, each of 
them may yet be considered as occult, - 
they have, notwithstanding, been adopted 
asso many principles by which to elucidate 
the phenomena to which they contribute, 
in the same manner as astronomers em- 
ploy general attraction and chemists mo- 
Jecular attraction. - 
Tt would be very difficult to name all 
the physiologists whose 
have led us by degrees to this regularity 
in the order of the principles. Haller 
had in some measure traced the route for 
them; but Jianter, Reil, Prochaska, 
Sommering, Kielmayer, Chaussier, Bi- 
chat,and other Frenchmen and foreigners, 
have each made in it more or Jess nume- 
rous improvements, which we have en- 
deavoured to point out in our report. 
The particular natural history bn 
beings, is, therefore, no longer ' any thing: 
more than the use of these general theo- 
ries, to explain the phenomena peculiar 
to each being, and depending on the 
structure, the number, and the dispositi- 
on, of the organs animated and put in mo-*, 
tion by the forces which we have Just 
announced, 
It supposes in the first place, that the 
beings treated of in it, are perfectly de- 
noiminated, distinguished from each 
other, and inserted in this great cata- 
Jogue, the basis of the whole science, to 
which has been given the name of Syste- 
manatere. Linneus, had laid the foun- 
dations of it, but his successors have 
prodigiously extended it; and never per- 
haps has it received accessions to be + 
compared with those of the last twenty Pe 
vears. 
We relate the names of the voyagers, 
and travellers, who have procured for us 
new species, of the collections in which 
they are brought together, of the natura — 
lists who have described them. - 
( To be continued. ) 
meditations 
