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.
The views put forward in this celebrated work I have stated at some
length; not so much on account of the ability with which they are
advocated, as on account of the clue they furnish to the movements of a
most remarkable age. Indeed, so completely did they harmonize with the
prevailing tendencies, that they not only quickly obtained for their
author a vast European reputation,[1042] but, during many years, they
continued to increase in influence, and, in France in particular, they
exercised great sway.[1043] As that was the country in which they
arose, so also was it the country to which they were best adapted.
Madame Dudeffand, who passed her long life in the midst of French
society, and was one of the keenest observers of her time, has expressed
this with great happiness. The work of Helvétius, she says, is popular,
since he is the man who has told to all their own secret.[1044]
[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' (_[OE]uvres 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.
True it was, that, to the contemporaries of Helvétius, his views,
notwithstanding their immense popularity, bore the appearance of a
secret; because the connexion between them and the general march of
events was, as yet, but dimly perceived. To us, however, who, after this
interval of time, can examine the question with the resources of a
larger experience, it is obvious how such a system met the wants of an
age of which it was the exponent and the mouthpiece. That Helvétius must
have carried with him the sympathies of his countrymen, is clear, not
only from the evidence we have of his success, but also from a more
comprehensive view of the general complexion of those times. Even while
he was still pursuing his labours, and only four years before he
published them, a work appeared in France, which, though displaying
greater ability, and possessing a higher influence than that of
Helvétius, did, nevertheless, point in exactly the same direction. I
allude to the great metaphysical treatise by Condillac, in many respects
one of the most remarkable productions of the eighteenth century; and
the authority of which, during two generations, was so irresistible,
that, without some acquaintance with it, we cannot possibly understand
the nature of those complicated movements by which the French Revolution
was brought about.
In 1754,[1045] Condillac put forth his celebrated work on the mind; the
very title of which was a proof of the bias with which it was written.
Although this profound thinker aimed at nothing less than an exhaustive
analysis of the human faculties, and although he is pronounced by a very
able, but hostile critic, to be the only metaphysician France produced
during the eighteenth century,[1046] still he found it utterly
impossible to escape from those tendencies towards the external which
governed his own age. The consequence was, that he called his work a
'Treatise on Sensations;'[1047] and in it he peremptorily asserts, that
every thing we know is the result of sensation; by which he means the
effect produced on us by the action of the external world. Whatever may
be thought of the accuracy of this opinion, there can be no doubt that
it is enforced with a closeness and severity of reasoning which deserves
the highest praise. To examine, however, the arguments by which his view
is supported, would lead to a discussion foreign to my present object,
which is, merely to point out the relation between his philosophy and
the general temper of his contemporaries. Without, therefore, pretending
to anything like a critical examination of this celebrated book, I will
simply bring together the essential positions on which it is based, in
order to illustrate the harmony between it and the intellectual habits
of the age in which it appeared.[1048]
[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'[oe]uvre 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.
The materials from which the philosophy of Condillac was originally
drawn, were contained in the great work published by Locke about sixty
years before this time. But though much of what was most essential was
borrowed from the English philosopher, there was one very important
point in which the disciple differed from his master. And this
difference is strikingly characteristic of the direction which the
French intellect was now taking. Locke, with some looseness of
expression, and possibly with some looseness of thought, had asserted
the separate existence of a power of reflection, and had maintained that
by means of that power the products of sensation became available.[1049]
Condillac, moved by the prevailing temper of his own time, would not
hear of such a distinction. He, like most of his contemporaries, was
jealous of any claim which increased the authority of the internal, and
weakened that of the external. He, therefore, altogether rejects the
faculty of reflection as a source of our ideas; and this partly because
it is but the channel through which ideas run from the senses, and
partly because in its origin it is itself a sensation.[1050] Therefore,
according to him, the only question is as to the way in which our
contact with nature supplies us with ideas. For in this scheme, the
faculties of man are solely caused by the operation of his senses. The
judgments which we form are, says Condillac, often ascribed to the hand
of the Deity; a convenient mode of reasoning, which has only arisen from
the difficulty of analyzing them.[1051] By considering how our judgments
actually arise, we can alone remove these obscurities. The fact is, that
the attention we give to an object is nothing but the sensation which
that object excites;[1052] and what we call abstract ideas are merely
different ways of being attentive.[1053] Ideas being thus generated, the
subsequent process is very simple. To attend to two ideas at the same
time, is to compare them; so that comparison is not a result of
attention, but is rather the attention itself.[1054] This at once gives
us the faculty of judging, because directly we institute a comparison,
we do of necessity form a judgment.[1055] Thus, too, memory is a
transformed sensation;[1056] while the imagination is nothing but
memory, which, being carried to its highest possible vivacity, makes
what is absent appear to be present.[1057] The impressions we receive
from the external world being, therefore, not the cause of our
faculties, but being the faculties themselves, the conclusion to which
we are driven is inevitable. It follows, says Condillac, that in man
nature is the beginning of all; that to nature we owe the whole of our
knowledge; that we only instruct ourselves according to her lessons; and
that the entire art of reasoning consists in continuing the work which
she has appointed us to perform.[1058]
[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.
