66 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



profound spirit, to be read before the French Academy 

 of Sciences, what a eulogy it was — as De Blainville 

 exclaims, et quel dloge ! It was not printed until 

 after Cuvier's death, and then, it is stated, portions 

 were omitted as not suitable for publication.* This 

 is, we believe, the only stain on Cuvier's life, and it 

 was unworthy of the great man. In this dloge, so 

 different in tone from the many others which are col- 

 lected in the three volumes of Cuvier's eulogies, he 

 indiscriminately ridicules all of Lamarck's theories. 

 Whatever may have been his condemnation of La- 

 marck's essays on physical and chemical subjects, he 

 might have been more reserved and less dogmatic 

 and sarcastic in his estimate of what he supposed to 

 be the value of Lamarck's views on evolution. It 

 was Cuvier's adverse criticisms and ridicule and his 

 anti-evolutional views which, more than any other 

 single cause, retarded the progress of biological 

 science and the adoption of a working theory of 

 evolution for which the world had to wait half a 

 century. 



It even appears that Lamarck was in part instru- 

 mental in inducing Cuvier in 1795 to go to Paris from 

 Normandy, and become connected with the Museum. 

 De Blainville relates that the Abb6 Tessier met the 

 young zoologist at Valmont near Fdcamp, and wrote 

 to Geoffroy that "he had just discovered in Nor- 



*De Blainville states that " the Academy did not even allow it to 

 be printed in the form in which it was pronounced " (p. 324) ; and 

 again he speaks of the lack of judgment in Cuvier's estimate of La- 

 marck, " the naturalist who had the greatest force in the general con- 

 ception of beings and of phenomena, although he might often be far 

 from the path " (p. 323). 



