THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 

 PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Biographical Memoir of M. de Lamarck, By the Baron 



CUVIER. 



Among the men devoted to the noble employment of enlight- 

 ening their fellows, a small number are to be found (and you 

 have just witnessed an illustrious example*), who, gifted at the 

 same time with a lofty imagination and a sound judgment, em- 

 bracing in their vast conceptions the entire field of the sciences, 

 and seizing with a steady eye whatever afforded the hope of dis- 

 covery, have laid before the world nothing but certain truths, 

 establishing them by evident demonstrations, and deducing from 

 them no consequences but such as were irresistible, never allow- 

 ing themselves to be led away by what is conjectural or doubt- 

 ful ; men of unequalled genius, whose immortal writings will 

 shed a light, like so many phari, on the paths of science, as 

 long as the world is governed by the same laws. 



Others, with minds not less ardent, nor less adapted to seize 

 new relations, have been less severe in scrutinizing the evidence ; 

 with real discoveries with which they have enriched science, 

 they have mingled many fanciful conceptions ; and, believing 

 themselves able to outstrip both experience and calculation, they 

 have laboriously constructed vast edifices on imaginary founda- 



* This Memoir, not yet published, was designed to follow that of Volta, 

 read by M. Arago at the meeting on the 27th of June 1831, for which seethe 

 ICth vol. of this Journal. It was read at the meeting of the French Academy 

 of Science, 26th November 1832. 



VOL. XX. NO. XXXIX. — JANUARY 1836. A 



