390 MEMOIR OF M. ISIDORE GEOFFROY SAINT HILAIRE. 



genius, and liave tlius taken rank Ibeside their teacliel-. We have pointed out 

 what our author Avas as a man of pure science ; it Remains to show him under 

 other relations. But here we may be more brief. His labors of practical 

 science are more generally known, and what is important to point out is the 

 filiation, too often unperceived, which unites them to the preceding. 



To every one who applies his mind to general questions of zoology, the do- 

 mestic animals have an importance of the highest order. The extent and 

 number of modifications presented by each of their species at once raise and 

 resolve a croAvd of problems which touch on the most delicate questions of 

 physiology, even on the history of man himself. Thus they early attracted 

 the attention of Isidore Geoffrey. We find the proof of this in the article 

 IS/lammifers, in the Dictionnairc Classiquc, which we mentioned above, and 

 still more in the Essays on General Zoology. We find, amongst others, a 

 memoir relative to ilia possibility of elucidating the natural history of man by 

 the study of the domestic animals.* The author examines at first the analogy 

 which exist between the variations of the domestic animals and those of the 

 human races, and points out the close connexions presented by these two orders 

 of facts. Then he shows how the detennination of the original country of a 

 domestic species may throw light on the history of the migrations of a people. 

 These ideas were to be afterwards extended and c.ompleted.f 



In the same volume we find a treatise on the domestication of auimals,| which 

 was the first step in a path in which the author was so greatly to distinguish 

 himself. This simple memoir furnished the basis of labors more and more mul- 

 tiplied and important, and was transformed into an octavo volume of more than 

 five hundred pages, entitled Domestication and Acclimatation of the Useful 

 Animals. We know, also, that the ideas put forth by the author of this book 

 have assumed a concrete form, and have been reduced to practice by the foun- 

 dation of the Society of Acclimatation and the creation of the Garden of Accli- 

 matation. These two establishments are truly the works of Isidore Geoffroy, 

 and should rank amongst his best. If, in their beginning, they excited some 

 distrust and some raillery, the first of these sunk imder the conciliating and pru- 

 dent direction of the founder ; the second disap^ieared before established facts. 

 Thus their progress was rapid, their future soon assured. Isidore Geoffrey thus 

 left, beside his books, two institutions not less durable than his fame ; and if 

 his loss excited uneasiness in the minds of those who had adopted his plans, it 

 was soon dissipated by the choice of his successor.§ 



The results of the publications of Isidore Geoffroy on practical zoology, in 

 the foundation of the two organizations which I have just named, deserve to be 

 pointed out no less for their immediate and visible effects than for the influence 

 which they have already exercised, and which must continue to be more and 

 more felt. Hitherto the natural sciences, zoology especially, had been some- 

 what despised by those who claim the title of practical men. They were 

 merely considered as a species of knowledge calculated to amuse the mind, but 

 without practical utility. For this cause they were rejected, as were chemistry 

 and geology by the metallurgists and miners of the last century. Thanks to 

 Isidore Geoffroy, and to the movement which he originated, these prejudices 

 begin to be dissipated ; they may, perhaps, disappear slowly, but certainly it 

 will be at length understood that zoology has also its applications ; that it 

 ought to be to the breeding of animals, and to all that we procure from them, 



*This treatise, an abstract of whicli was communicated to the Society of Natm^al Sciences 

 in 1835, had been read to the Academy in 1839. It figures in the Reports. 



t General Natural History of the Organic Kingdoms. 



t This work had appeared, but less complete, in the Encyclop6die Nouvelle. 



$ It is known that this successor is M. Drouyn de I'Huys. 