It is so impossible to mistake the tendency of these views, that I need
not attempt to estimate their result otherwise than by measuring the
extent to which they were adopted. Indeed, the zeal with which they were
now carried into every department of knowledge, can only surprise those
who, being led by their habits of mind to study history in its separate
fragments, have not accustomed themselves to consider it as an united
whole, and who, therefore, do not perceive that in every great epoch
there is some one idea at work, which is more powerful than any other,
and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate
issue. In France, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, this
idea was, the inferiority of the internal to the external. It was this
dangerous but plausible principle which drew the attention of men from
the church to the state; which was seen in Helvétius the most celebrated
of the French moralists, and in Condillac the most celebrated of the
French metaphysicians. It was this same principle which, by increasing,
if I may so say, the reputation of Nature, induced the ablest thinkers
to devote themselves to a study of her laws, and to abandon those other
pursuits which had been popular in the preceding age. In consequence of
this movement, such wonderful additions were made to every branch of
physical science, that more new truths concerning the external world
were discovered in France during the latter half of the eighteenth
century than during all the previous periods put together. The details
of these discoveries, so far as they have been subservient to the
general purposes of civilization, will be related in another place; at
present I will indicate only the most prominent, in order that the
reader may understand the course of the subsequent argument, and may see
the connexion between them and the French Revolution.
Taking a general view of the external world, we may say, that the three
most important forces by which the operations of nature are effected,
are heat, light, and electricity; including under this last magnetic and
galvanic phenomena. On all these subjects, the French, for the first
time, now exerted themselves with signal success. In regard to heat, not
only were the materials for subsequent induction collected with
indefatigable industry, but before that generation passed away, the
induction was actually made; for while the laws of its radiation were
worked out by Prevost,[1059] those of its conduction were established by
Fourier, who, just before the Revolution, employed himself in raising
thermotics to a science by the deductive application of that celebrated
mathematical theory which he contrived, and which still bears his
name.[1060] In regard to electricity, it is enough to notice, during the
same period, the important experiments of D'Alibard, followed by those
vast labours of Coulomb, which brought electrical phenomena under the
jurisdiction of the mathematics, and thus completed what [OE]pinus had
already prepared.[1061] As to the laws of light, those ideas were now
accumulating which rendered possible the great steps that, at the close
of the century, were taken by Malus, and still later by Fresnel.[1062]
Both of these eminent Frenchmen not only made important additions to
our knowledge of double refraction, but Malus discovered the
polarization of light, undoubtedly the most splendid contribution
received by optical science since the analysis of the solar rays.[1063]
It was also in consequence of this, that Fresnel began those profound
researches which placed on a solid basis that great undulatory theory of
which Hooke, Huygens, and above all Young, are to be deemed the
founders, and by which the corpuscular theory of Newton was finally
overthrown.[1064]
[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 [OE]pinus, 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.
Thus much as to the progress of French knowledge respecting those parts
of nature which are in themselves invisible, and of which we cannot tell
whether they have a material existence, or whether they are mere
conditions and properties of other bodies.[1065] The immense value of
these discoveries, as increasing the number of known truths, is
incontestable: but, at the same time, another class of discoveries was
made, which, dealing more palpably with the visible world, and being
also more easily understood, produced more immediate results, and, as I
shall presently show, exercised a remarkable influence in strengthening
that democratic tendency which accompanied the French Revolution. It is
impossible, within the limits I have assigned to myself, to give
anything like an adequate notion of the marvellous activity with which
the French now pushed their researches into every department of the
organic and inorganic world; still it is, I think, practicable to
compress into a few pages such a summary of the more salient points as
will afford the reader some idea of what was done by that generation of
great thinkers which flourished in France during the latter half of the
eighteenth century.
