BARON CUVIER. IGQ 



* " Jete faible et lui a la surface du globe, 

 I'homme paraissait ciee pour une destruction in- 

 evitable : les maux I'assaillaient de toute parte, 

 les remedes lui restaient caches ; mais il avoit 



* Man, who had been thrown on the surface of the globe 

 in a state of feebleness and nakedness, would appear to have 

 been created for inevitable destruction: evils assailed him 

 on all sides, and the remedies for them appeared to be hidden 

 from him ; but he had been endowed with talents for their 

 discovery. Tlie first savages gathered nourishing fruits and 

 wholesome roots in the forests, and thus conquered their 

 most pressing wants. The first shepherds perceived that 

 the stars followed a regular course, and by them directed 

 their steps across the desert. Such was the origin of physi- 

 cal and mathematical sciences. 



No sooner had the genius of man ascertained that it was 

 possible to combat nature by her own means, than it no 

 longer rested ; it watched her incessantly, and continually 

 gained new conquests over her, each marked by some ameli- 

 oration in the state of society. Then succeeded, without 

 interruption, those meditating minds, which, being the faith- 

 ful depositaries of acquired doctrines, were constantly oc- 

 cupied in connecting them, in vivifying the one by the help 

 of the other, and which have led us, in less than forty cen- 

 turies, from the first attempts of these pastoral observers, to 

 the profound calculations of Newton and Laplace, to the 

 learned enumerations of Linnaeus and Jussieu. This precious 

 inheritance, always augmenting, borne from Chaldea to 

 Egypt, from Egypt to Greece, hidden during ages of misery 

 and darkness, unequally spread among the people of Europe, 

 has been every where followed by riches and power ; the na- 

 tions who have welcomed it, have become mistresses of the 

 world, and those Avho have neglected it have fallen into 

 feebleness and obscurity. 



