It will be recollected that the functions of secretary of the Institute were at first temporary. M. Cuvier was called, among the first, to fulfil these functions in his class, and soon afterwards, in 1803, a new organization of the learned body having re-established the perpetuity of these offices he was chosen perpetual secretary for the physical or natural sciences, with nearly entire unanimity. It was in this new capacity of perpetual secretary that he composed his memorable Report on the progress of the natural sciences since 1789. Delambre had been charged with the report on the mathematical sciences, and thus each class of the institute was called upon to present one on the sciences or arts which fell within its province. It is well known with what state the Emperor received these reports. The peculiar satisfaction which that of M. Cuvier gave him was expressed by a happy turn of words. "He has praised me," said the imperial personage, "as as I like to be praised." "And yet," remarks M. Cuvier, “I had done no more than invite him to imitate Alexander, and to make his power instrumental to the progress of natural history." But this sort of praise is precisely that which must most flatter a man who had comprehended all kinds of glory, and would willingly remain a stranger to none. We are at liberty to think, morover, that the praise which has no other object but to induce a sovereign to do worthy things is not unworthy of a philosopher. To all these occupations, as historian of the sciences, perpetual secretary, professor at the Museum and at the College of France, M. Cuvier added several others. He was named member of the council of the University in 1808, and master of requests in 1813. Nor was the Restoration insensible to his merit. He preserved his position, and was even invested with new functions. Appointed successively counsellor of state, president of the commission of the interior, chancellor of public instruction, and finally, in 1831, peer of France; his genius embraced all orders of ideas and lent itself to all kinds of labor. * It may well be supposed that he was a member of all the learned Academies of the world; for what Academy could have afforded to omit the inscription of his name on its list? And that which is an honor, of which there were few examples before him, he belonged to three Academies of the Institute, the Academie Française, the Academy of Sciences, and that of Inscriptions and Bellesletters. His great renown brought to him, from all parts, whatever occurred in the way of observation and discovery. It was, moreover, in great part his genius, his lectures, his works, which animated all observers, and everywhere created them; and never could it have been said of any man with more truth than of him, that nature heard herself everywhere interrogated in his name. Hence there is nothing comparable to the rich collections which he created at the museum, and which were all placed in order by him. And when we think of that direct study of objects which was the principal occupation of his life, and through which he has occasioned the outgrowth of so many results, it cannot surprise us that he was often heard to say: "That he believed himself to have been not less useful to science by his collections alone than by all his other works." In the course of a career so full of success and of honors, M. Cuvier had sustained not a few severe blows. He had lost his first two children, either a few days or a few years after birth; the third, who was a son, died at the age of seven, and all these sorrows were renewed, and with far more bitterness, when he lost his daughter, a young lady of rare qualities, who offered, not only in mind but in features, no faint resemblance to her father. In all the misfortunes of life his consolation was ordinarily sought in redoubled labor; but a consolation still more efficacious consisted in the affectionate attentions with which his family, and above all, Madame Cuvier, were sedulous to surround him. If we consider the numerous public appointments of M. Cuvier, his uninter*He was also baron and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. It is well to recall these titles; a nation honors itself by thus bestowing them. mitting researches, his voluminous and important works, it seems astonishing that a single life could have sufficed for so much. But, besides the superior faculties of his understanding, he possessed an ardent curiosity which impelled him to the pursuit of all knowledge; a memory which partook of the wonderful, and a facility even still more wonderful of passing from one labor to another immediately, without effort; a singular faculty, and which, perhaps, contributed more than any other to multiply his time and his energy. Moreover, no one ever made so thorough, and, if I may thus express myself, so methodical a study of the art of not losing a single moment. Each hour had its stated labor; each labor had a cabinet which was destined for it, and in which all was found that related to that labor; books, drawings, objects. Everything was prepared, everything foreseen, so that no external cause might intervene to distract or retard the mind in the course of its meditations and researches. The address of M. Cuvier was grave, and his was not a politeness which diffused itself in words, but he possessed a goodness of heart and a kindness which were prone to proceed always directly to action. It might be said that in this kind also he dreaded any loss of time. I need not, in concluding, recall to my auditors that death, so much deplored and so sudden, which surprised him in the midst of so many labors and great designs. That event is too recent, the remembrance too painful, and the regrets of his colleagues in this Academy, still vivid and profound, are the homage most worthy of his memory.