M. Frederic Cuvier. 5 



sitive history of species ; and this has been all along the main 

 object of his great work Histoire ties Mammiferes, a work in 

 which more than five hundred quadrupeds are represented 

 and described with a minuteness and accuracy of which there 

 is not perhaps a similar example in the records of zoology, at 

 least in a work reaching to the same extent. 



But I return to that novel species of useful information 

 which M. F. Cuvier perceived might be derived from the 

 menagerie of the museum of natural history ; I allude to that 

 study of the faculties and actions of animals which was begun 

 by Buffon ; was prosecuted by George Leroy, the ingenious 

 author of the Lettres Philosophiques sur les Animaucc, which 

 were first published under the name of A natural philosopher 

 of Nuremberg ; and has finally reached its present precision 

 by the assiduous labours of M. F. Cuvier. 



During more than a century, from the time of Descartes to 

 Buffon,* the question of the intelligence of animals had been 

 solely a question of pure metaphysics. It was with Buffon and 

 George Leroy that it first became a positive inquiry of ex- 

 perience, and throughout it has so continued with M. F. 

 Cuvier. Instructed by his former labours, and by his talent of 

 observation, M. F. Cuvier devoted himself to the discovery of 

 facts. He desiderated, however, such only as were clear and 

 distinct, and those which were separated by precise limits. 

 And this, in fact, supplies us with the most characteristic trait 

 of the genius which directed his career, — he sought for facts 

 and for limits. He sought for the limits which distinguished 

 the intelligence of different species, — the limits which separate 

 instinct from intelligence, — and the limits which separate 

 the intelligence of man from that of the brutes. And these 

 three limits once determined, every thing in this long agitated 

 question concerning the intelligence of animals has assumed 

 a new aspect. Descartes and Buffon would not concede in- 

 telligence of any kind to animals ; they were averse, and very 

 properly, to assign to animals the intelligence of man, and 

 did not perceive the limit which separates his intelligence 



* That is to say, the time between the Discours sur la mithode, published 

 in 1C37, and the Ducounsurla Nature d>:s Anintmtx, published in 1753. 



