Note 41 — Chapter III · Development of the Natural System under the Influence of the Dogma of the Constancy of Species. 1759-1850.

Auguste de Saint Hilaire was born at Orleans in 1779, and died there in 1853; he was Professor at Paris, and in 1840 published his ‘Leçons de Botanique comprenant principalement la Morphologie Végétale,’ etc. This work contains a somewhat diffuse account of P. de Candolle’s doctrine of symmetry, together with Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis and Schimper’s doctrine of phyllotaxis, and his own views also on classification founded on the comparative morphology of the day. It is marked by fewer errors than will be found in Lindley’s theoretical writings, but it is less profound, and touches only incidentally on fundamental questions; at the same time it possesses historical interest as giving a lucid description of the state of morphology before 1840.