CH. xxxviii. CUVIER" S VIEWS, 395 



The discussion between the two friends became so, 

 animated that all Europe was excited by it. It is said that 

 Goethe, then an old man of seventy -one, meeting a friend, 

 exclaimed, * Well what do you think of this great event ? the 

 volcano has burst forth, all is in flames.' His friend thought 

 he spoke of the French Revolution, and answered ac- 

 cordingly, ' You do not understand me/ said Goethe, ' I 

 speak of the discussion between Cuvier and St-Hilaire: the 

 matter is of the highest importance. The method of looking 

 at nature which St-Hilaire has introduced can never now be 

 lost sight of again.' And he was right, for the doctrine of 

 homology, as taught by St.-Hilaire, is one of the strongest 

 arguments for the theory of the development of living 

 beings, now held by all the most able naturalists, and of 

 which we shall speak in Chapter XL. 



Cuvier proves that the Parts of an Animal agree so 

 exactly that from seeing one Fragment the Whole can be 

 known, We have seen that Cuvier did not agree with 

 many of the views of Lamarck and St.-Hilaire, We must 

 now consider what work he did himself; for though all the 

 three friends laboured well, Cuvier accomplished the most of 

 all. He had a most remarkable capacity for work ; we find 

 him at the same time restoring skeletons and studying each 

 bone with minute care, lecturing to large bodies of students, 

 writing the history of all the sciences, and examining fossils 

 from the rocks ; besides presiding over councils and superin- 

 tending national education. And whatever he touched was 

 done thoroughly and with a master-hand. 



His first great work was to collect all the different facts 

 of comparative anatomy established since the time of 

 Hunter, and, adding a great mass of his own observations, to 

 build them up into one complete science of anatomy. In 



