[1029] ‘Si la nature, au lieu de mains et de doigts flexibles, eût terminé nos poignets par un pied de cheval; qui doute que les hommes, sans art, sans habitations, sans défense contre les animaux, tout occupés du soin de pourvoir à leur nourriture et d'éviter les bêtes féroces, ne fussent encore errants dans les forêts comme des troupeaux fugitifs?’ Helvétius, De l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 2. Had Helvétius ever read the attack of Aristotle against Anaxagoras for asserting that διὰ τὸ χεῖοας ἔχειν, φρονιμώώτατον εῖναι τῶν ζώων τὸν ἄνθρωπον? Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. vol. iii. p. 311.

[1030] De l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 2.

[1031] Ibid. vol. i. p. 4.

[1032] ‘En effet la mémoire ne peut être qu'un des organes de la sensibilité physique.’ vol. i. p. 6. Compare what M. Lepelletier says on this, in his Physiologie Médicale, vol. iii. p. 272.

[1033] ‘D'où je conclus que tout jugement n'est qu'une sensation.’ De l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 10; ‘juger, comme je l'ai déjà prouvé, n'est proprement que sentir.’ p. 41.

[1034] ‘Né sensible à la douleur et au plaisir, c'est à la sensibilité physique que l'homme doit ses passions; et à ses passions, qu'il doit tous ses vices et toutes ses vertus.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 53; and see vol. i. p. 239.

[1035] ‘Une fois parvenu à cette vérité, je découvre facilement la source des vertus humaines; je voie que sans la sensibilité à la douleur et au plaisir physique, les hommes, sans désirs, sans passions, également indifférents à tout, n'eussent point connu d'intérêt personnel; que sans intérêt personnel ils ne se fussent point rassemblés en société, n'eussent point fait entr'eux de conventions, qu'il n'y eût point eu d'intérêt général, par conséquent point d'actions justes ou injustes; et qu'ainsi la sensibilité physique et l'intérêt personnel ont été les auteurs de toute justice.’ Ibid. vol. i. p. 278.

[1036] De l'Esprit, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20, 30, 34, 293, 294, 318. Compare Epicurus, in Diog. Laert. de Vit. Philos. lib. x. seg. 120, vol. i. p. 654.

[1037] De l'Esprit, vol. ii. p. 45. He sums up: ‘il s'ensuit que l'amitié, ainsi que l'avarice, l'orgueil, l'ambition et les autres passions, est l'effet immédiat de la sensibilité physique.’

[1038] ‘Il lui est aussi impossible d'aimer le bien pour le bien, que d'aimer le mal pour le mal.’ Ibid. vol. i. p. 73.

[1039] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 249.

[1040] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.

[1041] ‘Nous sommes uniquement ce que nous font les objets qui nous environnent.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 306.

[1042] Saint Surin, a zealous opponent of Helvétius, admits that ‘les étrangers les plus éminents par leurs dignités ou par leurs lumières, désiraient d'être introduits chez un philosophe dont le nom retentissait dans toute l'Europe.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xx. p. 33.

[1043] Brissot (Mémoires, vol. i. p. 339) says, that in 1775, ‘le système d'Helvétius avait alors la plus grande vogue.’ Turgot, who wrote against it, complains that it was praised ‘avec une sorte de fureur’ (Œuvres de Turgot, vol. ix. p. 297); and Georgel (Mémoires, vol. ii. p. 256) says, ‘ce livre, écrit avec un style plein de chaleur et d'images, se trouvoit sur toutes les toilettes.’

[1044] ‘D'ailleurs le siècle de Louis XV se reconnut dans l'ouvrage d'Helvétius, et on prête à Mme. Dudeffand ce mot fin et profond: “C'est un homme qui a dit le secret de tout le monde.”’ Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. I. série, vol. iii. p. 201. Compare Corresp. de Dudeffand, vol. i. p. xxii.; and a similar sentiment in Mém. de Roland, vol. i. p. 104. The relation of Helvétius's work to the prevailing philosophy is noticed in Comte's Philos. Pos. vol. iii. pp. 791, 792. vol. v. pp. 744, 745.

[1045] Biog. Univ. vol. ix. p. 399.

[1046] ‘Condillac est le métaphysicien français du XVIII^e siècle.’ Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. I. série, vol. iii. p. 83.

