BARON CUVIER. 187 



pas 6toniiant,* ajoutaient-ils, * que, dans taut d'es- 

 sais et de combinaisons, il s'en trouve quelques- 

 uns d'heureux.' Mais les veritables physiciens 

 ne furent point dupes de ces critiques int^- 

 ressees." * 



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, 



* Priestley, loaded with glory, was modest enough to be 

 astonished at his good fortune, and at the multitude of beau- 

 tiful facts which nature seemed to have revealed to him alone. 

 He forgot that her favours were 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. 



Others carefully hide that M'hich they owe to chance ; 

 Priestley seemed 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 substances without 

 having perceived them ; and he never dissimulated the erro- 

 neous views which sometimes directed his efforts, and from 

 which he was only undeceived by experience. These confes- 

 sions did honour to his modesty, without disarming jealousy. 

 Those to whom their own ways and methods had never dis- 

 covered any thing, called him a simple worker of experiments, 

 without method and without an object; " it is not astonish- 

 ing,'' they added, " that among so many trials and combin- 

 ations, he should find some that were fortunate." But real 

 natural philosophers were not duped by these selfish criti.> 

 cisms. 



