of Boyle and of his contemporaries General in English chymistry from a mod- character ern author of credit. "Perhaps of Boyle. Mr. Boyle may be considered as the first nor mining who devoted a considerable degree of attention to chymical pursuits Mr. Boyle, though, in common with the literary men of his age, he may be accused of credulity, was both very laborious and intelligent; and his chymical pursuits, which were various and extensive, and intended solely to develop the truth without any regard to previously conceived opinions, contributed essentially to set chymistry free from the trammels of absurdity and superstition in which it had been hitherto enveloped, and to recommend it to philosophers as a science deserving to be studied on account of the important information which it was qualified to convey. His refutation of the alchymistical opinions respecting the constituents of bodies, his observations on cold, on the air, on phosphorus, and on ether, deserve particularly to be mention the creation. His greater knowledge of physiology led him to perceive that there are both animal, and what he calls cosmical ends, in which man has no concern. 9. The following passage is so favour-person neither connected with pharmacy Extract able a specimen of the philosophfrom one ical spirit of Boyle, and so good of them. an illustration of the theory of idols in the Novum Organum, that, although it might better, perhaps, have deserved a place in a former chapter, I will not refrain from inserting it. "I know not," he says, in his Free Inquiry into the received Notion of Nature, "whether it be a prerogative in the human mind, that, as it is itself a true and positive being, so is it apt to conceive all other things as true and positive beings also; but whether or no this propensity to frame such kind of ideas supposes an excellency, I fear it occasions mistakes, and makes us think and speak after the manner of true and positive beings, of such things as are but chimerical, and some of them negations or privations themselves; as death, ignorance, blindness, and the like. It concerns us, the re-ed as doing him much honour. We have fore, to stand very carefully upon our guard, that we be not insensibly misled by such an innate and unheeded temptation to error as we bring into the world with us."t His merits istry. 10. Boyle improved the airpump and the thermometer, though the latter in physies was first made an accurate inand elym- strument of investigation by Newton. He also discovered the law of the air's elasticity, namely, that its bulk is inversely as the pressure. For some of the principles of hydrostatics we are indebted to him, though he did not possess much mathematical knowledge. The Philosophical Transactions contain several valuable papers by him on this science. By his "Skeptical Chymist," published in 1661, he did much to overturn the theories of Van Helmont's school, that commonly called of the iatrochymists, which was in its highest reputation; raising doubts as to the existence not only of the four elements of the peripatetics, but of those which these chymists had substituted. Boyle holds the elements of bodies to be atoms of different shapes and sizes, the union of which gave origin to what are vulgarly called elements. It is unnecessary to remark that this is the prevailing theory of the present age. 11. I shall borrow the general character Boyle's Works, vol. v., p. 394. + Id., p. 161. no regular account of any one substance or of any class of bodies in Mr. Boyle similar to those which at present are considered as belonging exclusively to the science of chymistry. Nor did he attempt to systematize the phenomena, or to subject them to any hypothetical explanation. 12. "But his contemporary, Dr. Hooke, who had a particular predilection of Hooke for hypothesis, sketched in his and others. Micrographia a very beautiful theoretical explanation of combustion, and promised to develop his doctrine more fully in a subsequent book; a promise which he never fulfilled; though in his Lampas, published about twenty years afterward, he has given a very beautiful explanation of the way in which a candle burns. Mayow, in his Essays, published at Oxford about ten years after the Micrographia, embraced the hypothesis of Dr. Hooke without acknowledgment, but clogged it with so many absurd additions of his own as greatly to obscure its lustre and diminish its beauty. Mayow's first and principal essay contains some happy experiments on respiration and air, and some fortunate conjectures respecting the combustion of the metals; but the most valuable part of the whole is the chapter on affinities; in which he appears to have gone much farther than any chymist of his day, and to have anticipated some of the best established doctrines of his sucSir Isaac Newton, to whom all cessors. the sciences lie under such great obliga. tions, made two most important contribu- | in the most obvious class, that of quadrutions to chymistry, which constitute, as it peds, to the knowledge collected one hunwere, the foundation-stones of its two dred years before. But hitherto zoology, great divisions. The first was pointing confined to mere description, and that out a method of graduating thermometers, often careless or indefinite, unenlightened so as to be comparable with each other by anatomy, unregulated by method, had in whatever part of the world observations not merited the name of a science. That with them are made. The second was by name it owes to John Ray. pointing out the nature of chymical affinity, and showing that it consisted in an attraction by which the constituents of bodies were drawn towards each other and united; thus destroying the previous hypothesis of the hooks, and points, and rings, and wedges, by means of which the different constituents of bodies were conceived to be kept together."