26 MEMOIRS OF 



success, notwithstanding a few errors, which, 

 were afterwards corrected and acknowledged by 

 M. Cuvier, who, in common with all those who 

 prefer the interests of science to their own mo- 

 mentary fame, and with the candour which 

 always marks real learning, never hesitated 

 either to avow or to rectify a fault, a perfection 

 which mingled with his private as well as public 

 actions. The materials for these lectures were 

 supplied by a collection, then in its infancy, 

 and which was increased an hundredfold by him- 

 self; and those who have criticised these early 

 volumes, have been obliged to confess, that 

 the means of doing so were given to them by 

 the author himself, who threw every thing 

 open to them, even were it to convict him 

 of those unavoidable mistakes to which he had 

 been liable, from the then imperfect state of 

 the collection. The three last volumes of this 

 work were much more complete and methodical 

 than the first two, and were edited under the 

 inspection of Dr. Duvernoy (another of M. 

 Cuvier's pupils), in the year 1805, though the 

 second, notwithstanding its inaccuracies, was 

 always considered by M. Cuvier as the most in- 

 teresting of the whole. 



But to return to the year 1800, when the ce- 

 lebrated colleague of M. de Buffbn died, at a 