[1047] ‘Traité des Sensations,’ which, as M. Cousin says, is, ‘sans comparaison, le chef-d'œuvre de Condillac.’ Hist. de la Philos. II. série, vol. ii. p. 77.

[1048] On the immense influence of Condillac, compare Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 355; Cuvier, Eloges, vol. iii. p. 387; Broussais, Cours de Phrénologie, pp. 45, 68–71, 829; Pinel, Alién. Mentale, p. 94; Brown's Philos. of the Mind, p. 212.

[1049] Whether or not Locke held that reflection is an independent as well as a separate faculty, is uncertain; because passages could be quoted from his writings to prove either the affirmative or the negative. Dr. Whewell justly remarks, that Locke uses the word so vaguely as to ‘allow his disciples to make of his doctrines what they please.’ History of Moral Philosophy, 1852, p. 71.

[1050] ‘Locke distingue deux sources de nos idées, les sens et la réflexion. Il seroit plus exact de n'en reconnoître qu'une, soit parceque la réflexion n'est dans son principe que la sensation même, soit parce qu'elle est moins la source des idées que le canal par lequel elles découlent des sens.’ Condillac, Traité des Sensations, p. 13: see also, at pp. 19, 216, the way in which sensation becomes reflection; and the summing up, at p. 416, ‘que toutes nos connoissances viennent des sens, et particulièrement du toucher.’

[1051] He says of Mallebranche (Traité des Sensations, p. 312), ‘ne pouvant comprendre comment nous formerions nous-mêmes ces jugemens, il les attribue à Dieu; manière de raisonner fort commode, et presque toujours la ressource des philosophes.’

[1052] ‘Mais à peine j'arrête la vue sur un objet, que les sensations particulières que j'en reçois sont l'attention même que je lui donne.’ Traité des Sensations, p. 16.

[1053] ‘Ne sont que différentes manières d'être attentif.’ p. 122.

[1054] ‘Dès qu'il y a double attention, il y a comparaison; car être attentif à deux idées ou les comparer, c'est la même chose.’ p. 17.

[1055] ‘Dès qu'il y a comparaison, il y a jugement.’ p. 65.

[1056] ‘La mémoire n'est donc que la sensation transformée.’ p. 17. Compare p. 61.

[1057] ‘L'imagination est la mémoire même, parvenue à toute la vivacité dont elle est susceptible.’ p. 78. ‘Or j'ai appelé imagination cette mémoire vive qui fait paroître présent ce qui est absent.’ p. 245.

[1058] ‘Il résulte de cette vérité, que la nature commence tout en nous: aussi ai-je démontré que, dans le principe ou dans le commencement, nos connoissances sont uniquement son ouvrage, que nous ne nous instruisons que d'après ses leçons, et que tout l'art de raisonner consisté à continuer comme elle nous a fait commencer.’ p. 178.

[1059] Compare Powell on Radiant Heat, p. 261, in Second Rep. of Brit. Assoc.; Whewell's History of Sciences, vol. ii. p. 526; and his Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 339, 340. Prevost was professor at Geneva; but his great views were followed up in France by Dulong and Petit; and the celebrated theory of dew by Dr. Wells is merely an application of them. Herschel's Nat. Philosophy, pp. 163, 315, 316. Respecting the further prosecution of these inquiries, and our present knowledge of radiant heat, see Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. i. p. 79, vol. iii. p. 30, vol. iv. p. 45.

[1060] On Fourier's mathematical theory of conduction, see Comte, Philos. Positive, vol. i. pp. 142, 175, 345, 346, 351, vol. ii. pp. 453, 551; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 203, 204; Kelland on Heat, p. 6, in Brit. Assoc. for 1841; Erman's Siberia, vol. i. p. 243; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. i. p. 169; Hitchcock's Geology, p. 198; Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, ii. 696, 697.

[1061] Coulomb's memoirs on electricity and magnetism were published from 1782 to 1789. Fifth Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 4. Compare Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. iii. p. 128; and on his relation to Œpinus, who wrote in 1759, see Whewell's Induc. Sciences, vol. iii. pp. 24–26, 35, 36, and Haüy, Traité de Minéralogie, vol. iii. p. 44, vol. iv. p. 14. There is a still fuller account of what was effected by Coulomb in M. Pouillet's able work, Elémens de Physique, vol. i. part ii. pp. 63–79, 130–135.

