Cuvier as a Naturalist. 368* 



theory of the unity of composition, because it appeared to him 

 contrary to facts ; he conceived that it was founded on some 

 facts of analogy more or less remote, and that the points of 

 agreement had alone been regarded, and not the differences. We 

 confess we have never been able to understand the reflections 

 which some naturahsts have cast upon Cuvier, that he never 

 saw, in animated nature, any thing but differences, and that he 

 did not seek for analogies, — inasmuch as all his labours had, as 

 their constant aim, the natural classification of animals. But 

 what is this arrangement, but an arrangement of beings ground- 

 ed upon their analogy ? It is the analogies which lead to the 

 union of the species, that prove these genera may be formed ; it 

 is the analogies which groups the genera into a family, the fa- 

 milies into an order, &c. &c. But besides these real analogies, 

 living beings present differences which determine the divisions, 

 and it is only for the sake of abridgment, that there may not 

 be perpetual repetitions, that these analogies, once admitted, 

 it is then only necessary to note the differences. His method 

 appears to us most philosophical, and the only one capable of 

 reaching the end proposed, viz. the knowledge of the species, 

 without our being obliged to write volumes on each of them ; 

 and we shall cite as an example of his mode of procedure the 

 last of his zoological works, his Histoire des Poisons. It is 

 only after having studied, and analyzed, and compared all the 

 species, that he has formed his genera. He takes in each genus 

 one of the species for a model, and he describes it with care ; 

 then to each of the following species he devotes only a few words 

 to note the differences which distinguish it from the first, and 

 from all the others ; — but it is not to be forgotten that all the 

 relations, all the analogies, all the resemblances with the model 

 species, are tacitly comprehended in the position assigned to it, 

 with the exception of the differences which constitute it a dis- 

 tinct species. His method is the same in comparative anatomy ; 

 — he describes the organs of man, taken as a point of compari- 

 son, and then, by making an abstraction of the resemblances, he 

 has only to note the differences ; but the parts which *he com- 

 pares are, by the fact of this comparison, considered as analogous. 

 In his fossils he follows the same course. Having demonstrat- 

 ed in detail the osteology of living crocodiles, he does nothing 