[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.
If we confine our view to the globe we inhabit, it must be allowed that
chemistry and geology are the two sciences which not only offer the
fairest promise, but already contain the largest generalizations. The
reason of this will become clear, if we attend to the ideas on which
these two great subjects are based. The idea of chemistry, is the study
of composition;[1066] the idea of geology, is the study of position. The
object of the first is, to learn the laws which govern the properties of
matter; the object of the second is, to learn the laws which govern its
locality. In chemistry, we experiment; in geology, we observe. In
chemistry, we deal with the molecular arrangement of the smallest
atoms;[1067] in geology, with the cosmological arrangement of the
largest masses. Hence it is that the chemist by his minuteness, and the
geologist by his grandeur, touch the two extremes of the material
universe; and, starting from these opposite points, have, as I could
easily prove, a constantly increasing tendency to bring under their own
authority sciences which have at present an independent existence, and
which, for the sake of a division of labour, it is still convenient to
study separately; though it must be the business of philosophy, properly
so called, to integrate them into a complete and effective whole. Indeed
it is obvious, that if we knew all the laws of the composition of
matter, and likewise all the laws of its position, we should likewise
know all the changes of which matter is capable spontaneously, that is,
when uninterrupted by the mind of man. Every phenomenon which any given
substance presents must be caused either by something taking place in
the substance, or else by something taking place out of it, but acting
upon it; while what occurs within must be explicable by its own
composition, and what occurs without must be due to its position in
relation to the objects by which it is affected. This is an exhaustive
statement of every possible contingency, and to one of these two classes
of laws every thing must be referrible; even those mysterious forces
which, whether they be emanations from matter, or whether they be merely
properties of matter, must in an ultimate analysis depend either on the
internal arrangement, or else on the external locality of their physical
antecedents. However convenient, therefore, it may be, in the present
state of our knowledge, to speak of vital principles, imponderable
fluids, and elastic æthers, such terms can only be provisional, and are
to be considered as mere names for that residue of unexplained facts,
which it will be the business of future ages to bring under
generalizations wide enough to cover and include the whole.
[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.
These ideas of composition and of position being thus the basis of all
natural science, it is not surprising that chemistry and geology, which
are their best, but still their insufficient representatives, should in
modern times have made more progress than any other of the great
branches of human knowledge. Although the chemists and geologists have
not yet risen to the full height of their respective subjects,[1068]
there are few things more curious than to note the way in which, during
the last two generations, they have been rapidly expanding their
views--encroaching on topics with which, at first sight, they appeared
to have no concern--making other branches of inquiry tributary to their
own--and collecting from every quarter that intellectual wealth which,
long hidden in obscure corners, had been wasted in the cultivation of
special and inferior pursuits. This, as being one of the great
intellectual characteristics of the present age, I shall hereafter
examine at considerable length; but what I have now to show is, that in
these two vast sciences, which, though still very imperfect, must
eventually be superior to all others, the first important steps were
made by Frenchmen during the latter half of the eighteenth century.
[1068] Many of them being still fettered, in geology, by the hypothesis
of catastrophes; in chemistry, by the hypothesis of vital
forces.