* 13. Lemery, a druggist at Paris, by his Cours de Chymie in 1675, is said Lemery. to have changed the face of the science; the change, nevertheless, seems to have gone no deeper. "Lemery," says Fontenelle, "was the first who dispersed the real or pretended obscurities of chymistry, who brought it to clearer and more simple notions, who abolished the gross barbarisms of its language, who promised nothing but what he knew the art could perform; and to this he owed the success of his book. It shows not only a sound understanding, but some greatness of soul, to strip one's own science of a false pomp." But we do not find that Lemery had any novel views in chymistry, or that he claims with any irresistible pretension the title of a philosopher. In fact, his chymistry seems to have been little more than pharmacy. SECT. II. ON NATURAL HISTORY. Zoology.-Ray.--Botanical Classifications. Grew.-Geological Theories. 14. THE accumulation of particular Slow Prog- knowledge in Natural History ress of Zo- must always be progressive, ology. where any regard is paid to the subject; every traveller in remote countries, every mariner may contribute some observation, correct some error, or bring home some new species. Thus zoology had made a regular advance from the days of Conrad Gesner; yet with so tardy a step, that, reflecting on the extensive intercourse of Europe with the Eastern and Western world, we may be surprised to find how little Jonston, in the middle of the seventeenth century, had added, even Thomson's Hist. of Royal Society, p. 466. † Eloge de Lemery, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, ., 361. Biogr. Universelle. 15. Ray first appeared in Natural History as the editor of the OrniBefore Ray. thology of his highly-accomplished friend Francis Willoughby, with whom he had travelled over the Continent. This was published in 1676; and the History of Fishes followed in 1686. The descriptions are ascribed to Willoughby, the arrangement to Ray, who might have considered the two works as in great part his own, though he has not interfered with the glory of his deceased friend. Cuvier observes, that the History of Fishes is the more perfect work of the two; that many species are described which will not be found in earlier ichthyologists, and that those of the Mediterranean especially are given with great precision.* 16. Among the original works of Ray we may select the Synopsis His SynopMethodica Animalium Quadru- sis of Quadpedum et Serpentini Generis, rupeds. published in 1693. This book makes an epoch in zoology, not for the additions of new species it contains, since there are few wholly such, but as the first classification of animals that can be reckoned both general and grounded in nature. He divides them into those with blood and without blood. The former are such as breathe through lungs, and such as breathe through gills. Of the former of these, again, some have a heart with two ventricles, some with one only. And among the former class of these, some are viviparous, some oviparous. We thus come to the proper distinction of Mammalia. But, in compliance with vulgar prejudice, Ray did not include the cetacea in the same class with quadrupeds, though well aware that they properly belonged to it, and left them as an order of fishes.† Quadrupeds he was the first to divide into ungulate and unguiculate, hoofed and clawed, having himself invented the Latin words. The former are solidipeda, bisulca, or quadrisulca; the latter are bifida or multifida; and these latter with undivided or with partial- | and, in a great degree, disproved, by exly divided toes; which latter, again, may have broad claws, as monkeys, or narrow claws; and these with narrow claws he arranges according to their teeth. as either carnivora or leporina, now generally called rodentia. Besides all these quadrupeds which he calls analoga, he has a general division called anomala, for those without teeth, or with such peculiar arrangements of teeth as we find in the insectivorous genera, the hedgehog and mole.* periment, the prevailing doctrine of the equivocal generation of insects, or that from corruption; though where he was unable to show the means of reproduction, he had recourse to a paradoxical hypothesis of his own. Redi also enlarged our knowledge of intestinal animals, and made some good experiments on the poison of vipers. Malpighi, who combated, like Redi, the theory of the reproduction of organized bodies from mere corruption, has given one of the most complete treatises on the silkworm that we pos- swammer. sess.† Swammerdam, a Dutch darn. naturalist, abandoned his pursuits in human anatomy to follow up that of insects, and by his skill and patience in dissection made numerous discoveries in their structure. His General History of Insects, 1669, contains a distribution into four classes, founded on their bodily forms and the metamorphoses they undergo. A posthumous work, Biblia Ñaturæ, not pub graphie Universelle, “a multitude of facts wholly unknown before Swammerdam; it is impossible to carry farther the anatomy of these little animals, or to be more exact in the description of their organs." 