STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 141 



Cuvier. Goethe further notices that there was the 

 same radical opposition in the 'tendencies of Buffon 

 and Daubenton as in those of Geoffroy and Cuvier 

 the opposition of the synthetical and the analyt- 

 ical mind. Yet this opposition did not prevent 

 mutual esteem and lasting regard. Geoffroy and 

 Cuvier were both young, and had in common am- 

 bition, love of science, and the freshness of unform- 

 ed convictions. For, alas ! it is unhappily too true, 

 that just as the free communicativeness of youth 

 gives place to the jealous reserve of manhood, and 

 the youth who would only be too pleased to tell all 

 his thoughts and all his discoveries to a companion 

 would in after years let his dearest friend first see a 

 discovery in an official publication, so likewise, in 

 the early days of immature speculation, before con- 

 victions have crystallized enough to present their 

 sharp angles of opposition, friends may discuss and 

 interchange ideas without temper. Geoffroy and 

 Cuvier knew no jealousy then. In after years it 

 was otherwise. 



Geoffroy had a position he shared it with his 

 friend; he had books and collections they were 

 open to his rival ; he had a lodging in the museum 

 it was shared between them. Daubenton, older 

 and more worldly wise, warned Geoffroy against this 

 zeal in fostering a formidable rival, and one day 

 placed before him a copy of Lafontaine open at the 

 fable of The Bitch and her Neighbor. But Geoffroy 

 was not to be daunted, and probably felt himself 



