254 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



Similarly the aged Gauss, twenty-four years later, listened 

 with emotion when Eiemann, in his celebrated disserta- 

 tion, touched a string that had been vibrating in the 

 master's soul for fifty years, unheard or unheeded by 

 any other thinker. 1 We can best understand the two 

 ways of reasoning in natural objects, which found an 

 expression in the controversy between Cuvier and Saint- 

 Hilaire, if we read the account which Goethe himself 

 subsequently published in a Berlin periodical : " Cuvier 

 labours untiringly as a distinguisher, describing accur- 

 ately what lies before him, and thus attains a command 

 over a great breadth of facts. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 on the contrary, is silently exercised about the analogies 

 of living creatures and their mysterious relations." 2 The 

 two men had worked as colleagues for thirty-eight years, 

 Cuvier continuing and defining more clearly the classi- 

 fying work of Linnaeus, who, for example, had thrown 

 all non-vertebrate animals into one class. This led him 



to pass iu the Academy between 

 Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 and which is of such importance 

 to science.' This utterance of 

 Goethe was so unexpected to me 

 that I did not know what to say, 

 and that for some minutes I ex- 

 perienced a complete cessation of 

 my thoughts. ' The matter is of 

 the greatest importance,' continued 

 Goethe, ' and you have no idea 

 what I feel concerning the news 

 of the 19th July. We now have 

 a mighty ally permanently in 

 Geoffroy. But I also see from it 

 how great is the interest of the 

 scientific world in France in this 

 matter, as. in spite of the frightful 

 political excitement, the meeting 

 took place in a crowded house. 

 What is best is, that the synthetic 

 treatment of nature, introduced by 



Geoffroy in France, cannot again 

 go back. ... I have for fifty 

 years laboured in this cause ; first 

 alone, then supported, and at last, 

 to my great delight, excelled by 

 congenial minds. . . . This event 

 is for me of incredible value, and 

 I rejoice rightly over the ultimate 

 general victory of the cause to 

 which I have dedicated my life, 

 and which also is essentially my 

 own.' " 



1 On this incident see the prefa- 

 tory notice in Riemann's ' Mathe- 

 matische Werke,' ed. Weber, Leipzig, 

 1875, p. 517 ; also the 13th chapter 

 of this volume. 



2 Goethe in the ' Berliner Jahr- 

 biicher fur Wissenschaftliche Kri- 

 tik,' vol. ii., 1830, September, re- 

 printed in Werke II. vol. vii. p. 167 

 sqq. 



