THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 



133 



part, or the worth of each human effort. 1 In this respect 

 the nineteenth century knows no greater figure than 

 Cuvier ; not even Humboldt, great and comprehensive as 

 was his scientific view. The advantages also of Cuvier's 

 position as permanent Secretary of the French Academy 

 of Sciences were exceptional, and well fitted to bring out 

 his extraordinary talents. We can say that in him science 

 has become fully conscious of its true methods, its useful- 

 ness, its most becoming style, its inherent dignity, its past 

 errors, its present triumphs, the endless career which lies 

 before it, and the limits which it cannot transgress. 



Educated in Germany, at the same school as Schiller 29. 

 and Dannecker, 2 imbued by early experience and by training. 



1 " C'est la continuation de ce cotn- 

 mandetnent de voir et de nommer, 

 par oi s'ouvre la vie de notre espece, 

 c'est la voie qui devait nous con- 

 duire soit a des contemplations plus 

 hautes, soit seulement k des inve'n- 

 tions utiles. En effet 1'histoire 

 naturelle ne fait aucun pas sans 

 que la physiologic et la philosophic 

 gt'm'rale marchent d'un pas e'gal, 

 et sans que la socie'te' re^oive leur 

 tribut commun" ('Eloges,' vol. iii. 

 p. 474). 



2 Cuvier has himself written an 

 account of his early life and studies. 

 It is given by Flourens, ' Eloges,' vol. 

 i. pp. 167-193. He was born in 1769, 

 of a Protestant stock, at Mont- 

 beliard, the capital of a small prin- 

 cipality, situated in the Jura, and 

 then belonging to Wxir tern berg. 

 The autocratic Duke Charles (1737- 

 1793) had founded a military acad- 

 emy in Stuttgart, his capital, where 

 400 youths were at his expense 

 housed and educated according to 

 a strict rule, but under the guid- 

 ance of enlightened masters, and in 

 a thoroughly modern spirit. The 

 institution was a kind of oppo- 



sition to the Protestant Church 

 rule, which had very early spread 

 a system of popular and compulsory 

 education throughout the country. 

 It is a chapter of history well worth 

 reading. The great problems of 

 popular education as against higher 

 instruction, Protestant discipline in 

 the lower as against military dis- 

 cipline in the higher schools, the 

 democratic as against the aristo- 

 cratic spirit, the independence as 

 against the State - regulation of 

 University teaching, were fought 

 out by the dukes and the Estates 

 of Wiirtemberg in a prolonged war- 

 fare, a sample of similar movements 

 all over Germany, and well told by 

 Perthes in his ' Politische Zustiinde 

 und Personen in Deutschland zur 

 Zeit der franzosischen Herrschaft' 

 (Gotha, 1862, pp. 501-548). Cuvier 

 evidently saw the better side of the 

 system, for he entered after the 

 imperious character of the duke 

 had been subdued by the victorious 

 estates. Forced to change his ways, 

 which he conscientiously did, the 

 duke laid by for his country, as a 

 local historian says, " a fund of in- 



