Baron Cuvier on the state of Natural History. S 



lions of times more complicated ; and wiiat the anatomist does 

 for a sin<^le animal, for tlie little world, according to the ex- 

 pression of the mystical philosophers of the middle age, it is the 

 business of the naturalist to do for the great world, the univer- 

 sal animal, the aggregate of that astonishing multiplicity of 

 partial organisms. 



Fortunately the human intellect has also an organising power, 

 the use of which is elicited by a sort of instinct. It is, as it 

 were, independently of his will, that the observer classes, names, 

 brings together, and distinguishes; just as it is by instinct, and 

 with scarcely any reflection, that the rudest tribes create a lan- 

 guage, subject it to rules, over which, it might be imagined, 

 that a philosophical analysis had presided. 



But in systems of classification as in languages, there may be 

 infinite degrees of extent and accuracy, and even of that qua- 

 lity, more easy to be felt than defined, which, in the sciences, as 

 in the works of art, is denominated elegance. 



The ancients made no attempts to form a general system; and 

 two centuries had already elapsed since the revival of letters, 

 before one was ventured to be proposed. Linnaeus was the first 

 who had the boldness to undertake this immense enterprise, and he 

 saw his courage receive the most satisfactory recompence. The 

 sagacity of his distributions, the precision of his terminology, 

 the very extent of his system, made him be almost universally 

 recognised as dictator. A multitude of young men, enrolled 

 under his colours, and swearing only by him, dispersed them- 

 selves over the globe ; and, as an ingenious writer has said, 

 everywhere interrogated nature in his name. In ten years, his 

 nomenclature had become a universal and necessary language. 



His edifice, however, still rested upon ruinous bases. Not 

 having sufficiently contemplated the innumerable quantity of 

 species which people the surface of the globe, he imagined that 

 short definitions would be sufficient to distinguish them, and 

 that characters taken solely from their external configuration, 

 would serve for their distribution ; and, on this confidence, his 

 pupils believed that they had found his genera and species 

 wherever they thought they could apply his phrases. Hence 

 arose inextricable mistakes and embarrassments. So long as he 

 lived, his authority was sufficient to reduce them to order ; but 



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