INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION. XV11 



destined to captivate the world by the beauties of a style un- 

 matched, I believe, in France, but a profound philosopher, 

 who had already anticipated nearly all the great truths of the 

 transcendental in science. But neither Buffon nor Linne, 

 whatever might have been the profundity of their views, 

 offered any demonstration of these views. This is what the 

 world looks for, and rightly expects ; rigid demonstration 

 supported the Newtonian hypothesis, else Newton had written 

 in vain. Palissy, the potter, had said as much as Buffon, 

 but, like him, he had offered no demonstration, and the 

 world looked on them as dreamers dangerous dreamers, of 

 whom the less notice that was taken the better. In Britain, 

 especially, Buffon's works appeared stripped of all their lofty 

 views, disfigured and degraded ; he passed, even in France, 

 merely as the naturalist who had best described the hot- 

 blooded quadrupeds, as certain mammals were called even in 

 my days ; the bold conjectures of Palissy and of Buffon 

 seemed about to disappear for ever from the field of science. 

 Even Goethe had failed to resuscitate them under other 

 forms. The geological theories of Hutton and Playfair were 

 met successfully by the plausible hypothesis of Werner, when 

 suddenly a man appeared, destined to place natural science 

 for ever on a basis which, if not so fixed as the Elements of 

 Euclid, will at least prove as enduring. That man was 

 George Cuvier, a German, born on French soil; an anatomist. 

 This wonderful man, of a rigidly demonstrative turn of mind, 

 when quite young, but well educated, bethought him of in- 

 vestigating " the unknown" in Zoology by means of ana- 

 tomical research, the only way in which it could be inquired 

 into. Linne and Buffon had described and defined the 

 exterior : " I will investigate," he said, " the interior :" they 

 ought to correspond : there must be intimate relations between 

 them ; anatomical co-relations. Seemingly, and without 

 being aware of it, he had discovered a new element of research 

 descriptive anatomy ; not the vague comparative anatomy 

 of Perrault or Daubenton, but minute descriptive anatomy, 



