2 Baron Cuvier on the state of Natural History. 



protection. With their great renown arc, in some respects, 

 associated the mo'-e humble names of Rubruquis, Vincent de 

 Beauvais, Belon, Tournefort, and Plumier. It would seem as if 

 these princes remembered that of so many monuments raised 

 to Alexander, the works of Aristotle form the only one that 

 has continued imperishable. 



Natural history, in fact, is one of those sciences in which ge- 

 nius is impotent, unless seconded by power ; and the efforts of 

 power vain, unless its results are arranged by the co-operation 

 of genius. 



The names, which man is ordered to impose, are not inco- 

 herent signs applied by chance to some isolated objects. To 

 render them appropriate and significant, the objects, as it is 

 said, must pass before the namer ; in other words, he must 

 compare these objects, apprehend the relations of their simila- 

 rity and difference, and classify them ; which he cannot do unless 

 he see them together, and make himself intimately acquainted 

 with them. In short, to name well, taking the word in its fullest 

 acceptation, it is necessary not only to know well, but, it may be 

 said, to know all. The superstition of the Cabalists believed in 

 the magic power of names. This was a false consequence of a 

 principle, that names, were they perfect, would represent the 

 essence and aggregate of things. 



Such is the object of this department of science, which un- 

 reflecting minds would doom to contempt, under the name 

 of Nomenclature. To refute their assertions, it is only neces- 

 sary to repeat the fundamental condition which we have just 

 announced, namely, that to name well, it is necessary to know 

 well. Now, those beings, and those parts of beings, which it is 

 necessary to know, present themselves by milUons ; and still it 

 is not enough to know them singly : they are subjected to an 

 order, and to mutual relations, which must also be known ; for 

 it is in this order, and by these relations, that they have each a 

 part to perform, that they disappear each at their particular pe- 

 riods, that they are reproduced always alike, always according 

 to the same relative proportions, and with the powers and facul- 

 ties necessary for the maintenance of these proportions, and of 

 their part in this scene of continual change. Not only is each 

 being an individual organism ; the whole world is one, only mil- 



