PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 3 



in five volumes, of bis great work, " Kegne animal 

 distribute d'apres son organization," a work embodying 

 the results of all bis previous researches on the structure 

 of living and fossil animals, and first published in 1828. 



In the matter of classification, Cuvier substituted a 

 natural arrangement for the artificial one of Linnaeus, 

 grounding it upon the principle of anatomical structure. 

 In palaeontology, Cuvier made great advances upon the 

 knowledge of his time, and to him the world owes the 

 first systematic application of the science of comparative 

 anatomy, whereby he reconstructed extinct animals from 

 their fossil remains, and compared them with their living 

 successors. 



In comparing the present with the past, it is of interest 

 to notice the very striking advances made since Cuvier' s 

 time in our knowledge of living animals, by far the greater 

 number of known species having been recorded since then. 

 The total number of species known sixty years ago was 

 about 70,000, whereas the present total far exceeds one 

 million ; and, whereas a memoir on one group was 

 formerly considered an exhaustive treatise, now many 

 volumes are required to do justice to one branch of the 

 group. Cuvier stands just half-way between Buff on and 

 our own time. Buff on, too, had realised that similar causes 

 to those operating at the present time had sculptured 

 the past history of our earth, and that organisms were 

 greatly influenced by food, climate, and other circum- 

 stances, and in this way he may be said to have, 100 

 years ago, helped to pave the way for the reception of the 

 doctrine of descent. It is, at the same time, curious to 

 notice that when Darwin wrote the " Origin of Species," 

 he was not acquainted with Buffon's writings, and in 

 1865 he replied to Huxley in regard to them — " It would 

 have annoyed me extremely to have republished Buffon's 



