106 EULOGIUM ON CUVIER. 



would then have told me that this volume would appear co- 

 vered with the funeral crape ! 



te The first pages were hardly printed when the Sciences had 

 to deplore one of the greatest losses that they could sustain. 

 The first naturalist of our age was destined not to see the ter- 

 mination of the great work, of which he had conceived the 

 plan, and to which he consecrated a great part of his powers. 



" To a superior strength of genius, which Nature at remote 

 periods grants to those privileged men whom she would raise 

 above the scene of the world as monuments of the glory of 

 the human intellect, M. Cuvier united two eminent quali- 

 ties, which most other men are deficient in ; an activity which 

 no labour could fatigue, and a most astonishing patience in 

 researches of the minutest kind, but which are always ne- 

 cessary to the discovery of truths. 



" These two qualities, aided by a great justness of thought 

 and a vast erudition, have given to the Works of this great 

 man a character which we seek for in vain in those of the 

 other naturalists of our times. 



" The curiosity of his mind leads him to dissect the nume- 

 rous animals whose organization still remained to be studied; 

 his patience in observation brings such exactness in the 

 knowledge of facts, that by this first labour the class Vermes 

 emerges^ one may say, out of chaos. Pursuing his first re- 

 searches, he publishes that succession of admirable memoirs 

 for the basis of the natural history of mollusca : they are 

 models of literary critique, of precision in description, and of 

 sagacity in the art of selecting and representing zoological 

 characters. 



" His genius manifests itself with still greater superiority 

 in his immortal Work on the researches of the fossil bones of 

 extinct animals. 



" M. Cuvier had studied the beings which animate and 

 adorn the actual surface of the globe. 



" He had made known their varied organization in the too 

 modest title of e Lectures on Comparative Anatomy.' 



" He had distributed them according to a methodical order, 

 in a work which became classical the moment it was pub- 

 lished; — but this was not enough for a mind that would com- 

 pel Nature to reveal her most hidden secrets. 



" M. Cuvier penetrates beyond the ages which the most 

 ancient traditions make known to men ; he soars above our 

 planet, sees the earth peopled with species which he re-cre- 

 ates, and makes known to us their forms with as much cer- 

 tainty, as he himself said, as if he had seen the animals in 

 our menageries : he penetrates the depths of ocean, and 



