94 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING. 



tiinate discoveries, their sufferings, and their sublime courage. More 

 than one young man shall be moved by the sight of these heroes, and 

 depart to dream enthusiastically of following in their footsteps. 



Herein lies the twofold grandeur of the place. Its treasures were 

 sent by heroic men, and thej^ were collected, classified, and harmonized 

 by illustrious physicists, to whom all things flowed as to a legitimate 

 centre, and whom their position, no less than their intellect, induced 

 to accomplish here the centralization of nature. 



In the last century, the great movement of the sciences revolved 

 around a man of genius, influential by his rank, his social relations, 

 his fortune — M. the Count de Buffon. All the donations of men of 

 science, travellers, and kings, came to him, and by him were classified 

 in this museum. In our own days a grander spectacle has fixed upon 

 this spot the eager eyes of all the nations of the world, when two 

 mighty men (or rather two systems), Cuvier and Geoffi-oy, made 

 this their battle-field. All the world em^olled itself on the one side 

 or the other; all took part in the strife, and despatched to the 

 Museum, either in support of or opposition to the experiments, 

 books, animals, or facts previously unknown. Hence these collections, 

 which one might suppose to be dead, are really living; they still 

 throb with the recollections of the fray, are still animated by the lofty 

 minds which invoked all these beings to be the witnesses of their pro- 

 lific struggle. 



It is no fortuitous gathering yonder. It consists of closely 

 connected series, formed and systematically arranged by profound 

 thinkers. Those species which form the most curious transitions 

 between the genera are richly represented. There you may see, far 

 more fuUy than elsewhere, what Linne and Lamarck have said, that 

 just as our museums gradually grew richer, became more complete, 

 exhibited fewer lacunce, we should be constrained to acknowledge 

 that nature does nothing abruptly, in all things proceeds by gentle 

 and insensible transitions. Wherever we seem to see in her works a 

 bound, a chasm, a sudden and inharmonious interval, let us ascribe 

 the fault to ourselves ; that blank is our own ignorance. 



