History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

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.’

1101

A well-known ornithologist makes the same complaint respecting the classification of birds. Strickland on Ornithology, Brit. Assoc. for 1844, pp. 209, 210. Even in regard to living species, Cuvier (Règne Animal, vol. ii. p. 126) says: ‘La classe des poissons est de toutes celle qui offre le plus de difficultés quand on veut la subdiviser en ordres d'après des caractères fixes et sensibles.’

1102

The discoveries of M. Agassiz are embodied in his great work, Recherches sur les Poissons fossiles: but the reader who may not have an opportunity of consulting that costly publication, will find two essays by this eminent naturalist, which will give an idea of his treatment of the subject, in Reports of Brit. Assoc. for 1842, pp. 80–88, and for 1844, pp. 279–310. How essential this study is to the geologist, appears from the remark of Sir R. Murchison (Siluria, 1854, p. 417), that ‘fossil fishes have everywhere proved the most exact chronometers of the age of rocks.’

1103

That they were composed of fibres, was the prevailing doctrine, until the discovery of their tubes, in 1835, by Purkinjé. Before Purkinjé, only one observer, Leeuwenhœk, had announced their tubular structure; but no one believed what he said, and Purkinjé was unacquainted with his researches. Compare Nasmyth's Researches on the Teeth, 1839, p. 159; Owen's Odontography, 1840–1845, vol. i. pp. ix. x.; Henle, Anat. Gén. vol. ii. p. 457; Reports of Brit. Assoc. vol. vii. pp. 135, 136 (Transac. of Sections).

1104

Mr. Nasmyth, in his valuable, but, I regret to add, posthumous work, notices, as the result of these discoveries, ‘the close affinity subsisting between the dental and other organized tissues of the animal frame.’ Researches on the Development, &c. of the Teeth, 1849, p. 198. This is, properly speaking, a continuation of Mr. Nasmyth's former book, which bore the same title, and was published in 1839.

1105

This name, which Mr. Owen appears to have first suggested, has been objected to, though, as it seems to me, on insufficient grounds. Compare Owen's Odontography, vol. i. p. iii., with Nasmyth's Researches, 1849, pp. 3, 4. It is adopted in Carpenter's Human Physiol. 1846, p. 154; and in Jones and Sieveking's Patholog. Anat. 1854, pp. 483, 486.

1106

See the correspondence in Brit. Assoc. for 1841, Sec., pp. 2–23.

1107

In the notice of it in Whewell's Hist. of Sciences, vol. iii. p. 678, nothing is said about Mr. Nasmyth; while in that in Wilson's Human Anatomy, p. 65, edit. 1851, nothing is said about Mr. Owen. A specimen of the justice with which men treat their contemporaries. Dr. Grant (Supplement to Hooper's Medical Dict. 1848, p. 1390) says, ‘the researches of Mr. Owen tend to confirm those of Mr. Nasmyth.’ Nasmyth, in his last work (Researches on the Teeth, 1849, p. 81), only refers to Owen to point out an error; while Owen (Odontography, vol. i. pp. xlvi.–lvi.) treats Nasmyth as an impudent plagiarist.

1108

Dr. Whewell (Hist. of Induc. Sciences, vol. iii. p. 678) says, that ‘he has carried into every part of the animal kingdom an examination, founded upon this discovery, and has published the results of this in his Odontography.’ If this able, but rather hasty writer, had read the Odontography, he would have found that Mr. Owen, so far from carrying the examination ‘into every part of the animal kingdom,’ distinctly confines himself to ‘one of the primary divisions of the animal kingdom’ (I quote his own words from Odontography, vol. i. p. lxvii.), and appears to think, that below the vertebrata, the inquiry would furnish little or no aid for the purposes of classification.

1109

But in comparing the merits of discoverers themselves, we must praise him who proves rather than him who suggests. See some sensible remarks in Owen's Odontography, vol. i. p. xlix.; which, however, do not affect my observations on the superiority of method.

1110

By a new method of inquiring into a subject, I mean an application to it of generalizations from some other subject, so as to widen the field of thought. To call this a new method, is rather vague; but there is no other word to express the process. Properly speaking, there are only two methods, the inductive and the deductive; which, though essentially different, are so mixed together, as to make it impossible wholly to separate them. The discussion of the real nature of this difference I reserve for my comparison, in the next volume, of the German and American civilizations.