[1062] Fresnel belongs to the present century; but M. Biot says that the researches of Malus began before the passage of the Rhine in 1797. Biot's Life of Malus, in Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 412.

[1063] Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 484, 514; Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1832, p. 314; Leslie's Nat. Philos. p. 83; Whewell's Hist. of Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 408–410; Philos. of Sciences, vol. i. p. 350, vol. ii. p. 25; Herschel's Nat. Philos. p. 258.

[1064] The struggle between these rival theories, and the ease with which a man of such immense powers as Young was put down, and, as it were, suppressed, by those ignorant pretenders who presumed to criticize him, will be related in another part of this work, as a valuable illustration of the history and habits of the English mind. At present the controversy is finished, so far as the advocates of emission are concerned; but there are still difficulties on the other side, which should have prevented Dr. Whewell from expressing himself with such extreme positiveness on an unexhausted subject. This able writer says: ‘The undulatory theory of light; the only discovery which can stand by the side of the theory of universal gravitation, as a doctrine belonging to the same order, for its generality, its fertility, and its certainty.’ Whewell's Hist. of the Induc. Sciences, vol. ii. p. 425; see also p. 508.

[1065] As to the supposed impossibility of conceiving the existence of matter without properties which give rise to forces (note in Paget's Lectures on Pathology, 1853, vol. i. p. 61), there are two reasons which prevent me from attaching much weight to it. First, a conception which, in one stage of knowledge, is called impossible, becomes, in a later stage, perfectly easy, and so natural as to be often termed necessary. Secondly, however indissoluble the connexion may appear between force and matter, it was not found fatal to the dynamical theory of Leibnitz; it has not prevented other eminent thinkers from holding similar views; and the arguments of Berkeley, though constantly attacked, have never been refuted.

[1066] Every chemical decomposition being only a new form of composition. Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. pp. 455, 456, 498: ‘de tout cela il résulte, que la dissolution est un cas particulier des combinaisons.’

[1067] What is erroneously called the atomic theory, is, properly speaking, an hypothesis, and not a theory: but hypothesis though it be, it is by its aid that we wield the doctrine of definite proportions, the corner stone of chemistry.

[1068] Many of them being still fettered, in geology, by the hypothesis of catastrophes; in chemistry, by the hypothesis of vital forces.

[1069] See, for instance, Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. pp. 32–34, 40; Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 282; Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 184, 185; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. lxxxv.–lxxxix. 302; Thomson's Animal Chemistry, pp. 520, 634, and a great part of the second volume of his History of Chemistry; also Müller's Physiol. vol. i. pp. 90, 323.

[1070] According to Mr. Harcourt (Brit. Assoc. Report for 1839, p. 10), Cavendish has this merit, so far as England is concerned: ‘He, first of all his contemporaries, did justice to the rival theory recently proposed by Lavoisier.’

[1071] La chimie française. Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 101, 130. On the excitement caused by Lavoisier's views, see a letter which Jefferson wrote in Paris, in 1789, printed partly in Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. pp. 314, 315; and at length in Jefferson's Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 453–455.

[1072] ‘The first attempt to form a systematic chemical nomenclature was made by Lavoisier, Berthollet, G. de Morveau, and Fourcroy, soon after the discovery of oxygen gas.’ Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 127. Cuvier (Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 39) and Robin et Verdeil (Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. pp. 602, 603) ascribe the chief merit to De Morveau. Thomson says (Hist. of Chemistry, vol. ii. p. 133): ‘This new nomenclature very soon made its way into every part of Europe, and became the common language of chemists, in spite of the prejudices entertained against it, and the opposition which it every where met with.’

[1073] The famous central heat of Buffon is often supposed to have been taken from Leibnitz; but, though vaguely taught by the ancients, the real founder of the doctrine appears to have been Descartes. See Bordas Demoulin, Cartésianisme, Paris, 1843, vol. i. p. 312. There is an unsatisfactory note on this in Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. i. p. 100. Compare Experimental Hist. of Cold, tit. 17, in Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 308; Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 100. On the central heat of the Pythagoreans, see Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. i. p. 149; and as to the central fire mentioned in the so-called Oracles of Zoroaster, see Beausobre, Hist. de Manichée, vol. ii. p. 152. But the complete ignorance of the ancients respecting geology made these views nothing but guesses. Compare some sensible remarks in Matter's Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 282.

