POSITION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 65 



through which the science of organization has to pass 

 in order to arrive at its last term before showing its 

 true aim. From my point of view this phase does 

 not seem to me to have been represented by any 

 other naturalist of our time, whatever may have been 

 the reputation which he made during his life." 



He then refers to the estimation in which Lamarck 

 was held by Auguste Comte, who, in his Cours de 

 Philosophie Positive, has anticipated and even sur- 

 passed himself in the high esteem he felt for " the 

 celebrated author of the Philosophie Zoologique." 



The eulogy by Cuvier, which gives most fully the 

 details of the early life of Lamarck, and which has 

 been the basis for all the subsequent biographical 

 sketches, was unworthy of him. Lamarck had, with 

 his customary self-abnegation and generosity, aided 

 and favored the young Cuvier in the beginning of his 

 career,* who in his Regne Animal adopted the classes 

 founded by Lamarck. Thoroughly convinced of the 

 erroneous views of Cuvier in regard to cataclysms, 

 he criticised and opposed them in his writings in a 

 courteous and proper way without directly mention- 

 ing Cuvier by name or entering into any public 

 debate with him. 



When the hour came for the great comparative 

 anatomist and palaeontologist, from his exalted posi- 

 tion, to prepare a tribute to the memory of a natural- 

 ist of equal merit and of a far more thoughtful and 



* For exsmple, while Csvier's chair was in the field of vertebrate 

 zoOlogfy, owingf to the kindness of Lamarck {"par gracieuseie de la 

 part de M. di Lamarck ") he had retained that of MoUusca, and yet it 

 was in the special classification of the molluscs that Lamarck did his 

 best vrork (Blainville, 1. c, p. ii5). 



5 