That we owe to France the existence of chemistry as a science, will be
admitted by everyone who uses the word science in the sense in which
alone it ought to be understood, namely, as a body of generalizations so
irrefragably true, that, though they may be subsequently covered by
higher generalizations, they cannot be overthrown by them; in other
words, generalizations which may be absorbed, but not refuted. In this
point of view, there are in the history of chemistry only three great
stages. The first stage was the destruction of the phlogistic theory,
and the establishment, upon its ruins, of the doctrines of oxidation,
combustion, and respiration. The second stage was the establishment of
the principle of definite proportions, and the application to it of the
atomic hypothesis. The third stage, above which we have not yet risen,
consists in the union of chemical and electrical laws, and in the
progress we are making towards fusing into one generalization their
separate phenomena. Which of these three stages was in its own age the
most valuable, is not now the question; but it is certain that the first
of them was the work of Lavoisier, by far the greatest of the French
chemists. Before him several important points had been cleared up by the
English chemists, whose experiments ascertained the existence of bodies
formerly unknown. The links, however, to connect the facts, were still
wanting; and until Lavoisier entered the field, there were no
generalizations wide enough to entitle chemistry to be called a science;
or, to speak more properly, the only large generalization commonly
received was that by Stahl, which the great Frenchman proved to be not
only imperfect, but altogether inaccurate. A notice of the vast
discoveries of Lavoisier will be found in many well-known books:[1069]
it is enough to say, that he not only worked out the laws of the
oxidation of bodies and of their combustion, but that he is the author
of the true theory of respiration, the purely chemical character of
which he first demonstrated; thus laying the foundation of those views
respecting the functions of food, which the German chemists subsequently
developed, and which, as I have proved in the second chapter of this
Introduction, may be applied to solve some great problems in the history
of Man. The merit of this was so obviously due to France, that though
the system now established was quickly adopted in other countries,[1070]
it received the name of the French chemistry.[1071] At the same time,
the old nomenclature being full of old errors, a new one was required,
and here again France took the initiative; since this great reformation
was begun by four of her most eminent chemists, who flourished only a
few years before the Revolution.[1072]
[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.'
While one division of the French thinkers was reducing to order the
apparent irregularities of chemical phenomena, another division of them
was performing precisely the same service for geology. The first step
towards popularizing this noble study was taken by Buffon, who, in the
middle of the eighteenth century, broached a geological theory, which,
though not quite original, excited attention by its eloquence, and by
the lofty speculations with which he connected it.[1073] This was
followed by the more special but still important labours of Rouelle,
Desmarest, Dolomieu, and Montlosier, who, in less than forty years,
effected a complete revolution in the ideas of Frenchmen, by
familiarizing them with the strange conception, that the surface of our
planet, even where it appears perfectly stable, is constantly undergoing
most extensive changes. It began to be understood, that this perpetual
flux takes place not only in those parts of nature which are obviously
feeble and evanescent, but also in those which seem to possess every
element of strength and permanence, such as the mountains of granite
which wall the globe, and are the shell and encasement in which it is
held. As soon as the mind became habituated to this notion of universal
change, the time was ripe for the appearance of some great thinker, who
should generalize the scattered observations, and form them into a
science, by connecting them with some other department of knowledge, of
which the laws, or, at all events, the empirical uniformities, had been
already ascertained.
[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.
It was at this point, and while the inquiries of geologists,
notwithstanding their value, were still crude and unsettled, that the
subject was taken up by Cuvier, one of the greatest naturalists Europe
has ever produced. A few others there are who have surpassed him in
depth; but in comprehensiveness it would be hard to find his superior;
and the immense range of his studies gave him a peculiar advantage in
surveying the operations and dependencies of the external world.[1074]
This remarkable man is unquestionably the founder of geology as a
science, since he is not only the first who saw the necessity of
bringing to bear upon it the generalizations of comparative anatomy, but
he is also the first who actually, executing this great idea, succeeded
in coördinating the study of the strata of the earth with the study of
the fossil animals found in them.[1075] Shortly before his researches
were published, many valuable facts had indeed been collected respecting
the separate strata; the primary formations being investigated by the
Germans, the secondary ones by the English.[1076] But these
observations, notwithstanding their merit, were isolated; and they
lacked that vast conception which gave unity and grandeur to the whole,
by connecting inquiries concerning the inorganic changes of the surface
of the globe with other inquiries concerning the organic changes of the
animals the surface contained.
[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.
How completely this immense step is due to France, is evident not only
from the part played by Cuvier, but also from the admitted fact, that to
the French we owe our knowledge respecting tertiary strata,[1077] in
which the organic remains are most numerous, and the general analogy to
our present state is most intimate.[1078] Another circumstance may
likewise be added, as pointing to the same conclusion. This is, that
the first application of the principles of comparative anatomy to the
study of fossil bones was also the work of a Frenchman, the celebrated
Daubenton. Hitherto these bones had been the object of stupid wonder;
some saying that they were rained from heaven, others saying that they
were the gigantic limbs of the ancient patriarchs, men who were believed
to be tall because they were known to be old.[1079] Such idle conceits
were for ever destroyed by Daubenton, in a Memoir he published in
1762;[1080] with which, however, we are not now concerned, except that
it is evidence of the state of the French mind, and is worth noting as a
precursor of the discoveries of Cuvier.
[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.
