Cuvier as a Nattiralist. S41 



this object. He has provided that creative genius should some- 

 times rise in the midst of us, to circulate new ideas and unveil 

 new facts, — to lead us into new paths, and stimulate us to ad- 

 ditional labours, by the allurements of curiosity, or the prospect 

 of new enjoyments. 



The history of the sciences teaches us, that many of the in- 

 structors of the human race, and men whom destiny has raised 

 to give an impulse to the age in which they live, appeared to- 

 gether at different epochs, as if mutually to stimulate each other 

 by a noble emulation, without which, perhaps, the fire that ani- 

 mated them would not diffuse so bright a lustre. 



The close of the last century was one of the most brilliant of 

 these epochs ; in almost every department of knowledge it has 

 given birth to great men, who have opened new paths to our 

 minds, furnished new materials for thought, and given new 

 scope to our imaginations ; and no one will doubt, that the indi- 

 vidual whose eloge we now undertake, was one of those who 

 shed on it the greatest lustre, by the sagacity of his views, the 

 extreme clearness with which he explained his ideas, the im- 

 mense extent of his knowledge, and the importance of the 

 truths which he revealed. 



At the time when his first writings appeared, no naturalist, 

 perhaps, thought that Zoology was a subject that afforded the 

 means of rendering a name famous. It seemed as if Linnaeus, 

 by his precise and simple systems, and Buffon, by his animated 

 pictures, bold views, and that union of science with eloquence, 

 unknown before his time, had exhausted the subject ; but to a 

 man of genius Nature is an inexhaustible source of study and- 

 reflection. By applying the principles of the natural method 

 to the classification of animals, M. Cuvier entered upon a zoolo- 

 gical career not less brilliant and extensive than that of these 

 two great men. 



Up to his time, although the subject had occupied Camper, 

 Blumenbach, Hunter, Daubenton, and Vicq-d'Azyr, compa- 

 rative anatomy had scarcely been more than an object of curiosity, 

 and of more or less ingenious dissertation ; M. Cuvier erected it 

 into a science, which became, in his hands, the ground-work of 

 Natural History, and the most fertile source of physiological 

 truths. 



