BARON CUVIER. 215 



It is for ever to be regretted, that the last 

 course of lectures delivered by M. Cuvier has 

 been comparatively lost to mankind in general. 

 The hall at the College de France resounded 

 with these luminous discourses, taken at the 

 moment from mere memoranda, and now only 

 existing in the memory of his auditors. He was 

 extremely averse to short-hand notes, because he 

 thought them very inadequate to the purposes 

 of publication ; and he had no time, he said, 

 either to edite them himself, or correct the edi- 

 tions of others. The glimpses (for they can only 

 be called such) given in the feuilletons of the 

 Temps, and in the pamphlets compiled by M. 

 Magdeleine de Saint Agy, were then published 

 entirely without his sanction, and the latter even 

 without his knowledge ; but imperfect as they 

 are, they yet assist in giving a general idea of the 

 plan that was followed. 



Conscientiously fulfilling some of the most im- 

 portant duties of the state, equally devoted to 

 those of his different secretaryships and profes- 

 sorships, and daily progressing in the most pro- 

 foundly scientific w^orks and discoveries, it is no 

 wonder that he rarely found time for a course of 

 lectures. At length, however, struck with the 

 errors which he perceived in the system of unity 



p 4 



