26 BIOGRAPHIES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN 



in any system of classification they must find a place 

 along with living animals. 



Although he had distinctly before him the idea of a 

 succession of faunas upon the earth, yet he refused to 

 admit the speculative or philosophical conclusions which 

 were arrived at by his contemporaries Lamarck and Saint- 

 Hilaire. He firmly stuck to the doctrines of the immuta- 

 bility of species and successive cataclysms. Subsequent 

 events have proved that this was a misfortune, for Cuvier 

 was one of " the most remarkable intelligences of his own 

 or any time." 



Although Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier were bosom friends 

 in their youth, their ideas gradually diverged as years 

 rolled on, culminating in 1830 "in the most famous 

 of all scientific duels." Cuvier was a strict, matter-of- 

 fact man, and could not tolerate the vagaries of the 

 Naturphilosophie school; but in later years he allowed 

 his scientific imagination to run wild by enunciating 

 the doctrines of (1) fixity of species; (2) emboitement in 

 embryology ; (3) physiological deduction as the basis of 

 palseontology ; (4) the restriction of natural history to 

 observation and classification; and (5) the successive 

 cataclysms. All these doctrines, and especially the first 

 and last, were destined to be overthrown : 



It must be so, for miracles are ceased; 



And therefore we must needs admit the means 



How things are perfected. 



Shakespeare. 



