History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

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.’

1126

Hence the removal of a great source of error; since it is now understood that in dicotyledons alone can age be known with certainty. Henslow's Botany, p. 243: compare Richard, Eléments de Botanique, p. 159, aphorisme xxiv. On the stems of endogenous plants, which, being mostly tropical, have been less studied than the exogenous, see Lindley's Botany, vol. i. pp. 221–236; where there is also an account, pp. 229 seq., of the views which Schleiden advanced on this subject in 1839.

1127

On the arrangement of the leaves, now called phyllotaxis, see Balfour's Botany, p. 92; Burdach's Physiologie, vol. v. p. 518.

1128

The classification by cotyledons has been so successful, that, ‘with very few exceptions, however, nearly all plants may be referred by any botanist, at a single glance, and with unerring certainty, to their proper class; and a mere fragment even of the stem, leaf, or some other part, is often quite sufficient to enable him to decide this question.’ Henslow's Botany, p. 30. In regard to some difficulties still remaining in the way of the threefold cotyledonous division of the whole vegetable world, see Lindley's Botany, vol. ii. pp. 61 seq.

1129

Mr. Swainson (Study of Natural History, p. 356) says ‘mineralogy, indeed, which forms but a part of chemistry.’ This is deciding the question very rapidly; but in the meantime, what becomes of the geometrical laws of minerals? and what are we to do with that relation between their structure and optical phenomena, which Sir David Brewster has worked out with signal ability?

1130

The difficulties introduced into the study of minerals by the discovery of isomorphism and polymorphism, are no doubt considerable; but M. Beudant (Minéralogie, Paris, 1841, p. 37) seems to me to exaggerate their effect upon ‘l'importance des formes crystallines.’ They are much more damaging to the purely chemical arrangement, because our implements for measuring the minute angles of crystals are still very imperfect, and the goniometer may fail in detecting differences which really exist; and, therefore, many alleged cases of isomorphism are probably not so in reality. Wollaston's reflecting goniometer has been long considered the best instrument possessed by crystallographers; but I learn from Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. i. pp. 19, 20, that Frankenheim has recently invented one for measuring the angles of ‘microscopic crystals.’ On the amount of error in the measurement of angles, see Phillips's Mineralogy, 1837, p. viii.

1131

He says, ‘depuis plus de vingt ans que je m'occupe de cet objet.’ Romé de Lisle, Cristallographie, ou Description des Formes propres à tous les Corps du Règne Minéral, Paris, 1783, vol. i. p. 91.

1132

See his Essai de Cristallographie, Paris, 1772, p. x.: ‘un de ceux qui m'a le plus frappé ce sont les formes régulières et constantes que prennent naturellement certains corps que nous désignons par le nom de cristaux.’ In the same work, p. 13: ‘il faut nécessairement supposer que les molécules intégrantes des corps ont chacune, suivant qui lui est propre, une figure constante et déterminée.’ In his later treatise (Cristallographie, 1783, vol. i. p. 70), after giving some instances of the extraordinary complications presented by minerals, he adds: ‘Il n'est donc pas étonnant que d'habiles chimistes n'aient rien vu de constant ni de déterminé dans les formes cristallines, tandis qu'il n'en est aucune qu'on ne puisse, avec un peu d'attention rapporter à la figure élémentaire et primordiale dont elle dérive.’ Even Buffon, notwithstanding his fine perception of law, had just declared, ‘qu'en général la forme de cristallisation n'est pas un caractère constant, mais plus équivoque et plus variable qu'aucun autre des caractères par lesquels on doit distinguer les minéraux.’ De Lisle, vol. i. p. xviii. Compare, on this great achievement of De Lisle's, Herschel's Nat. Philos. p. 239: ‘he first ascertained the important fact of the constancy of the angles at which their faces meet.’

