138 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



Cuvier had also a true historical sense, which enabled 



him to trace the connection of science with political 



history, with literature, with the fine and useful arts. 



si. And he helps to answer a question which to us is of 



fortunes of paramount interest, How did science fare during the 



science dur- 

 ing the Re- great cataclysm of the Eevolution ? how under the reac- 



volutionand 



tionary despotism of the First Empire ? Before attempt- 

 ing to reply to these questions in the light of subse- 

 quent and general European history, I will select a few 

 passages from Cuvier which throw light upon these 

 points : 1 



" There is always a revolution required in order to 

 change habits which have become general, and the most 

 necessary revolutions do not take place without some 

 circumstance, which is sometimes long delayed. "We 

 have been able to see how in such a case everything 

 furthers the sciences, even the delays and contrarieties 

 which they seem to suffer under. 



" The events which disturbed the world, and which for 

 natural science temporarily dried up the sources of its 

 riches, 2 obliged it to return to itself, and to make a new 



study of what it possessed, more fruitful than the most 



\ 



a generation later the British Asso- it of foreign imports and the scien- 



ciation undertook to do, and what tific collections of foreign specimens ; 



in Germany the many "Jahres- see also 'Eloges,' vol. i. p. 9 ; vol. iii. 



berichte" do nowadays. See his p. 202: "Quand la jalousie des 



" Analyse des Travaux," &c., ' Mem. peuples nous privait des produits 



de 1'Institut,' vol. ix. p. 53, and his etrangers, la chimie les faisait eclore 



celebrated 'Rapport historique sur de notre sol." " Le conseil des 



le Progres des Sciences naturelles mines ctabli en 1793, lorsque 1'in- 



depuis 1789,' Paris, 1810. terruption de tout rapport avec 



1 ' Eloges historiques, ' vol. iii. p. 1'etranger fit seutir le besoin de 

 456, 1824. tirer parti de notre territoire a 



2 This refers to the isolation of doune k ces sortes de recherches 

 France during the war and the Con- ' une impulsion toute nouvelle" 

 tinental blockade, which deprived i (' Piapport,' p. 178). 