17. Ray was the first zoologist who Merits of made use of comparative anatothis work. my; he inserts at length every account of dissections that he could find; several had been made at Paris. He does not appear to be very anxious about describing every species; thus, in the simian family, he omits several well known. I cannot exactly determine what quadrupeds he has inserted that do not appear in the earlier zoologists; according to Linnæus, in the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturæ, if I have counted rightly, they|lished till 1738, contains, says the Bioamount to thirty-two; but I have found him very careless in specifying the synonymes of his predecessors, and many for which he only quotes Ray are in Gesner or Jonston. Ray has, however, much the advantage over these in the brevity and closeness of his specific characters. "The particular distinction of his labours," says Cuvier, "consists in an arrangement more clear, more determinate than those of any of his predecessors, and applied with more consistency and precision. His distribution of the classes of quadrupeds and birds have been followed by the English naturalists almost to our own days; and we find manifest traces of that he has adopted as to the latter class in Linnæus, in Brisson, in Buffon, and in all other ornithologists." Redi. 18. The bloodless animals, and even those of cold blood, with the exception of fishes, had occupied but little attention of any good zoologists till after the middle of the century. They were now studied with considerable success. Redi, established as a physician at Florence, had yet time for that various literature which has immortalized his name. He opposed, 19. Lister, an English physician, may be reckoned one of those who have Lister. done most to found the science of conchology by his Historia sive Synopsis Conchyliorum, in 1685; a work very copious and full of accurate delineations; and also by his three treatises on English animals, two of which relate to fluviatile and marine shells. The third, which is on spiders, is not less esteemed in entomology. Lister was also perhaps the first to distinguish the specific characters, such, at least, as are now reckoned specific, though probably not in his time, of the Asiatic and African elephant. "His works in natural history and comparative anatomy are justly esteemed, because he has shown himself an exact and sagacious observer, and has pointed out with correctness the natural relations of the animals that he describes." 20. The beautiful science which bears the nonsensical name of com- Comparative parative anatomy had but casu- anatomy. ally occupied the attention of the medical profession. It was to them, rather than Biogr. Univ. Tiraboschi, xi., 252. + Idem. Biogr. Univ. Chalmers, It is most probable that this term was originally designed to express a comparison between the bu man structure and that of brutes, though it might also mean one between different species of the lat ter. In the first sense it is never now used, and to mere zoologists, that it owed, and, in- | tions of appearance, as the older botanists, deed, strictly must always owe, its discov- | but, as Caesalpin had first done, on the eries, which had hitherto been very few. fructifying organs. He has been frequentIt was now more cultivated; and the re-ly charged with plagiarism from that great lations of structure to the capacities of animal life became more striking as their varieties were more fully understood; the grand theories of final causes found their most convincing arguments. In this period, I believe, comparative anatomy made an important progress, which, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, was by no means equally rapid. France took the lead in these researches. “ The number | of papers on comparative anatomy," says Dr. Thomson, "is greater in the memoirs of the French Academy than in our national publication. This was owing to the pains taken during the reign of Louis XIV. to furnish the academy with proper animals, and the number of anatomists who received a salary, and, of course, devoted themselves to anatomical subjects." There are, however, about twenty papers in the Philosophical Transactions before 1700 on this subject.' Italian, who seems to have suffered, as others have done, by failing to carry forward his own luminous conceptions into such details of proof as the world justly demands; another instance of which has been seen in his very striking passages on the circulation of the blood. Sprengel, however, who praises Morison highly, does not impute to him this injustice towards Casalpin, whose writings might possibly be unknown in Britain. And it might be observed, also, that Morison did not, as has sometimes been alleged, establish the fruit as the sole basis of his arrangement. Out of fifteen classes, into which he distributes all herbaceous plants, but seven are characterized by this distinction. "The examination of Morison's works," says a late biographer, "will enable us to judge of the service he rendered in the reformation of botany. The great botanists, from Gesner to the Bau21. Botany, notwithstanding the gleams hins, had published works more or less of philosophical light which occa- useful by their discoveries, their observaBotany. sionally illustrate the writings of tions, their descriptions, or their figures. Casalpin and Columna, had seldom gone Gesner had made a great step in considfarther than to name, to describe, and to ering the fruit as the principal distinction delineate plants with a greater or less ac- of genera. Fabius Columna adopted this curacy and copiousness. Yet it long had view; Casalpin applied it to a classificathe advantage over zoology, and now, tion which should be regarded as better when the latter made a considerable step than any that preceded the epoch of which in advance, it still continued to keep ahead. we speak. Morison had made a particular This is a period of great importance in bo- | study of fruits, having collected 1500 dif tanical science. Jungius of Ham-ferent species of them, though he did not Jungius. burgh, whose posthumous Isagoge neglect the importance of the natural afPhytoscopica was published in 1679, is finities of other parts. He dwells on this said to have been the first in the seven-leading idea, insists on the necessity of teenth century who led the way to a bet- establishing generic characters, and has ter classification than that of Lobel; and founded his chief works on this basis. Sprengel thinks that the English botanists He has therefore done real service to the were not unacquainted with his writings; science; nor should the vanity which