1133

The first work of Haüy appeared in 1784 (Quérard, France Littéraire, vol. iv. p. 41); but he had read two special memoirs in 1781. Cuvier, Eloges, vol. iii. p. 138. The intellectual relation between his views and those of his predecessor must be obvious to every mineralogist; but Dr. Whewell, who has noticed this judiciously enough, adds (Hist. of the Induc. Sciences, vol. iii. pp. 229, 230): ‘Unfortunately Romé de Lisle and Haüy were not only rivals, but in some measure enemies… Haüy revenged himself by rarely mentioning Romé in his works, though it was manifest that his obligations to him were immense; and by recording his errors while he corrected them.’ The truth, however, is, that so far from rarely mentioning De Lisle, he mentions him incessantly; and I have counted upwards of three hundred instances in Haüy's great work, in which he is named, and his writings are referred to. On one occasion he says of De Lisle, ‘En un mot, sa cristallographie est le fruit d'un travail immense par son étendue, presque entièrement neuf par son objet, et très-précieux par son utilité.’ Haüy, Traité de Minéralogie, Paris, 1801, vol. i. p. 17. Elsewhere he calls him, ‘cet habile naturaliste; ce savant célèbre,’ vol. ii. p. 323; ‘ce célèbre naturaliste,’ vol. iii. p. 442; see also vol. iv. pp. 51, &c. In a work of so much merit as Dr. Whewell's, it is important that these errors should be indicated, because we have no other book of value on the general history of the sciences; and many authors have deceived themselves and their readers, by implicitly adopting the statements of this able and industrious writer. I would particularly caution the student in regard to the physiological part of Dr. Whewell's History, where, for instance, the antagonism between the methods of Cuvier and Bichat is entirely lost sight of, and while whole pages are devoted to Cuvier, Bichat is disposed of in four lines.

1134

‘Haüy est donc le seul véritable auteur de la science mathématique des cristaux.’ Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 8; see also p. 317. Dr. Clarke, whose celebrated lectures on mineralogy excited much attention among his hearers, was indebted for some of his principal views to his conversations with Haüy: see Otter's Life of Clarke, vol. ii. p. 192.

1135

See an admirable statement of the three forms of decrement, in Haüy, Traité de Minéralogie, vol. i. pp. 285, 286. Compare Whewell's Hist. of the Induc. Sciences, vol. iii. pp. 224, 225; who, however, does not mention Haüy's classification of ‘décroissemens sur les bords,’ ‘décroissemens sur les angles,’ and ‘décroissemens intermédiaires.’

1136

And, as he clearly saw, the proper method was to study the laws of symmetry, and then apply them deductively to minerals, instead of rising inductively from the aberrations actually presented by minerals. This is interesting to observe, because it is analogous to the method of the best pathologists, who seek the philosophy of their subject in physiological phenomena, rather than in pathological ones; striking downwards from the normal to the abnormal. ‘La symétrie des formes sous lesquelles se présentent les solides que nous avons considérés jusqu'ici, nous a fourni des données pour exprimer les lois de décroissemens dont ces solides sont susceptibles.’ Haüy, Traité de Minéralogie, vol. i. p. 442; compare vol. ii. p. 192.

1137

‘Un coup d'œil peu attentif, jeté sur les cristaux, les fit appeler d'abord de purs jeux de la nature, ce qui n'étoit qu'une manière plus élégante de faire l'aveu de son ignorance. Un examen réfléchi nous y découvre des lois d'arrangement, à l'aide desquelles le calcul représente et enchaîne l'un à l'autre les résultats observés; lois si variables et en même temps si précises et si régulières; ordinairement très-simples, sans rien perdre de leur fécondité.’ Haüy, Minéralogie, vol. i. pp. xiii. xiv. Again, vol. ii. p. 57, ‘notre but, qui est de prouver que les lois d'où dépend la structure du cristal sont les plus simples possibles dans leur ensemble.’

1138

On the remarkable power possessed by crystals, in common with animals, of repairing their own injuries, see Paget's Pathology, 1853, vol. i. pp. 152, 153, confirming the experiments of Jordan on this curious subject: ‘The ability to repair the damages sustained by injury … is not an exclusive property of living beings; for even crystals will repair themselves when, after pieces have been broken from them, they are placed in the same conditions in which they were first formed.’

