CUVIER 25 



but to Cuvier zoology was nothing without comparative 

 anatomy. By founding palaeontology, he showed that 

 extinct forms were just as important as living forms in a 

 natural system of classification ; and he also showed that 

 the anatomy of recent animals aided in the reconstruction 

 of the fossil forms, these reconstructed extinct animals 

 filling up many morphological gaps. 



Cuvier's work in comparative anatomy and allied sub- 

 jects is a monument of intense labour ; his teaching domin- 

 ated most of the zoology of the first half of the nineteenth 

 century, and his Anatomie Comparee has furnished a 

 model for all students of the science of animal life. 



When living at Caen, the digging up of some Terebra- 

 tulse proved the necessity of studying fossil with recent 

 forms, and it was these specimens which formed the 

 nucleus of the great collection of natural history objects 

 which he formed, and is now in the Jardin des Plantes. 

 " Palaeontologieal investigations have imparted a vivify- 

 ing breath of grace and diversity to the science of the 

 solid structure of the earth." says Humboldt in his 

 Cosmos ; and if anyone has a right to be called the 

 founder of palaeontology, that right belongs to Cuvier, 

 although Lamarck and William Smith were also associated 

 with the foundation of the science of fossil forms. In 

 1796 Cuvier studied the Tertiary mammals of France, 

 making clear for the first time that fossils were in most 

 cases remains of extinct organisms ; and he insisted that 



