362 Cuvier as a Naturalist. 



tween all the parts of a being, in virtue of which it can exer- 

 cise the functions it has to fulfil in creation, and who has known 

 how to apply it with so much success to living zoology for the 

 classification of animals, and to the zoology of the dead for their 

 resuscitation. It is especially in the results which may be de- 

 duced from a principle, in the fruitful developments it affords, 

 that we can establish its reality ; for if it be not susceptible of 

 any application, if it be sterile, then it is false. Now, we de- 

 mand of every honest naturalist what application he has made, 

 or can make, of all the theories, anatomical, physiological, and 

 metaphysical, of our days? But it is clear that the principle of 

 the CO- relation of forms applied to general zoology, has perfected 

 its classification, and that, applied to subterranean zoology, it has 

 given to the globe a history, and to zoology a foundation to rest 

 upon. It is in vain, however, that we shall seek for the results of 

 those systems that M. Cuvier has overturned ; it is in vain we 

 shall seek from them help in classifying, that we shall interrogate 

 them in determining a fossil bone ; we are not the less obliged 

 independently to know that there are different forms for the 

 mammiferae and for birds, different for reptiles and for fishes ; 

 that the molluscae and insects, and the zoophytes, have each forms 

 that are peculiar to them ; in short, we are obliged to act as if 

 these systems had no existence ; whilst with the principle of the 

 corelation of forms, a single bone unveils to us all the animal, 

 all the order, all the class. If we land on a foreign shore, the 

 debris of organized bodies strewed over its beach will indicate 

 the beings which inhabit it better than most of the inhabitants 

 themselves ; and if we penetrate into the bowels of the earth, 

 the nature of the spoils which it conceals will reveal to us the 

 nature of the earth better than the earth itself. And it is at 

 the author of such a principle, one so rich in results, that the 

 reproach of the neglect of all principle has been thrown ! 



His history of the sciences, his eloges,* analyses of the works 

 of the Academy, and his reports on different memoirs, attest the 

 truth of this assertion ; but he knew how often theories prove 

 fallacious, and that well established facts continue steadfast, and 

 this he regarded as sufficient cause for circumspection. He by 

 no means despised theories which shewed the genius of their 

 authors ; but he was slow in adopting them. He rejected the 



• Vide note at end of this memoir. 



