CUVIER, 85 
of his idea of species is invariably, “We reckon as many 
species as the Infinite Being created at the beginning.” ” 
And his authority was so powerful that the age of 
Voltaire and of Diderot devoutly accepted this obvious 
dogma, and transmitted it to posterity as a maxim 
impossible to question. 
Linnzus was, however, so little of an anatomist that 
in this province Zoology required a completely fresh 
foundation, and, in the capacity of a second Linnzus, 
Cuvier stood forth.” His school styles itself the school 
of facts, yet it was by no means without a tincture of 
philosophy. On the contrary, the definite and simple 
nature of his principles and deductions could not fail to 
be imposing. He epitomized the summary of his obser- 
vations as “Laws of Organization ;” and he applied the 
teleological view, the principe des causes finales, with 
great advantage to the knowledge and restoration of 
antediluvian animals. The question of the persistency 
or mutability of species thrust itself forcibly upon him. 
For this an external cause was given by the Egyptian 
expedition and the investigation of mummified animals. 
Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Lamarck attacked the 
persistency of species, and held that, especially consider- 
ing the stability of external conditions, the Egyptian 
period was far too short for the identity of the mummies 
with the species now extant, to make it possible to infer 
the immutability of species; but the question was curtly 
despatched and silenced by the predominating school 
of Cuvier. 
Meanwhile, Cuvier not only increased the accumu- 
lation of facts, but, as we have already hinted, he 
grouped them so happily and with such philosophical 
