The term nisus formativus was employed by Blumenbach to denote that vital power y^liiGh. is innate in all living organized bodies, and in active operation during the whole period of their vital existence, by which they are controlled and modified with reference to a speci- fied end ; it is that power by which the organizable matter of every individual being assumes, at its conception, its allotted form ; which form is also capable of successive modifications by nutrition, accord- ing to the purpose for which it is destined by the Author of Nature, as well as of the reparation (within prescribed limits) of the injuries which it may have received. The announcement of this principle was received with extraordinary favour by physiologists, though it diflfered in little more than in name from the vis esse?itialis of the celebrated Wolff". It will be found to have formed the basis of some of his important speculations.
Blumenbach's well-known collection of the crania of the different races of mankind was made with a view to their more accurate classification, and gave rise to some of his more celebrated pub- lications*. According to his ultimate views, he would make the Caucasian race the primary stem, from which all the others have degenerated to the Mongol at one extremity, and the ^Ethiopic at the other, interposing the American variety between the Caucasian and the Mongol, and the Malay between the Caucasian and the iEthiopic : it is difficult, however, to arrive at very correct general conclusions on this very interesting subject, without reference to those which are founded on the analogies of language, as has been done by Cuvier and Prichard.
It is quite impossible, within the short compass to which this notice is necessarily confined, to convey more than a very general impression of the vast variety of the labours of this distinguished philosopher. We find him applying his knowledge of natural his- tory in illustration of the arts and poetry of antiquity f; he was also one of the first naturalists who appreciated the importance of a knowledge of fossils in determining the relative ages of the strata of the earth J. He had cultivated archaeology and literary history § from his earliest years with more than common interest and zeal. There were, in fact, few departments of knowledge and litera- ture, however remotely connected with the natural sciences, which he has not illustrated by his writings : it was when thus travelling
- Collectio Decad. vi. craniorum diversarum gentium tabulis 60 seneis
illustrata: 1790 — 1820. De generis humani varietate nativa : 1795.
t Specimen historise naturalis, antiques artis operibus illustratse eaque vicissim illustrantis : 1803. Com. Acad. Gott., torn. xvi.
Specimen historise naturalis ex auctoribus classicis, prsesertim poetis, illustratse eosque vicissim illustrantis: 1815. Com. recent. Acad. Gott., tom. cxi.
J Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der Vorwelt : 1790. Specimen archseologice telluris terrarumque imprimis Hannoveranarum : 1801. Also Comment. Acad. Gott., tom. xv. pp. 132 — 156. Com. recent. Acad. Gott., tom. cxi. pp. 3 — 24.
§ His " Introductio in Historiam Medicinse Literariam," published in 1786, is a most instructive specimen of scientific bibliography.
