8 THE DARWINIAN THEORY 



chiopods, which led him to compare them with the 

 living species. Having by this time attracted the 

 notice of influential people, he was in 1 794 invited to 

 Paris, and was appointed Assistant Professor, and in 

 1802 Professor, of Comparative Anatomy at the 

 Jardin des Plantes. After this he rapidly rose to 

 posts of great importance and distinction. Cuvier 

 was specially distinguished by the zeal with which 

 he applied himself to the actual dissection of large 

 numbers of animals of many groups, by the clearness 

 with which he kept himself free from the vague 

 theories of his day ; also by the way in which he 

 kept to his facts, drew his own conclusions from 

 them, and absolutely rejected any theories that 

 were opposed to them. 



Cuvier may justly be regarded as the father of 

 Comparative Anatomy. His most important service 

 was the demonstration of the true nature of fossils. 

 About the time of his arrival in Paris attention was 

 being directed to the skeletons and parts of skeletons 

 of animals which were being disinterred round about 

 Paris, especially at Montmartre. These constituted 

 a great puzzle at the time, the bones of many of them 

 being immensely large and unlike those of any 

 known animals. Cuvier eagerly set to work at this 

 subject, and the minute knowledge he had obtained 

 of living animals rendered the work comparatively 

 easy, while the law of correlation — a single bone 

 giving the clue to the structure, position, habits, food, 

 &c, of the animal — helped him greatly. Cuvier was 

 soon able to point out that the animals of which these 

 were the remains were in many cases not like those 