By this union of geology and anatomy, there was first introduced into
the study of nature a clear conception of the magnificent doctrine of
universal change; while at the same time there grew up by its side a
conception equally steady of the regularity with which the changes are
accomplished, and of the undeviating laws by which they are governed.
Similar ideas had no doubt been occasionally held in preceding ages; but
the great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century were the first who applied
them to the entire structure of the globe, and who thus prepared the way
for that still higher view for which their minds were not yet
ripe,[1081] but to which in our own time the most advanced thinkers are
rapidly rising. For it is now beginning to be understood, that since
every addition to knowledge affords fresh proof of the regularity with
which all the changes of nature are conducted, we are bound to believe
that the same regularity existed long before our little planet assumed
its present form, and long before man trod the surface of the earth. We
have the most abundant evidence that the movements incessantly occurring
in the material world have a character of uniformity; and this
uniformity is so clearly marked, that in astronomy, the most perfect of
all the sciences, we are able to predict events many years before they
actually happen; nor can any one doubt, that if on other subjects our
science were equally advanced, our predictions would be equally
accurate. It is, therefore, clear, that the burden of proof lies not on
those who assert the eternal regularity of nature, but rather on those
who deny it; and who set up an imaginary period, to which they assign an
imaginary catastrophe, during which they say new laws were introduced
and a new order established. Such gratuitous assumptions, even if they
eventually turn out to be true, are in the present state of knowledge
unwarrantable, and ought to be rejected, as the last remains of those
theological prejudices by which the march of every science has in its
turn been hindered. These and all analagous notions work a double
mischief. They are mischievous, because they cripple the human mind by
imposing limits to its inquiries; and above all they are mischievous,
because they weaken that vast conception of continuous and uninterrupted
law, which few indeed are able firmly to seize, but on which the highest
generalizations of future science must ultimately depend.
[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.
It is this deep conviction, that changing phenomena have unchanging
laws, and that there are principles of order to which all apparent
disorder may be referred,--it is this, which, in the seventeenth
century, guided in a limited field Bacon, Descartes, and Newton; which
in the eighteenth century was applied to every part of the material
universe; and which it is the business of the nineteenth century to
extend to the history of the human intellect. This last department of
inquiry we owe chiefly to Germany; for, with the single exception of
Vico, no one even suspected the possibility of arriving at complete
generalizations respecting the progress of man, until shortly before the
French Revolution, when the great German thinkers began to cultivate
this, the highest and most difficult of all studies. But the French
themselves were too much occupied with physical science to pay attention
to such matters;[1082] and speaking generally, we may say that, in the
eighteenth century, each of the three leading nations of Europe had a
separate part to play. England diffused a love of freedom; France, a
knowledge of physical science; while Germany, aided in some degree by
Scotland, revived the study of metaphysics, and created the study of
philosophic history. To this classification some exceptions may of
course be made; but that these were the marked characteristics of the
three countries, is certain. After the death of Locke in 1704, and that
of Newton in 1727, there was in England a singular dearth of great
speculative thinkers; and this not because the ability was wanting, but
because it was turned partly into practical pursuits, partly into
political contests. I shall hereafter examine the causes of this
peculiarity, and endeavour to ascertain the extent to which it has
influenced the fortunes of the country. That the results were, on the
whole, beneficial, I entertain no doubt; but they were unquestionably
injurious to the progress of science, because they tended to divert it
from all new truths, except those likely to produce obvious and
practical benefit. The consequence was, that though the English made
several great discoveries, they did not possess, during seventy years, a
single man who took a really comprehensive view of the phenomena of
nature; not one who could be compared with those illustrious thinkers
who in France reformed every branch of physical knowledge. Nor was it
until more than two generations after the death of Newton, that the
first symptoms appeared of a remarkable reaction, which quickly
displayed itself in nearly every department of the national intellect.
In physics, it is enough to mention Dalton, Davy, and Young, each of
whom was in his own field the founder of a new epoch; while on other
subjects I can only just refer, first, to the influence of the Scotch
school; and, secondly, to that sudden and well-deserved admiration for
the German literature of which Coleridge was the principal exponent, and
which infused into the English mind a taste for generalizations higher
and more fearless than any hitherto known. The history of this vast
movement, which began early in the nineteenth century, will be traced
in the future volumes of this work: at present I merely notice it, as
illustrating the fact, that until the movement began, the English,
though superior to the French in several matters of extreme importance,
were for many years inferior to them in those large and philosophic
views, without which not only is the most patient industry of no avail,
but even real discoveries lose their proper value, for want of such
habits of generalization as would trace their connexion with each other,
and consolidate their severed fragments into one vast system of complete
and harmonious truth.