* Besides, in my feeble sketch of the labors of this great man, I have less considered the man than the savant. I have chiefly sought to retrace that series of sublime truths for which the sciences are indebted to his genius, a genius which is henceforth immortal. His glory must increase with the progress of the sciences which he created. Time, which effaces so many other names, perpetuates and surrounds with an ever renovated lustre the memory of those rare individuals who seem to have revealed new activities in the intellect, and to have given new forces to thought. And as their minds, outstripping their age, had posterity chiefly in view, so it is only posterity, it is only the succession of ages, from which they can expect all the gratitude and admiration which is due to them. *M. Cuvier died Sunday, May 13, 1832. HISTORY OF THE WORKS OF CUVIER.* BY M. FLOURENS. ranslated for the Smithsonian Institution, by C. A. Alexander. I.-OF METHOD CONSIDERED IN ITSELF.-RATIONAL METHODS.-EMPIRICAL METHODS. Method is a part of logic; it is the approximation of like things, and the separation of things unlike. Hence, there have always been methods, especially in natural history, where the number of objects is so great. It was in vain, then, for Buffon to revolt against methods; in proportion, as passing from quadrupeds to bird s, he sees the number of species increase, he himself resorts to methodical approximations; he groups together like species, he constitutes genera; "he silently submits," says M. Cuvier, "to the necessity imposed on all of us, of classifying our ideas in order clearly to represent to ourselves their ensemble, their collective import." Aristotle himself had a method, and indeed an excellent one, at least for classes. He knew that the cetacea are mammiferous ‡ he distinguishes in animals with white blood, the mollusca, the crustacea, the insects, &c. § After the revival of letters the learned were content at first with the method of Aristotle; but it was soon found necessary to extend it. Natural history always resolves itself into specific objects. Method really aids us only in so far as it leads to species; and since it should lead to species, it is necessary that it should embrace all species. Now, before Linnæus, it was customary to stop, in several classes, at the genera; in other classes, while proceeding to species, only a few were particularized. Linnæus proposed that method, the distinctive catalogue of beings, should embrace them all; no species, therefore, was neglected; all were studied, independently of their shape, size, relative utility; all were named. Twenty years after Linnæus, the number of known beings was quintupled. On the other hand, specific names did not yet exist, only generic ones. Linnæus founded a nomenclature. Each species had two names: a substantive name for the genus, an adjective name for the species. || The name of the species no From the "Histoire des Travaux de Georges Cuvier," by M. Flourens, late perpetual secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, &c. See the fine eulogy of M. Cuvier himself on the principles of Aristotle: "Far be it from us to detract from the glory of the great philosopher whom we recall. We think, on the contrary, that it is necessary to revive his principles, if we would give to natural history all its perfection, and we observe with satisfaction that they are beginning to revive." A surprising thing, surely! Aristotle had already discovered the great principles of the science twenty centuries ago; and to rediscover those principles we must come down to Cuvier. "The dolphin," he says, "has teats, and suckles its young."-Hist. of Animals, Book II. External differences do not, in his eyes, mask internal resemblances; he places the serpent, which has no members, by the side of the lizard, which has. "The serpent," he says, entirely resembles the lizard, by supposing the latter to be lengthened and retrenching its feet." The strong envelope of the shell, however, imposes on him; and to the four natural classes: mollusks, crustacea, insects and zoophytes, he improperly joins that of the testacea. Still, an attentive perusal of the work of Aristotle shows us a surprising number of just conceptions, even in what may be called the anatomy of detail. "The ear," he says, has no opening into the brain, but into the palate of the mouth."-Hist. of Animals, Book I. This was a plain indication of the eustachian tube. 46 It is this second name, proper to the species and commonly an adjective, which Linnæus calls the trivial name. longer changed, for species is a thing fixed and changes not; but the name of the genus might change, for the genus only denotes relations, and relations may vary in proportion as the number of species varies. These simple ideas had, till then, not been comprehended. But Linnæus, who rendered these two great services, is perhaps, of all naturalists, he who most contributed to the prevalence, at least for a certain time, of the use of artificial methods. Now, an artificial method gives only the name of species; the natural method alone gives the name and the relations of species. An artificial method may conduct to names, even while placing in approximation objects the most dissimilar, and for the very reason that it gives only the name of objects. Thus the connections not being consecutive, the artificial method is not of a logical order. That method is alone logical in which species the most similar are placed beside one another, and species the most unlike are furthest removed from one another. Each group therein has the greatest possible number of common properties. And if the groups are contained one in another, if we ascend from one to others by a series of propositions more and more general, we possess the science entire. But what are the means for arriving at this logical or natural method? These means are of two orders: rational or empirical. An organized being is a whole; its different parts, therefore, have necessary relations to one another. Now, the more important any part, that is to say, the more essential by the order of its functions, the more do its modifications involve corresponding ones in all the rest. Everything, therefore, consists in knowing the relative importance of the parts, and in subordinating one to the other in the method, as they are subordinated in the organization