15^ BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



From the standpoint of a sincere admirer, Mrs. Lee 

 writes of his generosity and nobility of temperament, declar- 

 ing that his career demonstrated that his mind was great 

 and free from both envy and smallness. 



Some Shortcommgs. — Nevertheless, there are certain 

 things m the life of Cuvier that we wish m.ight not have been. 

 His break with his old friends Lamarck and Saint-Hilaire 

 seems to show a domination of qualities that were not ^en- 

 erous and kindly; those observations of Lamarck showing a 

 much profounder insight than any of which he himself was 

 the author were laus^hed to scoi-n. His famous controversv 

 with Saint-Hilaire marks a historical moment that will be 

 dealt with in the chapter on Rise of Evolutionary Thought. 



George Bancroft, the American historian, met him during 

 a visit to Paris in 1827. He speaks of his magnificent eyes 

 and his fine appearance, but on the whole Cuvier seems to 

 have impressed Bancroft as a disagreeable man. 



Some of his shortcomings that served to retard the prog- 

 ress of science have been mentioned. Still, wnth all his faults, 

 he dominated zoological science at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century, and so powerful was his influence and so un- 

 disputed was his authority among the French people that 

 the rising young men in natural science sided with Cuvier 

 even when he was wrong. It is a noteworthy fact that France, 

 under the influence of the traditions of Cuvier, was the last 

 country slov/ly and reluctantly to harbor as true the ideas 

 regarding the evolution of animal life. 



Cuvier' s Successors 



While Cuvier's theoretical conclusions exercised a retard- 

 ing influence upon the progress of biology, his practical 

 studies more than compensated for this. It has been pointed 

 out how his type-theory led to the reform of the Linnaean 



