17? MEMOIR OF GEOFFROY SAINT HILAIRE. 



importance has transpired, and the result is a revolution in the human 

 intellect."* 



And in effect, though the direct discussion on this occasion might 

 seem to turn upon the number or relative position of certain organs, 

 the conflict was essentially that of two philosophies which will for- 

 ever dispute the ascendency : the philosophy of specific facts and 

 that of general ideas. In these imposing problems it will always 

 constitute a strong attraction to the human mind that it seems ever 

 on the point of arriving at a term which forever flies before it. The 

 strife between the two systems or methods did not commence with 

 Aristotle and Plato, nor will it terminate with Cuvier and Geoffroy. 

 Even considered by itself, the question of the resemblance or the 

 difference of creatures is one without limits. The more animals are 

 studied the more are we struck with their diversities, but at the same 

 time the more do we discover of their resemblances. This truth, 

 which did not escape the penetration of Aristotle, led him to apply 

 to animals the name of analogues, or beings similar but diversified. 

 The discussion before the academy produced the usual effect ; the 

 two adversaries withdrew, each somewhat more confirmed in his own 

 views. Geoffroy gave to the public a general view of his opinions 

 under the title of Principes pliHosoplviques de V unite de composition ; 

 and Cuvier announced that he should publish a summary of his under 

 the title De la variete de composition dans les animaux. 



These two personages, by the brilliancy and force of their ideas, 

 by the very opposition of their doctrines, mark a new and memorable 

 epoch in science. When Cuvier, in the last year of the last century, 

 published his Lemons W anatomic comparee, the admiration excited was 

 without bounds. The grandeur of the results, the comprehensiveness 

 of principles, equally certain and unexpected, struck every one with 

 astonishment. The same hand which had reared the science of com- 

 parative anatomy founded one still more surprising, the science of 

 lost existences. At the voice of genius the earth seemed once more 

 repeopled with its primitive inhabitants. 



To these general and transcendent views succeeded the study of 



^ Apart from its scientific import, Goethe had both personal and national grounds for 

 the extraordinary interest in the subject which drew from him tlie manifestation here men- 

 tioned. In a paper whicli he publislied in reference to tlie discussion in the Frencli Aca- 

 demy, (Sammtliche Werke; Philadelphia, 1856: Band 6, seite 471,) he takes occasion to 

 relate that the appearance of the iirst volume of Buflon's Histoire Natukelle occurred in 

 the same year with his own birth, 1749; and the successive volumes becoming the objects 

 of his earliest interest, awakened in him a love for the study of natural objects, which soon 

 led him into the field of controversy as well as of observation. On the other hand, while 

 his fellow-couutrymen, Camper, Kielmeyer, Meckel, Oken, Spix, Tiedemann, &c., are cited 

 •with respect by Geoffroy, and recognized as allies in the attempt to establish the unity of 

 the animal kingdom, Cuvier, as Goethe complains, had publicly asserted that "behind this 

 theory of analogies there lurked, though in a confused manner, another old and exploded 

 theory which certain Germans were trying to revive in orde' to favor the pantheistical system 

 which they called natural philosophy." This charge Goethe of course repels, alleging that 

 "the two processes of reasoning (Denkweise) from the universal to the particular, and from 

 the particular to the universal, are equally indispensable; and that, notwithstanding their 

 habitual antagonism, the more vivaciously these mental functions, like in and out breath- 

 ing, are carried on together, the better will be the result foi- science and its friends." — 

 Tr. 