[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.
The interest attached to these inquiries has induced me to treat them at
greater length than I had intended; perhaps at greater length than is
suitable to the suggestive and preparatory character of this
Introduction. But the extraordinary success with which the French now
cultivated physical knowledge is so curious, on account of its connexion
with the Revolution, that I must mention a few more of its most
prominent instances: though, for the sake of brevity, I will confine
myself to those three great divisions which, when put together, form
what is called Natural History, and in all of which we shall see that
the most important steps were taken in France during the latter half of
the eighteenth century.
In the first of these divisions, namely, the department of zoology, we
owe to the Frenchmen of the eighteenth century those generalizations
which are still the highest this branch of knowledge has reached. Taking
zoology in the proper sense of the term, it consists only of two parts,
the anatomical part, which is its statics, and the physiological part,
which is its dynamics: the first referring to the structure of animals;
the other, to their functions.[1083] Both of these were worked out,
nearly at the same time, by Cuvier and Bichat; and the leading
conclusions at which they arrived, remain, after the lapse of sixty
years, undisturbed in their essential points. In 1795, Cuvier laid down
the great principle, that the study and classification of animals was to
be, not as heretofore, with a view to external peculiarities, but with a
view to internal organization; and that, therefore, no real advance
could be made in our knowledge except by extending the boundaries of
comparative anatomy.[1084] This step, simple as it now appears, was of
immense importance, since by it zoology was at once rescued from the
hands of the observer, and thrown into those of the experimenter: the
consequence of which has been the attainment of that precision and
accuracy of detail, which experiment alone can give, and which is every
way superior to such popular facts as observation supplies. By thus
indicating to naturalists the true path of inquiry, by accustoming them
to a close and severe method, and by teaching them to despise those
vague descriptions in which they had formerly delighted, Cuvier laid the
foundation of a progress which, during the last sixty years, has
surpassed the most sanguine expectations. This, then, is the real
service rendered by Cuvier, that he overthrew the artificial system
which the genius of Linnæus had raised up,[1085] and substituted in its
place that far superior scheme which gave the freest scope to future
inquiry; since, according to it, all systems are to be deemed imperfect
and provisional so long as any thing remains to be learned respecting
the comparative anatomy of the animal kingdom. The influence exercised
by this great view was increased by the extraordinary skill and industry
with which its proposer followed it out, and proved the practicability
of his own precepts. His additions to our knowledge of comparative
anatomy are probably more numerous than those made by any other man; but
what has gained him most celebrity is, the comprehensive spirit with
which he used what he acquired. Independently of other generalizations,
he is the author of that vast classification of the whole animal kingdom
into vertebrata, mollusca, articulata, and radiata;[1086] a
classification which keeps its ground, and is one of the most remarkable
instances of that large and philosophic spirit which France brought to
bear upon the phenomena of the material world.[1087]
[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.
Great, however, as is the name of Cuvier, a greater still remains
behind. I allude, of course, to Bichat, whose reputation is steadily
increasing as our knowledge advances, and who, if we compare the
shortness of his life with the reach and depth of his views, must be
pronounced the most profound thinker and the most consummate observer by
whom the organization of the animal frame has yet been studied.[1088] He
wanted, indeed, that comprehensive knowledge for which Cuvier was
remarkable; but though, on this account, his generalizations were drawn
from a smaller surface, they were, on the other hand, less provisional:
they were, I think, more complete, and certainly they dealt with more
momentous topics. For the attention of Bichat was preëminently directed
to the human frame[1089] in the largest sense of the word; his object
being so to investigate the organization of man, as to rise, if
possible, to some knowledge concerning the causes and nature of life. In
this magnificent enterprise, considered as a whole, he failed; but what
he effected in certain parts of it is so extraordinary, and has given
such an impetus to some of the highest branches of inquiry, that I will
briefly indicate his method, in order to compare it with that other
method which, at the same moment, Cuvier adopted with immense success.
[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.
