BARON CUVIER. 103 



hasard ; Priestley semble vouloir lui tout accorder : il re- 

 marque, avec une candeur unique, combien de fois il en fut 

 servi sans s'en apercevoir, combien de fois il posseda des sub- 

 stances nouvelles sans les distinguer ; et jamais il ne dissi- 

 mule les vues erronees qui le dirigerent quelquefois, et dont 

 il ne fut desabuse que par I'experience. Ces aveux firent 

 rhonneur a sa modestie sans desarmer la jalousie. Ceux 

 a qui leurs vues et leurs methodes n'avaient jamais rien 

 fait decouvrir, I'appelaient un simple faiseur des expe- 

 riences, sans methode et sans vues : ' il n'est pas etonnant,' 

 ajoutaient-ils, ' que, dans tant d'essais et de combinai- 

 sons, il s'en trouve quelques-uns d'heureux.' Mais les ve- 

 ritables physiciens ne furent point dupes de ces critiques 

 interessees."* 



There is yet another passage, which, while it so ably 

 pleads the cause of Priestley, places M. Cuvier's candour in 

 so conspicuous a light, that 1 shall make no apology for intro- 

 ducing it, though it will not be necessary to give it in French. 

 " I am now. Messieurs, arrived at the most painful part of 

 my task. You have just seen Priestley successfully pro- 

 gressing in the study of human science, to which he never- 

 theless consecrated but a few of his leisure moments. I 

 must now present him to you in another hght, wrestling 

 against the nature of those things which are hidden from 

 our reason by an impenetrable veil, trying to submit the 



+ Priestly, loaded with glory, was modest enough to be astonished at his 

 good fortune, and at the multitude of beautiful facts, which nature seem- 

 ed to have revealed to him alone. He forgot that her favours v/ere not 

 gratuitous, and if she had so well explained herself, it was because he had 

 known how to oblige her to do so by his indefatigable perseverance in 

 (questioning her, and by the thousand ingenious means he had taken to 

 snatch her answers from her. 



Otliers carefully hide that which they owe to chance ; Priestley seem- 

 ed to wish to ascribe all his merit to fortuitous circumstances, remarking, 

 with unexampled candour, how many times he had profited by them, 

 without knowing it, how many times he was in possession of new sub- 

 stances without having perceived them ; and he never dissimulated the 

 erroneous views which sometimes directed his efforts, and from which he 

 was only undeceived by experience. These confessions did honour to 

 his modesty, without disarming jealousy. Those to whom their own 

 ways and methods had never discovered any thing called him a simple 

 worker of experiments, without method and without an object " it is not. 

 astonishing," they added, " that among so many trials and combinations, 

 he should find some that were fortunate." But real natural philosophers 

 were not duped by these selfish criticisms. 



