1858-64.] CUVIER AND GEOFFROY. 107 



ing his many years of close investigations, a mass of 

 facts which were not favourable to Darwin's somewhat 

 hasty conclusions, and more especially to those of his 

 followers, who at once exaggerated many of his views 

 and conclusions. 



This controversy brought to Agassiz's mind the great 

 discussion between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 at the meetings of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, in 

 I83O. 1 Cuvier, who was the greatest debater natural 

 history has ever had, with his prodigious memory, had 

 every fact at his tongue's end, and was always able to 

 accumulate such a mass of proofs against an adver- 

 sary that it was useless to oppose him. Although in 

 this case Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was right, as it has 

 been amply proved since, he was fairly defeated in each 

 day's encounter with Cuvier, and withdrew, so over- 

 powered by his great opponent that he tottered like a 

 drunken man, not knowing where he was, nor where he 

 was going, so one of the witnesses of those discussions 

 has told me. 



Agassiz, although a rare teacher and a remarkable 



1 It began on the 22d of February, 1830, and was occasioned by a 

 report made by Geoffroy on a paper, on the Organization of the Cephalo- 

 pods, written by two young and obscure naturalists. In his report, 

 Geoffroy advanced his new views on the unity of organic composition and 

 unity of types the result of more than thirty years of constant research. 

 The discussions, which lasted, with one interruption only, during the whole 

 year, are well summarized in the book published in May, 1830, by Geofiroy, 

 under the title " Principes de Philosophic Zoologique," which may be con- 

 sidered as a basis for the classification of all the facts of comparative 

 anatomy; and also in the chapter, " Discussion Academique de 1830," in 

 the "Vie, travaux, et doctrine scientifique d'Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire," 

 par son fils Isidore, pp. 366-385. Paris, 1847. 



