POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 65 
through which the science of organization has to pass 
in order to arrive at its last term before showing its 
true aim. From my point of view this phase does 
not seem to me to have been represented by any 
other naturalist of our time, whatever may have been 
the reputation which he made during his life.” 
He then refers to the estimation in which Lamarck 
was held by Auguste Comte, who, in his Cours de 
Philosophie Positive, has anticipated and even sur- 
passed himself in the high esteem he felt for “the 
celebrated author of the Philosophie Zoologique.” 
The eulogy by Cuvier, which gives most fully the 
details of the early life of Lamarck, and which has 
been the basis for all the subsequent biographical 
sketches, was unworthy of him. Lamarck had, with 
his customary self-abnegation and generosity, aided 
and favored the young Cuvier in the beginning of his 
career,” who in his Régue Animal adopted the classes 
founded by Lamarck. Thoroughly convinced of the 
erroneous views of Cuvier in regard to cataclysms, 
he criticised and opposed them in his writings in a 
courteous and proper way without directly mention- 
ing Cuvier by name or entering into any public 
debate with him. 
When the hour came for the great comparative 
anatomist and palaontologist, from his exalted posi- 
tion, to prepare a tribute to the memory of a natural- 
ist of equal merit and of a far more thoughtful and 
* For example, while Cuvier’s chair was in the field of vertebrate 
zodlogy, owing to the kindness of Lamarck (‘‘ par gracieuseté de la 
part de M. de Lamarck”) he had retained that of Mollusca, and yet it 
was in the special classification of the molluscs that Lamarck did his 
best work (Blainville, 1. c., p. 116). 
5 
