15^ BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



From the standpoint of a sincere admirer, Mrs. Lee 

 writes of his generosity and nobility of temperament, declar- 

 ing that his career demonstrated that his mind was great 

 and free from both envy and smallness. 



Some Shortcommgs. — Nevertheless, there are certain 

 things in the life of Cuvier that we \\ish mJght not have been. 

 His break with liis old friends Lamarck and Saint-Hilaire 

 seems to show a domination of qualities that were not s^en- 



1 o 



erous and kindh-; those observations of Lamarck showing^ a 

 much profounder insight than any of which he himself was 

 the author were laughed to scorn. His famous controversy 

 with Saint-Hilaire marks a historical moment that will be 

 dealt with in the chapter on Evolution. 



George Bancroft, the American historian, met him during 

 a visit to Paris in 1827. He speaks of his magnificent eyes 

 and his fine appearance, but on the whole Cuvier seems to 

 have impressed Bancroft as a disagreeable man. 



Some of his shortcomings that served to retard the prog- 

 ress of science have been mentioned. Still, with all his faults, 

 he dominated zoological science at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth centurv, and so powerful was his influence and so un- 

 disputed was his authority among the French people that 

 the rising young men in natural science sided with Cuvier 

 even when he was wrong. It is a noteworthy fact that France, 

 under the influence of the traditions of Cu\ ier, was the last 

 country slov/ly and reluctantly to harbor as true the ideas 

 regard in o^ the evolution of animal life. 



Cuvier's Successors 



While Cuvier's theoretical conclusions exercised a retard- 

 ing influence upon the progress of biology, his practical 

 studies more than compensated for this. It has been pointed 

 out how his type-theory led to the reform of the Linnaean 