1111

In literature and in theology, Chateaubriand and De Maistre were certainly the most eloquent, and were probably the most influential leaders of this reaction. Neither of them liked induction, but preferred reasoning deductively from premises which they assumed, and which they called first principles. De Maistre, however, was a powerful dialectician, and on that account his works are read by many who care nothing for the gorgeous declamation of Chateaubriand. In metaphysics, a precisely similar movement occurred; and Laromiguière, Royer Collard, and Maine de Biran, founded that celebrated school which culminated in M. Cousin, and which is equally characterized by an ignorance of the philosophy of induction, and by a want of sympathy with physical science.

1112

Bichat, Recherches sur la Vie et la Mort, pp. 5–9, 226; and his Anat. Gén. vol. i. p. 72.

1113

‘C'est de là, sans doute, que naît cette autre différence entre les organes des deux vies, savoir, que la nature se livre bien plus rarement à des écarts de conformation dans la vie animale que dans la vie organique… C'est une remarque qui n'a pu échapper à celui dont les dissections ont été un peu multipliées, que les fréquentes variations de formes, de grandeur, de position, de direction des organes internes, comme la rate, le foie, l'estomac, les reins, les organes salivaires, etc… Jetons maintenant les yeux sur les organes de la vie animale, sur les sens, les nerfs, le cerveau, les muscles volontaires, le larynx; tout y est exact, précis, rigoureusement déterminé dans la forme, la grandeur et la position. On n'y voit presque jamais de variétés, de conformation; s'il en existe, les fonctions sont troublées, anéanties; tandis qu'elles restent les mêmes dans la vie organique, au milieu des altérations diverses des parties.’ Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 23–25. Part of this view is corroborated by the evidence collected by Saint Hilaire (Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. pp. 248 seq.) of the extraordinary aberrations to which the vegetative organs are liable; and he mentions (vol. ii. p. 8) the case of a man, in whose body, on dissection, ‘on reconnut que tous les viscères étaient transposés.’ Comparative anatomy supplies another illustration. The bodies of mollusca are less symmetrical than those of articulata; and in the former, the ‘vegetal series of organs,’ says Mr. Owen, are more developed than the animal series; while in the articulata, ‘the advance is most conspicuous in the organs peculiar to animal life.’ Owen's Invertebrata, p. 470. Compare Burdach's Physiologie, vol. i. pp. 153, 189; and a confirmation of the ‘unsymmetrical’ organs of the gasterpoda, in Grant's Comparative Anatomy, p. 461. This curious antagonism is still further seen in the circumstance, that idiots, whose functions of nutrition and of excretion are often very active, are at the same time remarkable for a want of symmetry in the organs of sensation. Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. ii. pp. 331, 332.

A result, though perhaps an unconscious one, of the application and extension of these ideas, is, that within the last few years there has arisen a pathological theory of what are called ‘symmetrical diseases,’ the leading facts of which have been long known, but are now only beginning to be generalized. See Paget's Pathology, vol. i. pp. 18–22, vol. ii. pp. 244, 245; Simon's Pathology, pp. 210, 211; Carpenter's Human Physiol. pp. 607, 608.

1114

Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 15–21.

1115

Ibid. pp. 21–50.

1116

On intermittence as a quality of animal life, see Holland's Medical Notes, pp. 313, 314, where Bichat is mentioned as its great expounder. As to the essential continuity of organic life, see Burdach's Physiologie, vol. vii. p. 420. M. Comte has made some interesting remarks on Bichat's law of intermittence. Philos. Positive, vol. iii. pp. 300, 395, 744, 745, 750, 751.

1117

On the development arising from practice, see Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 207–225.

1118

Ibid. pp. 189–203, 225–230. M. Broussais also (in his able work, Cours de Phrénologie, p. 487) says, that comparison only begins after birth; but surely this must be very doubtful. Few physiologists will deny that embryological phenomena, though neglected by metaphysicians, play a great part in shaping the future character; and I do not see how any system of psychology can be complete which ignores considerations, probable in themselves, and not refuted by special evidence. So carelessly, however, has this subject been investigated, that we have the most conflicting statements respecting even the vagitus uterinus, which, if it exists to the extent alleged by some physiologists, would be a decisive proof that animal life (in the sense of Bichat) does begin during the fœtal period. Compare Burdach, Physiol. vol. iv. pp. 113, 114, with Wagner's Physiol. p. 182.

1119

‘Les organes internes qui entrent alors en exercice, ou qui accroissent beaucoup leur action, n'ont besoin d'aucune éducation; ils atteignent tout à coup une perfection à laquelle ceux de la vie animale ne parviennent que par habitude d'agir souvent.’ Bichat sur la Vie, p. 231.

