CUVIER. 85 



of his idea of species is invariably, "We reckon as many 

 species as the Infinite Being created at the beginning."*^ 

 And his authority was so powerful that the age of 

 Voltaire and of Diderot devoutly accepted this obvious 

 dogma, and transmitted it to posterity as a maxim 

 impossible to question. 



Linnaeus was, however, so little of an anatomist that 

 in this province Zoology required a completely fresh 

 foundation, and, in the capacity of a second Linnaeus, 

 Cuvier stood forth.^^ His school styles itself the school 

 of facts, yet it was by no means without a tincture of 

 philosophy. On the contrary, the definite and simple 

 nature of his principles and deductions could not fail to 

 be imposing. He epitomized the summary of his obser- 

 vations as "Laws of Organization;" and he applied the 

 teleological view, the principe des causes finales, with 

 great advantage to the knowledge and restoration of 

 antediluvian animals. The question of the persistency 

 or mutability of species thrust itself forcibly upon him. 

 For this an external cause was given by the Egyptian 

 expedition and the investigation of mummified animals. 

 Etienne Geoftroy St. Hilaire and Lamarck attacked the 

 persistency of species, and held that, especially consider- 

 ing the stability of external conditions, the Egyptian 

 period was far too short for the identity of the mummies 

 with the species now extant, to make it possible to infer 

 the immutability of species; but the question was curtly 

 despatched and silenced by the predominating school 

 of Cuvier. 



Meanwhile, Cuvier not only increased the accumu- 

 lation of facts, but, as we have already hinted, he 

 grouped them so happily and with such philosophical 



