EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xi 



short but significant period studying under the direction of Baron 

 Georges Cuvier, that dominant figure in early nineteenth-century 

 natural science whose studies of fossil remains had done much to 

 give to paleontology its modern foundation. 



Men require heroes and models, especially men with such high 

 ambition and determination as Agassiz. For the Swiss naturalist 

 Cuvier filled this role perfectly. When he arrived in Paris in 1832 

 Agassiz had one primary purpose: to gain an encyclopedic knowl- 

 edge of the magnificent collection of fossil fishes housed in the mu- 

 seum of paleontology at the Jardin des Plantes. Such competency 

 would provide basic data in an uncharted field and add signifi- 

 cantly to the foundations of paleontology. The rich Paris materials 

 were under the supervision of Cuvier, whose immediate high regard 

 for Agassiz led him to place all such data completely at his disposal. 

 Cuvier, moreover, convinced that Agassiz was doing work of funda- 

 mental value, turned over to him his own drawings and research 

 notes on fossil ichthyology gathered in the course of years of study. 

 Cuvier's death a few months after Agassiz came to Paris profoundly 

 affected the young Swiss — Agassiz would always think of himself 

 as having inherited both the technical competence and the phi- 

 losophy of nature that distinguished Cuvier's work. 



In a paper of 1812 and in the two editions of Le Regne animal 

 (1817 and 1829-30) Cuvier set forth a system of classification based 

 on the concept of four distinct branches in the animal kingdom, each 

 typified by a different anatomical plan of structure. This morpho- 

 logical approach to taxonomy stressed the anatomical identity of 

 forms within particular branches — mollusks, radiates, articulates, 

 and vertebrates — but denied that these branches shared any genetic 

 relationship with each other. Each branch was present in nature 

 from the beginning, its character and permanence the result of 

 supernatural inspiration. The branches contained units of taxo- 

 nomic identity in an ascending scale of inclusiveness — species, gen- 

 era, families, orders, and classes. The finite individuals of animate 

 nature were forever linked to the immaterial forms in which they 

 participated, as represented by the divinely inspired identity of 

 structural plan. This view of nature, which reached back to Plato 

 for its basis, influenced all of Agassiz's experience with the facts of 

 organic creation. He became, after Cuvier, the most steadfast and 