1120

Dioscorides and Galen knew from 450 to 600 plants (Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, 1854, pp. 34, 40); but, according to Cuvier (Eloges, vol. iii. p. 468), Linnæus, in 1778, ‘en indiquait environ huit mille espèces;’ and Meyen (Geog. of Plants, p. 4) says, at the time of Linnæus's death, ‘about 8,000 species were known.’ (Dr. Whewell, in his Bridgewater Treatise, p. 247, says, ‘about 10,000.’) Since then the progress has been uninterrupted; and in Henslow's Botany, 1837, p. 136, we are told that ‘the number of species already known and classified in works of botany amounts to about 60,000.’ Ten years later, Dr. Lindley (Vegetable Kingdom, 1847, p. 800) states them at 92,930; and two years afterwards, Mr. Balfour says ‘about 100,000.’ Balfour's Botany, 1849, p. 560. Such is the rate at which our knowledge of nature is advancing. To complete this historical note, I ought to have mentioned, that in 1812, Dr. Thomson says ‘nearly 30,000 species of plants have been examined and described.’ Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 21.

1121

It was published in 1790. Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 389. But the historians of botany have overlooked a short passage in Göthe's works, which proves that he had glimpses of the discovery in or before 1786. See Italiänische Reise, in Göthe's Werke, vol. ii. part ii. p. 286, Stuttgart, 1837, where he writes from Padua, in September 1786, ‘Hier in dieser neu mir entgegen tretenden Mannigfaltigkeit wird jener Gedanke immer lebendiger: dass man sich alle Pflanzengestalten vielleicht aus Einer entwickeln könne.’ There are some interesting remarks on this brilliant generalization in Owen's Parthenogenesis, 1849, pp. 53 seq.

1122

That is, into the study of animal monstrosities, which, however capricious they may appear, are now understood to be the necessary result of preceding events. Within the last thirty years several of the laws of these unnatural births, as they used to be called, have been discovered; and it has been proved that, so far from being unnatural, they are strictly natural. A fresh science has thus been created, under the name of Teratology, which is destroying the old lusus naturæ in one of its last and favourite strongholds.

1123

Dr. Lindley (Third Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 33) says, that Desfontaines was the first who demonstrated the opposite modes of increase in dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous stems. See also Richard, Eléments de Botanique, p. 131; and Cuvier, Eloges, vol. i. p. 64. In regard to the steps taken by Adanson and De Monceau, see Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, pp. 204, 205; Thomson's Chemistry of Vegetables, p. 951; Lindley's Introduc. to Botany, vol. ii. p. 132.

1124

It is curious to observe how even good botanists clung to the Linnæan system long after the superiority of a natural system was proved. This is the more noticeable, because Linnæus, who was a man of undoubted genius, and who possessed extraordinary powers of combination, always allowed that his own system was merely provisional, and that the great object to be attained was a classification according to natural families. See Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, p. 202; and Richard, Eléments de Botanique, p. 570. Indeed, what could be thought of the permanent value of a scheme which put together the reed and the barberry, because they were both hexandria; and forced sorrel to associate with saffron, because both were trigynia? Jussieu's Botany, 1849, p. 524.

1125

The Genera Plantarum of Antoine Jussieu was printed at Paris in 1789; and, though it is known to have been the result of many years of continued labour, some writers have asserted that the ideas in it were borrowed from his uncle, Bernard Jussieu. But assertions of this kind rarely deserve attention; and as Bernard did not choose to publish anything of his own, his reputation ought to suffer for his uncommunicativeness. Compare Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, pp. 261–272, with Biog. Univ. vol. xxii. pp. 162–166. I will only add the following remarks from a work of authority, Richard, Eléments de Botanique, Paris, 1846, p. 572: ‘Mais ce ne fut qu'en 1789 que l'on eut véritablement un ouvrage complet sur la méthode des familles naturelles. Le Genera Plantarum d'A. L. de Jussieu présenta la science des végétaux sous un point de vue si nouveau, par la précision et l'élégance qui y règnent, par la profondeur et la justesse des principes généraux qui y sont exposés pour la première fois, que c'est depuis cette époque seulement que la méthode des familles naturelles a été véritablement créée, et que date la nouvelle ère de la science des végétaux… L'auteur du Genera Plantarum posa le premier les bases de la science, en faisant voir quelle était l'importance relative des différents organes entre eux, et par conséquent leur valeur dans la classification… Il a fait, selon la remarque de Cuvier, la même révolution dans les sciences d'observation que la chimie de Lavoisier dans les sciences d'expérience. En effet, il a non seulement changé la face de la botanique; mais son influence s'est également exercée sur les autres branches de l'histoire naturelle, et y a introduit cet esprit de recherches, de comparaison, et cette méthode philosophique et naturelle, vers le perfectionnement de laquelle tendent désormais les efforts de tous les naturalistes.’