156 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



From the standpoint of a sincere admirer, Mrs. Lee 

 writes of his generosity and nobility of temperament, declar- 

 ing that his career demonstrated that his mind was great 

 and free from both envy and smallness. 



Some Shortcomings. Nevertheless, there are certain 

 things in the life of Cuvier that we wish might not have been. 



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His break with his old friends Lamarck and Sairit-Hilaire 

 seems to show a domination of qualities that were not gen- 

 erous and kindly ; those observations of Lamarck showing a 



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much profounder insight than any of which he himself was 

 the author were laughed to scorn. His famous controversy 

 with Saint-Hilaire marks a historical moment that will be 

 dealt with in the chapter on Evolution. 



George Bancroft, the American historian, met him during 

 a visit to Paris in 1827. He speaks of his magnificent eyes 

 and his fine appearance, but on the whole Cuvier seems to 

 have impressed Bancroft as a disagreeable man. 



Some of his shortcomings that served to retard the prog- 

 ress of science have been mentioned. Still, with all his faults, 

 he dominated zoological science at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century, and so powerful was his influence and so un- 

 disputed was his authority among the French people that 

 the rising young men in natural science sided with Cuvier 

 even when he was wrong. It is a noteworthy fact that France, 

 under the influence of the traditions of Cuvier, was the last 

 country slowly and reluctantly to harbor as true the ideas 



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regarding the evolution of animal life. 



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CUVIER'S SUCCESSORS 



While Cuvier's theoretical conclusions exercised a retard- 

 ing influence upon the progress of biology, his practical 

 studies more than compensated for this. It has been pointed 

 out how his type-theory led to the reform of the Linnaean 



