CUVIER. 185 



soon made professor at the central school of the 

 Pantheon, and began to write capital manuals 

 of his subject for the students. The next year 

 the National Institute was formed, and Cuvier 

 was one of its first members. At this time his 

 knowledge of zoology was very great, and he had 

 more than the usual amount of information 

 about the internal anatomy of the different great 

 groups of animals. He published an elemen- 

 tary title or scheme of the natural history of 

 animals, and gradually the collection of skeletons 

 began to be great in his establishment. Cuvier 

 paid great attention to the relative shapes, and 

 different developments of the same kind of bones 

 in various animals, and especially to the nature 

 of their teeth. So great did his experience and 

 correct knowledge become, that he rarely failed in 

 naming an animal from part of its skeleton. This 

 power impressed Cuvier with the idea of a phi- 

 losophy in nature, and with the evidence of creative 

 design and purpose, of means for ends. But this 

 kind of study led to some very remarkable re- 

 sults. Had it influenced Cuvier as it previously 

 had zoologists, he would have still become the 

 most accomplished and important naturalist of this 

 century. It would have been said, as it may well 

 be, that he established the study of animals on a firm 

 basis, and that his natural classification has lasted, 

 because he considered not only the outsides of 

 animals, but also the importance of their most 

 peculiar organs, in arranging them into groups, or 