[1074] This comprehensiveness of Cuvier is justly remarked by M. Flourens as the leading characteristic of his mind. Flourens, Hist. des Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 76, 142, 306: ‘ce qui caractérise partout M. Cuvier, c'est l'esprit vaste.’

[1075] Hence he is called by Mr. Owen, ‘the founder of palæontological science.’ Owen on Fossil Mammalia, in Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1843, p. 208. It was in 1796 that there were thus ‘opened to him entirely new views of the theory of the earth.’ p. 209. See also Bakewell's Geology, p. 368; and Milne Edwards, Zoologie, part ii. p. 279. The importance of this step is becoming more evident every year; and it has been justly remarked, that without palæontology there would be, properly speaking, no geology. Balfour's Botany, 1849, p. 591. Sir R. Murchison (Siluria, 1854, p. 366) says, ‘it is essentially the study of organic remains which has led to the clear subdivision of the vast mass of older rocks, which were there formerly merged under the unmeaning term “Grauwacke.”’ In the same able work, p. 465, we are told that, ‘in surveying the whole series of formations, the practical geologist is fully impressed with the conviction that there has, at all periods, subsisted a very intimate connexion between the existence, or, at all events, the preservation of animals, and the media in which they have been fossilized.’ For an instance of this in the old red sandstone, see p. 329.

[1076] Whewell's Hist. of Sciences, vol. iii. p. 679; Lyell's Geol. p. 59. Indeed gneiss received its name from the Germans. Bakewell's Geol. p. 108.

[1077] Compare Conybeare's Report on Geology, p. 371 (Brit. Assoc. for 1832), with Bakewell's Geol. pp. 367, 368, 419, and Lyell's Geol. p. 59.

[1078] In the older half of the secondary rocks, mammals are hardly to be found, and they do not become common until the tertiary. Murchison's Siluria, pp. 466, 467; and Strickland on Ornithology, p. 210 (Brit. Assoc. for 1844). So, too, in the vegetable kingdom, many of the plants in the tertiary strata belong to genera still existing; but this is rarely the case with the secondary strata; while in the primary strata, even the families are different to those now found on the earth. Balfour's Botany, pp. 592, 593. Compare Wilson's additions to Jussieu's Botany, 1849, p. 746; and for further illustration of this remarkable law of the relation between advancing time and diminished similarity, a law suggesting the most curious speculations, see Hitchcock's Geology, p. 21; Lyell's Geology, p. 183; and Owen's Lectures on the Invertebrata, 1855, pp. 38, 576.

[1079] Mr. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire (Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. pp. 121–127) has collected some evidence respecting the opinions formerly held on these subjects. Among other instances, he mentions a learned man named Henrion, an academician, and, I suppose, a theologian, who in 1718 published a work, in which ‘il assignait à Adam cent vingt-trois pieds neuf pouces;’ Noah being twenty feet shorter, and so on. The bones of elephants were sometimes taken for giants: see a pleasant circumstance in Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 43.

[1080] ‘Daubenton a le premier détruit toutes ces idées; il a le premier appliqué l'anatomie comparée à la détermination de ces os…. Le mémoire où Daubenton a tenté, pour la première fois, la solution de ce problème important est de 1762.’ Flourens, Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 36, 37. Agassiz (Report on Fossil Fishes, p. 82, Brit. Assoc. for 1842) claims this merit too exclusively for Cuvier, overlooking the earlier researches of Daubenton; and the same mistake is made in Hitchcock's Geol. p. 249, and in Bakewell's Geol. p. 384.

[1081] Even Cuvier held the doctrine of catastrophes; but, as Sir Charles Lyell says (Principles of Geology, p. 60), his own discoveries supplied the means of overthrowing it, and of familiarizing us with the idea of continuity. Indeed it was one of the fossil observations of Cuvier which first supplied the link between reptiles, fishes, and cetaceous mammals. See Owen on Fossil Reptiles, pp. 60, 198, Brit. Assoc. for 1841; and compare Carus's Comparative Anatomy, vol. i. p. 155. To this I may add, that Cuvier unconsciously prepared the way for disturbing the old dogma of fixity of species, though he himself clung to it to the last. See some observations, which are very remarkable, considering the period when they were written, in Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, pp. 427, 428: conclusions drawn from Cuvier, which Cuvier would have himself rejected.