has Ray, indeed, owns his obligations to them. | made him conceal his obligations to Ces22. But the founder of classification, in alpin induce us to refuse him justice." the eyes of the world, was Robert Morison speaks of his own theory with Morison. Morison, of Aberdeen, professor of excessive vanity, and depreciates all earbotany at Oxford, who, by his Hortus lier botanists as full of confusion. SevBlesensis, in 1669; by his Plantarum Um- eral English writers have been unfavourbelliferarum Distributio Nova, in 1672; able to Morison, out of partiality to Ray, and chiefly by his great work, Historia with whom he was on bad terms; but Plantarum Universalis, in 1678, laid the Tournefort declares that if he had not enbases of a systematic classification, which lightened botany, it would still have been he partly founded, not on trivial distinc-in darkness. the second is but a small though important part of | 25. The merit of establishing a uniform and consistent system was re- Tournefort. served for Tournefort. His Elémens de la Botanique appeared in 1694; the Latin translation, Institutiones Rei Herbariæ, in 1700. Tournefort, like Rivinus, took the flower or corolla as the basis of his system; and the varieties in the structure, rather than number, of the petals furnish him with his classes. The genera 1688, and the third, which is supplement- | vision. Yet he had not been able to real, in 1704, trod in the steps of Morison, duce all plants to his method, and admitbut with more acknowledgment of what ted several anomalous divisions.* was due to others, and with some improvements of his own. He described 6900 plants, many of which are now considered as varieties. In the botanical works of Ray we find the natural families of plants better defined, the difference of complete and incomplete flowers more precise, and the grand division of monocotyledons and bicotyledons fully established. He gave much precision to the characteristics of many classes, and introduced-for, like other botanists before Linnæus, several technical terms very useful for the perspicuity of botanical language; finally, he established many general principles of arrangement which have since been adopted. Ray's method of classification was principally by the fruit, though he admits its imperfections. "In fact, his method," says Pulteney, "though he assumes the fruit as the foundation, is an elaborate attempt, for that time, to fix natural classes."t 24. Rivinus, in his Introductio in Rem Herbariam, Leipsic, 1690, a very Rivinus. short performance, struck into a new path, which has modified, to a great degree, the systems of later botanists. Casalpin and Morison had looked mainly to the fruit as the basis of classification; Rivinus added the flower, and laid down as a fundamental rule that all plants which resemble each other, both in the flower and in the fruit, ought to bear the same generic name. In some pages of this Introduction we certainly find the basis of the Critica Botanica of Linnæus. Rivinus thinks the arrangement of Cæsalpin the best, and that Morison has only spoiled what he took; of Ray he speaks in terms of eulogy, but blames some part of his method. His own is primarily founded on the flower, and thus he forms eighteen classes, which, by considering the differences of the fruits, he subdivides into ninety-one genera. The specific distinctions he founded on the general habit and appearance of the plant. His method is more thoroughly artificial as opposed to natural; that is, more established on a single principle, which often brings heterogeneous plants and families together, than that of any of his predecessors; for even Ray had kept the distinction of trees from shrubs and herbs, conceiving it to be founded in their natural fructification. Rivinus set aside wholly this leading di Pulteney. The account of Ray's life and bo tanical writings in this work occupies nearly 100 pages. + Biogr. Universelle. P. 259. Biogr. Univ. Il Id. he has no intermediate division—are established by the flower and fruit conjointly, or, now and then, by less essential differences, for he held it better to constitute new genera than, as others had done, to have anomalous species. The accessory parts of a plant are allowed to supply specific distinctions. But Tournefort divides vegetables, according to old prejudicewhich it is surprising that, after the precedent of Rivinus to the contrary, he should have regarded-into herbs and trees, and thus he has twenty-two classes. Simple flowers, monopetalous or polypetalous, form eleven of these; composite flowers, three; the apetalous, one; the cryptogamous, or those without flower or fruit, make another class; shrubs or suffrutices are placed in the seventeenth; and trees, in five more, are similarly distributed, according to their floral characters.† Sprengel extols much of the system of Tournefort, though he disapproves of the selection of a part so often wanting as the corolla for the sole basis; nor can its various forms be comprised in Tournefort's classes. His orders are well marked, according to the same author; but he multiplied both his genera and species too much, and paid too little attention to the stamina. His method was less repugnant to natural affinities, and more convenient in practice than any which had come since Lobel. Most of Tournefort's generic distinctions were preserved by Linnæus, and some, which had been abrogated without sufficient reason, have since been restored. Ray opposed the system of Tournefort, but some have thought that in his later works he came nearer to it, so as to be called magis corollista quam fructista. This, however, is not acknowledged by Pulteney, who has paid great attention to Ray's writings. 26. The classification and description * Biogr. Univ. Sprengel, p. 56. + Biogr. Univ. Thomson's Hist. of Royal So ciety, p. 34. Sprengel, p. 64. Biogr. Universelle. ◊ Id. |