The important step taken by Cuvier was, that he insisted on the
necessity of a comprehensive study of the organs of animals, instead of
following the old plan of merely describing their habits and external
peculiarities. This was a vast improvement, since, in the place of loose
and popular observations, he substituted direct experiment, and hence
introduced into zoology a precision formerly unknown.[1090] But Bichat,
with a still keener insight, saw that even this was not enough. He saw
that, each organ being composed of different tissues, it was requisite
to study the tissues themselves, before we could learn the way in which,
by their combinations, the organs are produced. This, like all really
great ideas, was not entirely struck out by a single man; for the
physiological value of the tissues had been recognized by three or four
of the immediate predecessors of Bichat, such as Carmichael, Smyth,
Bonn, Bordeu, and Fallopius. These inquirers, however, notwithstanding
their industry, had effected nothing of much moment, since, though they
collected several special facts, there was in their observations that
want of harmony and that general incompleteness always characteristic of
the labours of men who do not rise to a commanding view of the subject
with which they deal.[1091]
[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.
It was under these circumstances that Bichat began those researches,
which, looking at their actual and still more at their prospective
results, are probably the most valuable contribution ever made to
physiology by a single mind. In 1801, only a year before his
death,[1092] he published his great work on anatomy, in which the study
of the organs is made altogether subservient to the study of the tissues
composing them. He lays it down, that the body of man consists of
twenty-one distinct tissues, all of which, though essentially different,
have in common the two great properties of extensibility and
contractility.[1093] These tissues he, with indefatigable
industry,[1094] subjected to every sort of examination; he examined
them in different ages and diseases, with a view to ascertain the laws
of their normal and pathological development.[1095] He studied the way
each tissue is affected by moisture, air, and temperature; also the way
in which their properties are altered by various chemical
substances,[1096] and even their effect on the taste.[1097] By these
means, and by many other experiments tending in the same direction, he
took so great and sudden a step, that he is to be regarded not merely as
an innovator on an old science, but rather as the creator of a new
one.[1098] And although subsequent observers have corrected some of his
conclusions, this has only been done by following his method; the value
of which is now so generally recognized, that it is adopted by nearly
all the best anatomists, who, differing in other points, are agreed as
to the necessity of basing the future progress of anatomy on a knowledge
of the tissues, the supreme importance of which Bichat was the first to
perceive.[1099]
[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.'
The methods of Bichat and of Cuvier, when put together, exhaust the
actual resources of zoological science; so that all subsequent
naturalists have been compelled to follow one of these two schemes; that
is, either to follow Cuvier in comparing the organs of animals, or else
to follow Bichat in comparing the tissues which compose the
organs.[1100] And inasmuch as one comparison is chiefly suggestive of
function, and the other comparison of structure, it is evident, that to
raise the study of the animal world to the highest point of which it is
capable, both these great plans are necessary; but if we ask which of
the two plans, unaided by the other, is more likely to produce important
results, the palm must, I think, be yielded to that proposed by Bichat.
Certainly, if we look at the question as one to be decided by authority,
a majority of the most eminent anatomists and physiologists now incline
to the side of Bichat, rather than to that of Cuvier; while, as a matter
of history, it may be proved that the reputation of Bichat has, with the
advance of knowledge, increased more rapidly than that of his great
rival. What, however, appears to me still more decisive, is, that the
two most important discoveries made in our time respecting the
classification of animals, are entirely the result of the method which
Bichat suggested. The first discovery is that made by Agassiz, who, in
the course of his ichthyological researches, was led to perceive that
the arrangement by Cuvier according to organs, did not fulfil its
purpose in regard to fossil fishes, because in the lapse of ages the
characteristics of their structure were destroyed.[1101] He, therefore,
adopted the only other remaining plan, and studied the tissues, which,
being less complex than the organs, are oftener found intact. The result
was the very remarkable discovery, that the tegumentary membrane of
fishes is so intimately connected with their organization, that if the
whole of a fish has perished except this membrane, it is practicable, by
noting its characteristics, to reconstruct the animal in its most
essential parts. Of the value of this principle of harmony, some idea
may be formed from the circumstance, that on it Agassiz has based the
whole of that celebrated classification, of which he is the sole author,
and by which fossil ichthyology has for the first time assumed a precise
and definite shape.[1102]
[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.'