[1082] Neither Montesquieu nor Turgot appear to have believed in the possibility of generalizing the past, so as to predict the future; while as to Voltaire, the weakest point in his otherwise profound view of history was his love of the old saying, that great events spring from little causes; a singular error for so comprehensive a mind, because it depended on confusing causes with conditions. That a man like Voltaire should have committed what now seems so gross a blunder, is a mortifying reflection for those who are able to appreciate his vast and penetrating genius, and it may teach the best of us a wholesome lesson. This fallacy was avoided by Montesquieu and Turgot; and the former writer, in particular, displayed such extraordinary ability, that there can be little doubt, that had he lived at a later period, and thus had the means of employing in their full extent the resources of political economy and physical science, he would have had the honour not only of laying the basis, but also of rearing the structure of the philosophy of the history of Man. As it was, he failed in conceiving what is the final object of every scientific inquiry, namely, the power of foretelling the future: and after his death, in 1755, all the finest intellects in France, Voltaire alone excepted, concentrated their attention upon the study of natural phenomena.

[1083] The line of demarcation between anatomy as statical, and physiology as dynamical, is clearly drawn by M. Comte (Philos. Positive, vol. iii. p. 303) and by MM. Robin et Verdeil (Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. pp. 11, 12, 40, 102, 188, 434). What is said by Carus (Comparative Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 356) and by Sir Benjamin Brodie (Lectures on Pathology and Surgery, p. 6) comes nearly to the same thing, though expressed with less precision. On the other hand, M. Milne Edwards (Zoologie, part i. p. 9) calls physiology ‘la science de la vie;’ which, if true, would simply prove that there is no physiology at all, for there certainly is at present no science of life.

[1084] In his Règne Animal, vol. i. pp. vi. vii., he says that preceding naturalists ‘n'avaient guère considéré que les rapports extérieurs de ces espèces, et personne ne s'était occupé de coördonner les classes et les ordres d'après l'ensemble de la structure…. Je dus donc, et cette obligation me prit un temps considérable, je dus faire marcher de front l'anatomie et la zoologie, les dissections et le classement…. Les premiers résultats de ce double travail parurent en 1795, dans un mémoire spécial sur une nouvelle division des animaux à sang blanc.’

[1085] On the opposition between the methods of Linnæus and of Cuvier, see Jenyns' Report on Zoology, pp. 144, 145, in Brit. Assoc. for 1834.

[1086] The foundations of this celebrated arrangement was laid by Cuvier, in a paper read in 1795. Whewell's History of the Induc. Sciences, vol. iii. p. 494. It appears, however (Flourens, Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 69, 70), that it was in, or just after, 1791, that the dissection of some mollusca suggested to him the idea of reforming the classification of the whole animal kingdom. Compare Cuvier, Règne Animal, vol. i. pp. 51, 52 note.

[1087] The only formidable opposition made to Cuvier's arrangement has proceeded from the advocates of the doctrine of circular progression: a remarkable theory, of which Lamarck and Macleay are the real originators, and which is certainly supported by a considerable amount of evidence. Still, among the great majority of competent zoologists, the fourfold division holds its ground, although the constantly-increasing accuracy of microscopical observations has detected a nervous system much lower in the scale than was formerly suspected, and has thereby induced some anatomists to divide the radiata into acrita and nematoneura. Owen's Invertebrata, 1855, pp. 14, 15; and Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, 1855, p. 4. As, however, it seems probable that all animals have a distinct nervous system, this subdivision is only provisional; and it is very likely that when our microscopes are more improved, we shall have to return to Cuvier's arrangement. Some of Cuvier's successors have removed the apodous echinoderms from the radiata; but in this Mr. Rymer Jones (Animal Kingdom, p. 211) vindicates the Cuverian classification.

[1088] We may except Aristotle; but between Aristotle and Bichat I can find no middle man.

