136 MEMOIR OF CUVIER. 



the same art of comparing and subordinating, of ascending to the ultimate gcn- 

 eralizatid^i of facts, here transferred to another fiekl ; and, in addition to all this, 

 those luminous and penetrating touches which suddenly arrest the attention of 

 the reader and transport him to the level of an elevated order of ideas. 



M. Cuvier seems, in effect, to have been destined to give a new character to 

 whatever passed througli his hands. Into his instructions upon natural history 

 he introduced those philosophic and general views which had scarcely before 

 penetrated to the schools. In his eloquent lectures the history of the sciences 

 became the history of the human mind itself, for in going back to the causes of 

 their progress and their errors he was always careful to point out that those 

 causes were to be found in the right or the wrong processes whicli the human 

 mind had pursued. It was here that, to use one of his own happy expressions, 

 he submitted the human mind to exjjeriment, showing, by the whole testimony of 

 the history of the sciences, that the most ingenious hypotheses, the most brilliant 

 systems, do but pass and disappear, and that facts alone remain ; opposing every- 

 where to the methods of speculation, which have never produced any durable 

 result, the methods of observation and experiment, to which we owe all the dis- 

 coveries and all the real knowledge which constitute the actual heritage of man- 

 kind. 



Ah ! in what mouth could these great results, drawn from the history of science — 

 that expcrinienicd theory of the human mind, if I may so speak — have more 

 authority than in his? Who has shown himself more constantly attached to 

 observation, to experiment, to the rigorous study of facts, while at the same time 

 enriching his era with truths the most novel and sublime? 



Since men have observed with precision, and have pursued experiment in a 

 consecutive manner, a space of some two centuries, they ought, it would seem, 

 to have renounced the mania of seeking to divine^ instead of observing ; for, in 

 the first place, it must prove wearisome in the long run to be always divining 

 unskilfully ; and, in the next place, it should by this time have been recognized 

 that what we imagine is always below what really exists, and that, in a word, 

 and to consider only the brilliant side of our theories, the marvellous of the 

 imagination is ahvays very far from approaching the marvellous of nature. 



Tlie delivery of M. Cuvier was in general grave, and even somcAvhat slow, 

 especially towards the opening of his lectures ; but soon his utterance became 

 animated by the movement of his thoughts, and then this movement, communi- 

 cated by the thought to the expression, the penetrating voice, the inspiration of 

 Ids genius reflected in his eyes and on his features, all conspired to produce upon 

 his audience the most vivid and profound impression. One felt exalted even 

 less by those grand and unexpected ideas which shone throughout than by a 

 certain force of conception and of thought which seemed l>y turns to arouse and 

 penetrate the mind of the hearer. Into the career of the professor he carried 

 the same character of invention as into the career of research and discovery. 

 After having remodelled the school of comparative anatomy at the Jardin des 

 Flantes, wo h.ave seen him convert a simple chair of natural history at the Col- 

 lege of France into a true chair of the philosophy of the sciences : two crea- 

 tions whicli well portray his genius, and which in the eyes of posterity must 

 reflect honor on our age. 



M. Cuvier has left memoirs of his life, designed, as he himself writes, for him 

 who should have to pronounce his eulogy before this Academy. The care which 

 he has thus taken in favor of my auditory makes it imperative on me to add 

 some details taken from those memoirs: "I have composed (he savs in begin- 

 ning) so many eloges historiqucs that there is no presumption in thinking that 

 some one will conijiose mine, and knowing by expeiience what it costs the authors 

 of this sort of writings to become informed respecting the life of those of whom 

 they have to speak, I wish to spare that trouble to liim who shall occupy him- 

 self with my own. Linnaius, Tenon, and others, perhaps, have not judged this 



