42 CUVIEU 



attitude to this problem is at least as scientific as that of 

 the evolutionists of his own and later times. No doubt he 

 became dogmatic in his rejection of evolution-theory, but he 

 \vas on sure ground in maintaining that the evolutionists of 

 his day went beyond their facts. He considered that cer- 

 tain forms (species) have reproduced themselves from 

 the origin of things without exceeding the limits of 

 variation. His definition of a species was, " the individuals 

 descended from one another or from common parents, 

 together with those that resemble them as much as they 

 resemble one another." 1 "These forms are neither pro- 

 duced nor do they change of themselves; life presupposes 

 their existence, for it cannot arise save in organisations 

 ready prepared for it." 



He based his rejection of all theories of descent upon the 

 absence of definite evidence for evolution. If species have 

 gradually changed, he argued, one ought to find traces of 

 these gradual modifications. 3 Palaeontology does not furnish 

 such traces. Again, the limits of variation, even under 

 domestication, are narrow, and the most extreme variation 

 does not fundamentally alter the specific type. Thus the 

 dog has varied perhaps most of all, in size, in shape, in 

 colour. " But throughout all these variations the relations of 

 the bones remain the same, and the form of the teeth never 

 changes to an appreciable extent ; at most there are some 

 individuals in which an additional false molar develops on 

 one side or the other." 4 This second objection is the 

 objection of the morphologist. It would be an interesting 

 study to compare Cuvier's views on variation with those of 

 Darwin, who was essentially a systematist. 



Cuvier's first objection was of course determined to some 

 extent by the imperfection of the palaeontological knowledge 

 of his time. But even at the present day the objection has 

 a certain force, for although we have definite evidence of 

 many serial transformations of one species into another 

 along a single line, for example, Neumayr's Piilndina series, 



Aiiiiitdl, i , p. 19. 

 . cit., p. 20. 



1 Rcc here lies sitr les Osscinens rossilcs, i., p. 74, 1812. 

 1 Loc. cit., p. 79. 