[1089] But not exclusively. Mr. Blainville (Physiol. comparée, vol. ii. p. 304) says, ‘celui qui, comme Bichat, bornait ses études à l'anatomie humaine;’ and at p. 350, ‘quand on ne considère que ce qui se passe chez l'homme, ainsi que l'a fait Bichat.’ This, however, is much too positively stated. Bichat mentions ‘les expériences nombreuses que j'ai faites sur les animaux vivans.’ Bichat, Anatomie Générale, vol. i. p. 332; and for other instances of his experiments on animals below man, see the same work, vol. i. pp. 164, 284, 311, 312, 326, vol. ii. pp. 13, 25, 69, 73, 107, 133, 135, 225, 264, 423, vol. iii. pp. 151, 218, 242, 262, 363, 364, 400, 478, 501, vol. iv. pp. 27, 28, 34, 46, 229, 247, 471: see also Bichat, Recherches sur la Vie, pp. 262, 265, 277, 312, 336, 356, 358, 360, 368, 384, 400, 411, 439, 455, 476, 482, 494, 512: and his Traité des Membranes, pp. 48, 64, 67, 130, 158, 196, 201, 224. These are all experiments on inferior animals, which aided this great physiologist in establishing those vast generalizations, which, though applied to man, were by no means collected merely from human anatomy. The impossibility of understanding physiology without studying comparative anatomy, is well pointed out in Mr. Rymer Jones's work, Organization of the Animal Kingdom, 1855, pp. 601, 791.

[1090] Mr. Swainson (Geography and Classification of Animals, p. 170) complains, strangely enough, that Cuvier ‘rejects the more plain and obvious characters which every one can see, and which had been so happily employed by Linnæus, and makes the differences between these groups to depend upon circumstances which no one but an anatomist can understand.’ See also p. 173: ‘characters which, however good, are not always comprehensible, except to the anatomist.’ (Compare Hodgson on the Ornithology of Nepal, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xix. p. 179, Calcutta, 1836.) In other words, this is a complaint that Cuvier attempted to raise zoology to a science, and, therefore, of course, deprived it of some of its popular attractions, in order to invest it with other attractions of a far higher character. The errors introduced into the natural sciences by relying upon observation instead of experiment, have been noticed by many writers; and by none more judiciously than M. Saint Hilaire in his Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. p. 98.

[1091] It is very doubtful if Bichat was acquainted with the works of Smyth, Bonn, or Fallopius, and I do not remember that he any where even mentions their names. He had, however, certainly studied Bordeu; but I suspect that the author by whom he was most influenced was Pinel, whose pathological generalizations were put forward just about the time when Bichat began to write. Compare Bichat, Traité des Membranes, pp. 3, 4, 107, 191; Béclard, Anat. Gén. pp. 65, 66; Bouillaud, Philos. Médicale, p. 26; Blainville, Physiol. comparée, vol. i. p. 284, vol. ii. pp. 19, 252; Henle, Anat. Gén. vol. i. pp. 119, 120.

[1092] Biog. Univ. vol. iv. pp. 468, 469.

[1093] For a list of the tissues, see Bichat, Anat. Gén. vol. i. p. 49. At p. 50 he says, ‘en effet, quel que soit le point de vue sous lequel on considère ces tissus, ils ne se ressemblent nullement: c'est la nature, et non la science, qui a tiré une ligne de démarcation entre eux.’ There is, however, now reason to think, that both animal and vegetable tissues are, in all their varieties, referrible to a cellular origin. This great view, which M. Schwann principally worked out, will, if fully established, be the largest generalization we possess respecting the organic world, and it would be difficult to overrate its value. Still there is danger lest, in prematurely reaching at so vast a law, we should neglect the subordinate, but strongly-marked differences between the tissues as they actually exist. Burdach (Traité de Physiologie, vol. vi. pp. 195, 196) has made some good remarks on the confusion introduced into the study of tissues, by neglecting those salient characteristics which were indicated by Bichat.

[1094] Pinel says, ‘dans on seul hiver il ouvrit plus de six cents cadavres.’ Notice sur Bichat, p. xiii., in vol. i of Anat. Gén. By such enormous labour, and by working day and night in a necessarily polluted atmosphere, he laid the foundation for that diseased habit which caused a slight accident to prove fatal, and carried him off at the age of thirty-one. ‘L'esprit a peine à concevoir que la vie d'un seul homme puisse suffire à tant de travaux, à tant de découvertes, faites ou indiquées: Bichat est mort avant d'avoir accompli sa trente-deuxième année!’ Pinel, p. xvi.

