CUVIER. 19 1 



them ; teach them what are political rights before 

 you offer them for their enjoyment, and then all 

 amelioration will be made without causing a shock. 

 Imitate nature, which in the development of beings 

 acts by gradation, and gives time to every member 

 to arrive at perfection." 



Napoleon had great confidence in Cuvier, and 

 wished to make him tutor to his son, and ordered 

 him to draw up a list of books as a preliminary 

 step. In 1 8 14 he made him a councillor of state, 

 and Louis XVIII. confirmed him in the appoint- 

 ment subsequently. 



Cuvier wrote in early life, on living and fossil 

 elephants, the different species of rhinoceros, the 

 structure of ascidians, and the anatomy of bivalve 

 molluscs. Later on he described the crocodilians 

 of the old and new world and the fossil tapirs of 

 France. Subsequently to 1801 he read memoirs 

 on the teeth of fish, on the worms, the anatomy of 

 the mollusca, the comparative anatomy and classifi- 

 cation of fishes, the fossil mammals and reptiles, 

 and the bony structures of these last two groups. 

 Most of these works were the joint productions of 

 other very distinguished men and himself. Thus the 

 work on fishes, which contained descriptions of no 

 less than five thousand kinds, was by Cuvier and 

 Valenciennes. Year after year Cuvier added to the 

 store of knowledge he was so anxious to give to 

 the history of the earth, and his descriptions, monu- 

 ments of exactitude, of the fossil kinds of rhinoceros, 

 hya^nce, and of some of the great sloths, were 



