MEMOIR OF CUVIER. 135 



"blc number of facts and of ideas. All method has, thei'cfore, a double object, 

 namely, the distinction and the generalization oi facts. Now, till ]\Lf Cuvior's 

 method had been limited to sej)aratin<;' and distino'uisliin^' ; it was he who made 

 of it, as I have already said, an instrument of ij;-eneralization, by which he has 

 rendered a lasting service I'iot only to natural history, but, I venture to assert, to 

 all the sciences. 



For method, understandinc;- thereby the true method, is essentially one. Its 

 object everywhere is to raise itself to the most i^'eneral relations, to the most sim- 

 ple expression of things, and in such sort that all these relations shall spring 

 one from the other, and all from particular facts which are the origin and source 

 of them. It is this which Bacon meant when he said that all our sciences are 

 but generalized facts, a phrase which admirably denotes the process followed by 

 M. Cuvier, 



This generalization of facts was, in effect, the potent instrument by which he 

 created the science of fossil remains ; by which he renewed, in every part, 

 geology and comparative anatomv ; by which he was enabled, in every order of 

 facts, to pnrsue them to their principle, and their ultimate ])rinciple, carrying 

 zoological classitication to its rational principle, the subordinrttion of organs ; 

 foimding the reconstruction of extinct animals o\\ the princnple of the correlation 

 of forms; demonstrating the necessity of certain intervals, certain interruptions 

 in the scale of beings, by the very impossibility of certain coexistencies, of cer- 

 tain combinations of organs. It is in this habit of his intellect of ascending in 

 everything to a principle unassailable and demonstrated that we nmst S(>ek the 

 secret of that inimitable clearness which he sheds over all the subjects of which 

 he treats ; for clearness results in all cases from the ordering of the thoughts 

 and the unbroken chain of their inter-dependence. It is in this habit, moreover, 

 that we find the reason why his opinions, in every kind, are so fixed, so final ; 

 it is because he never contents himself with isolated and fortuitous relations, bur. 

 always ascends to those which are necessary, and of these allows none to escape 

 him. 



In M. Cuvier two things equally strike us: the extreme precocity of his views, 

 for it was by his first memoir on the class vermes of Linnaeus that he reformed 

 not only that class, but, through it, the whole of zoology ; it was by his lirst 

 course of comparative anatomy that he recast the entire science and re-estab- 

 lished it on a new Inisis ; it was by his first memoir on fossil olejihants that ho 

 laid the foundation of a s(;ience wholly new, the science of extinct animals ; and 

 again, that spirit of sequence, of perseverance, of undiverted constancy, by which 

 he developed and fertilized his views, consecrating an entire life to establish, to 

 demonstrate them, to mature them by ex})eriment, to transform them finally from 

 sim})le views, fruits of a bold conception, of a sudden inspiration, into truths of 

 fact and observation. 



If we follow this celebrated man in the different paths he has traced, we iind 

 throughout tliose domiiuuit qualities of his genius, order, comprehensiveness, 

 elevation of thought, clearness, precision,* force of expression. We find all 

 these qualities united to a style still more animated, varied, and forcible in those 

 llloges Historigiics which long formed so large a part of the charm and eclat of 

 the public meetings of the academy. On these memoirs praise has been already 

 lavishly bestowed, nor would it be easy too highly to extol the spirit and anima- 

 tion wliich diffuse through them so much nmvement and life ; the art ot so 

 pi(piantly recounting an anecdote or painting a characteristic; the vigor of con- 

 ception which binds all the i)arts of th(! discourse into a whole so comj)actly put 

 together that it might seem to have been created at a single stroke ; the singular 

 a[)titnde, in line, to rise to the most varied and comprehensive considerations and 

 to depict so mauy different ])ersonages in a manner e(pially just and striking. 

 If examined with somewhat closer attention wo remark, and with perhaps even 

 greater pleasure, the same sagacity of observation, the same analogical subtlety, 