[1095] To this sort of comparative anatomy (if it may be so called), which before his time scarcely existed, Bichat attached great importance, and clearly saw that it would eventually become of the utmost value for pathology. Anat. Gén. vol. i. pp. 331, 332, vol. ii. pp. 234–241, vol. iv. p. 417, &c. Unfortunately these investigations were not properly followed up by his immediate successors; and Müller, writing long after his death, was obliged to refer chiefly to Bichat for ‘the true principles of general pathology.’ Müller's Physiology, 1840, vol. i. p. 808. M. Vogel too, in his Pathological Anatomy, 1847, pp. 398, 413, notices the error committed by the earlier pathologists, in looking at changes in the organs, and neglecting those in the tissues; and the same remark is made in Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, 1853, vol. i. p. 45; and in Henle, Traité d'Anatomie, vol. i. p. vii., Paris, 1843. That ‘structural anatomy,’ and ‘structural development,’ are to be made the foundations of pathology, is, moreover, observed in Simon's Pathology, 1850, p. 115 (compare Williams's Principles of Medicine, 1848, p. 67), who ascribes the chief merit of this ‘rational pathology’ to Henle and Schwann: omitting to mention that they only executed Bichat's scheme and (be it said with every respect for these eminent men) executed it with a comprehensiveness much inferior to that displayed by their great predecessor. In Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. iv. pp. 106, 107, there are some just and liberal observations on the immense service which Bichat rendered to pathology. See also Béclard, Anatomie, Paris, 1852, p. 184.

[1096] Bichat, Anat. Gén. vol. i. pp. 51, 160, 161, 259, 372, vol. ii. pp. 47, 448, 449, vol. iii. pp. 33, 168, 208, 309, 406, 435, vol. iv. pp. 21, 52, 455–461, 517.

[1097] According to M. Comte (Philos. Pos. vol. iii. p. 319), no one had thought of this before Bichat. MM. Robin et Verdeil, in their recent great work, fully admit the necessity of employing this singular resource. Chimie Anatomique, 1853, vol. i. pp. 18, 125, 182, 357, 531.

[1098] ‘Dès-lors il créa une science nouvelle, l'anatomie générale.’ Pinel sur Bichat, p. xii. ‘A Bichat appartient véritablement la gloire d'avoir conçu et surtout exécuté, le premier, le plan d'une anatomie nouvelle.’ Bouillaud, Philos. Médicale, p. 27. ‘Bichat fut le créateur de l'histologie en assignant des caractères précis à chaque classe de tissus.’ Burdach, Physiologie, vol. vii. p. 111. ‘Le créateur de l'anatomie générale fut Bichat.’ Henle, Anatomie, vol. i. p. 120. Similar remarks will be found in Saint-Hilaire, Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. p. 10; and in Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anat. vol. i. p. xviii., vol. iii. p. 405.

[1099] In Béclard, Anat. Gén. 1852, p. 61, it is said that ‘la recherche de ces tissus élémentaires, ou éléments organiques, est devenue la préoccupation presque exclusive des anatomistes de nos jours.’ Compare Blainville, Physiol. Gén. et Comp. vol. i. p. 93: ‘Aujourd'hui nous allons plus avant, nous pénétrons dans la structure intime, non seulement de ces organes, mais encore des tissus qui concourent à leur composition; nous faisons en un mot de la véritable anatomie, de l'anatomie proprement dite.’ And at p. 105: ‘c'est un genre de recherches qui a été cultivé avec beaucoup d'activité, et qui a reçu une grande extension depuis la publication du bel ouvrage de Bichat.’ See also vol. ii. p. 303.

In consequence of this movement, there has sprung up, under the name of Degenerations of Tissues, an entirely new branch of morbid anatomy, of which, I believe, no instance will be found before the time of Bichat, but the value of which is now recognized by most pathologists. Compare Paget's Surgical Pathology, vol. i. pp. 98–112; Williams's Principles of Medicine, pp. 369–376; Burdach's Physiologie, vol. viii. p. 367; Reports of Brit. Assoc. vol. vi. p. 147; Jones's and Sieveking's Pathological Anatomy, 1854, pp. 154–156, 302–304, 555–558. ‘They are,’ say these last writers, ‘of extremely frequent occurrence; but their nature has scarcely been recognized until of late.’

[1100] Cuvier completely neglected the study of tissues; and in the very few instances in which he mentions them, his language is extremely vague. Thus, in his Règne Animal, vol. i. p. 12, he says of living bodies, ‘leur tissu est donc composé de réseaux et de mailles, ou de fibres et de lames solides, qui renferment des liquides dans leurs intervalles.’