THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 297 
sound and well fitted together ; of some to spur 
investigators and of others to keep their heads 
cool. The only would-be servants, who are en- 
tirely unprofitable, are those who do not take the 
trouble to interrogate Nature, but imagine vain 
things about her ; and spin, from their inner con- 
sciousness, webs, as exquisitely symmetrical as 
those of the most geometrical of spiders, but, 
alas ! as easily torn to pieces by some uncon- 
sidered bluebottle of a fact. 
Naturally, it is Cuvier, in his capacity of the 
man of business, who has been held in almost 
exclusive veneration by those (and they are 
always the majority) who engage in merely add- 
ing to the capital stock of science. For them, 
he has done everything and is the highest of 
exemplars. And justly, for Cuvier’s monographs, 
and the osteological treatises interpolated in the 
‘ Ossemens Fossiles,’ are of unsurpassed excel- 
lence ; while, for the sagacious application of the 
data of osteology to the interpretation of fossil 
remains, he has never had a superior. Again, 
Cuvier’s clear logical head and marvellously wide 
acquaintance with animal forms enabled him to 
reform classification ; and to set forth, in the 
‘ Regne Animal,’ a generalized statement of the facts 
of animal structure which was, in itself, a sufficient 
refutation of the doctrine of unity of organisation 
as it was conceived by Goethe and Geoffrey. 
The mere quantity of the palteontological work 