The other discovery, of which the application is much more extensive,
was made in exactly the same way. It consists of the striking fact, that
the teeth of each animal have a necessary connexion with the entire
organization of its frame; so that, within certain limits, we can
predict the organization by examining the tooth. This beautiful instance
of the regularity of the operations of nature was not known until more
than thirty years after the death of Bichat, and it is evidently due to
the prosecution of that method which he sedulously inculcated. For the
teeth never having been properly examined in regard to their separate
tissues, it was believed that they were essentially devoid of structure,
or, as some thought, were simply a fibrous texture.[1103] But by minute
microscopic investigations, it has been recently ascertained that the
tissues of the teeth are strictly analogous to those of other parts of
the body;[1104] and that the ivory, or dentine, as it is now
called,[1105] is highly organized; that it, as well as the enamel, is
cellular, and is, in fact, a development of the living pulp. This
discovery, which, to the philosophic anatomist, is pregnant with
meaning, was made about 1838; and though the preliminary steps were
taken by Purkinjé, Retzius, and Schwann, the principal merit is due to
Nasmyth and Owen,[1106] between whom it is disputed, but whose rival
claims we are not here called upon to adjust.[1107] What I wish to
observe is, that the discovery is similar to that which we owe to
Agassiz; similar in the method by which it was worked out, and also in
the results which have followed from it. Both are due to a recognition
of the fundamental maxim of Bichat, that the study of organs must be
subordinate to the study of tissues, and both have supplied the most
valuable aid to zoological classification. On this point, the service
rendered by Owen is incontestable, whatever may be thought of his
original claims. This eminent naturalist has, with immense industry,
applied the discovery to all vertebrate animals; and in an elaborate
work, specially devoted to the subject, he has placed beyond dispute the
astonishing fact, that the structure of a single tooth is a criterion of
the nature and organization of the species to which it belongs.[1108]
[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, Leeuwenh[oe]k, 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.
Whoever has reflected much on the different stages through which our
knowledge has successively passed, must, I think, be led to the
conclusion, that while fully recognizing the great merit of these
investigators of the animal frame, our highest admiration ought to be
reserved not for those who make the discoveries, but rather for those
who point out how the discoveries are to be made.[1109] When the true
path of inquiry has once been indicated, the rest is comparatively easy.
The beaten highway is always open; and the difficulty is, not to find
those who will travel the old road, but those who will make a fresh one.
Every age produces in abundance men of sagacity and of considerable
industry, who, while perfectly competent to increase the details of a
science, are unable to extend its distant boundaries. This is because
such extension must be accompanied by a new method,[1110] which, to be
valuable as well as new, supposes on the part of its suggester, not only
a complete mastery over the resources of his subject, but also the
possession of originality and comprehensiveness,--the two rarest forms
of human genius. In this consists the real difficulty of every great
pursuit. As soon as any department of knowledge has been generalized
into laws, it contains, either in itself or in its applications, three
distinct branches; namely, inventions, discoveries, and method. Of
these, the first corresponds to art; the second to science; and the
third to philosophy. In this scale, inventions have by far the lowest
place, and minds of the highest order are rarely occupied by them. Next
in the series come discoveries; and here the province of intellect
really begins, since here the first attempt is made to search after
truth on its own account, and to discard those practical considerations
to which inventions are of necessity referred. This is science properly
so called; and how difficult it is to reach this stage, is evident from
the fact, that all half-civilized nations have made many great
inventions, but no great discoveries. The highest, however, of all the
three stages, is the philosophy of method, which bears the same relation
to science that science bears to art. Of its immense, and indeed supreme
importance, the annals of knowledge supply abundant evidence; and for
want of it, some very great men have effected absolutely nothing,
consuming their lives in fruitless industry, not because their labour
was slack, but because their method was sterile. The progress of every
science is affected more by the scheme according to which it is
cultivated, than by the actual ability of the cultivators themselves. If
they who travel in an unknown country, spend their force in running on
the wrong road, they will miss the point at which they aim, and
perchance may faint and fall by the way. In that long and difficult
journey after truth, which the human mind has yet to perform, and of
which we in our generation can only see the distant prospect, it is
certain that success will depend not on the speed with which men hasten
in the path of inquiry, but rather on the skill with which that path is
selected for them by those great and comprehensive thinkers, who are as
the lawgivers and founders of knowledge; because they supply its
deficiencies, not by investigating particular difficulties, but by
establishing some large and sweeping innovation, which opens up a new
vein of thought, and creates fresh resources, which it is left for their
posterity to work out and apply.
[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.