1139

‘M. Pinel a imprimé une marche nouvelle à l'étude de la folie… En la rangeant simplement, et sans différences aucunes, au nombre des autres dérangemens de nos organes, en lui assignant une place dans le cadre nosographique, il fit faire un pas immense à son histoire.’ Georget, de la Folie, Paris, 1820, p. 69. In the same work, p. 295, ‘M. Pinel, le premier en France, on pourrait dire en Europe, jeta les fondemens d'un traitement vraiment rationnel en rangeant la folie au nombre des autres affections organiques.’ M. Esquirol, who expresses the modern and purely scientific view, says in his great work (Des Maladies Mentaes, Paris, 1838, vol. i. p. 336), ‘L'aliénation mentale, que les anciens peuples regardaient comme une inspiration ou une punition des dieux, qui dans la suite fut prise pour la possession des démons, qui dans d'autres temps passa pour une œuvre de la magie; l'aliénation mentale, dis-je, avec toutes ses espèces et ses variétés innombrables, ne diffère en rien des autres maladies.’ The recognition of this he expressly ascribes to his predecessor: ‘grâce aux principes exposés par Pinel.’ p. 340. Pinel himself clearly saw the connexion between his own opinions and the spirit of the age: see Pinel, Traité Médico-Philosophique sur l'Aliénation Mentale, p. xxxii.: ‘Un ouvrage de médecine, publié en France à la fin du dix-huitième siècle, doit avoir un autre caractère que s'il avoit été écrit à une époque antérieure.’

1140

Comp. Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. p. 23, with the Introduction to Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. i. p. 34. A good illustration of this is, that the Prince de Montbarey, in his Memoirs, gently censures Louis XV., not for his scandalous profligacy, but because he selected for his mistresses some women who were not of high birth. Mém. de Montbarey, vol. i. p. 341, and see vol. iii. p. 117.

1141

And that too even on such a subject as anatomy. In 1768, Antoine Petit began his anatomical lectures in the great amphitheatre of the Jardin du Roi; and the press to hear him was so great, that not only all the seats were occupied, but the very window-ledges were crowded. See the animated description in Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiii. p. 494.

1142

Dr. Thomson (History of Chemistry, vol. ii. p. 169) says of Fourcroy's lectures on chemistry, which began in 1784: ‘Such were the crowds, both of men and women, who flocked to hear him, that it was twice necessary to enlarge the size of the lecture-room.’ This circumstance is also mentioned in Cuvier, Eloges, vol. ii. p. 19.

1143

In 1779, it was remarked that ‘les séances publiques de l'Académie Française sont devenues une espèce de spectacle fort à la mode:’ and as this continued to increase, the throng became at length so great, that in 1785 it was found necessary to diminish the number of tickets of admission, and it was even proposed that ladies should be excluded, in consequence of some uproarious scenes which had happened. Grimm et Diderot, Correspond. Lit. vol. x. p. 341, vol. xiv. pp. 148, 149, 185, 251.

1144

Goldsmith, who was in Paris in 1755, says with surprise, ‘I have seen as bright a circle of beauty at the chemical lectures of Rouelle, as gracing the court of Versailles.’ Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 180; Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 65. In the middle of the century, electricity was very popular among the Parisian ladies; and the interest felt in it was revived several years later by Franklin. Compare Grimm, Correspondance, vol. vii. p. 122, with Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. pp. 190, 191. Cuvier (Eloges, vol. i. p. 56) tells us that even the anatomical descriptions which Daubenton wrote for Buffon were to be found ‘sur la toilette des femmes.’ This change of taste is also noticed, though in a jeering spirit, in Mém. de Genlis, vol. vi. p. 32. Compare the account given by Townsend, who visited France in 1786, on his way to Spain: ‘A numerous society of gentlemen and ladies of the first fashion meet to hear lectures on the sciences, delivered by men of the highest rank in their profession… I was much struck with the fluency and elegance of language with which the anatomical professor spoke, and not a little so with the deep attention of his auditors.’ Townsend's Journey through Spain, vol. i. p. 41: see also Smith's Tour on the Continent in 1786, vol. i. p. 117.