itself. In this resides the whole rational principle of method. Thus, the nervous centres, the brain, the spinal marrow, by which the animal is essentially what it is, give the first groups of the method; the respiratory and circulatory centres, the lungs, the heart, by means of which it partakes of its present life, give the second; the digestive centres, by which it sustains that life, give the third, and so on in succession. The naturalists have only succeeded by long tentatives in conducting the distribution of animals to the point of perfection which it has reached; they have arrived at that point a posteriori; they might have arrived at it a priori, by the direct determination of the relative importance of the organs. Now, so far as the relative importance of the organs is known, we have a rational method; a method a priori. When the relative importance of the organs is not known, we are guided by their constancy; we have then only a method a posteriori, an empirical method. The most constant organ is regarded as the most important; the constancy of a relation, taken as a fact, supplies the reason of that relation, until that reason is known. Thus, for example, all ruminating animals have the foot cloven; all animals which have horns, ruminate, &c. These are constant relations, but what is the reason of this constancy? We know it not. And yet, since these relations are constant, we may employ them, with confidence, in our methods. Again, insects which breathe by means of trachea, are deficient in conglomerate and compact glands. Their secretory organs are only canals or simple tubes. We know at present the reason of this fact. It is because animals which respire by tracheæ have no circulation, and there needs a circulation to make the blood penetrate into conglomerate and compact glands. But before the reason of the fact was known, the fact itself was known; it was shown to be constant; and from the very circumstance of its being constant, it might thenceforth be employed in method. Constancy, therefore, represents importance. Thus, there are two kinds of method, or, to speak with more exactness, there * Direct determination, which is only obtained through physiology. And herein, as has been already said, is the true secret of the great results obtained by M. Cuvier. It was because his vast genius embraced all-anatomy, physiology, zoology; and made each of those sciences co-operate in turn to the progress of the others. And as are, for method, two distinct states: the rational and the empirical. method is always bound to be natural, when, in order to become so, it has no longer the rational way, it becomes so by the empirical way; when it has no longer the known importance of the organs to direct it, it is guided by their constancy. II. CLASSIFICATION OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. * Linnæus divided the animal kingdom into six classes: quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and worms. No precise limit circumscribed these classes in which the cetacea were found among the fishes; the cartilaginous fishes among the reptiles; the crustacea, the articulated worms, animals which have a true circulation, were ranged among the insects which have none; and the intestinal worms, the polypes, the infusoria, the mollusks, even certain fishes were united and confounded in the class vermes, the last and most chaotic of all. Into this class, in effect, Linnæus had introduced endless confusion, and Bruguières left it just as Linnæus had done. So little attention was still paid to the internal organization of these animals that the last-named author, for example, taking for mollusks all that had no shell, separates from the class in question, under the name of testacea, all that have a shell, as if the slight external character of having a shell hindered the testacea from being true mollusks by virtue of their entire nature or internal organization. It was in 1795 that M. Cuvier pointed out the extreme difference of the objects confounded in this class, and separated them distinctly, one from another, after a detailed examination and agreeably to characters derived from their organization itself. This examination produced a new general distribution of animals with white blood into six classes, mollusks, crustaceans, worms, insects, echinoderms, and zoophytes. From this new distribution of the white-blooded animals dates the revolution of zoology. Still later M. Cuvier associated the crustaceans with the insects, on account of the common symmetry of their parts, and the articulated structure, alike common, of their members and body; he separated the annelids, or worms with red blood, from the intestinal worms; for he pointed out that the former have a true circulation, a distinct nervous system, an articulated body, while the others have neither circulation nor distinct nervous system, nor body properly articulated. He showed that the mollusks, which have so rich an organization, a brain, eyes, often very complex, sometimes ears, always numerous secretory glands, a double circulation, &c., should in the first place be raised greatly above the polypes and other zoophytes, the greater part of which have not even distinct organs, and with which, nevertheless, they had been so long ranged; and, in the next place, that the collective assemblage of these mollusks formed a group which, by the importance of its general characters and the number of species which compose it, corresponds not to such or such a class or fraction of the vertebrate animals, but to all the vertebrata joined together; and then, taking up each of the great masses of the animal kingdom, he saw that scarcely any of the general divisions theretofore admitted could be sustained, at least with the characters and limits which had been thus far assigned to them. For instance, it was customary to oppose the vertebrate animals to the animals without vertebræ, as if these two divisions had been of the same rank; and to designate equally by the name of class the whole of the mollusks and a mere fraction of the vertebrata, as if, in effect, the whole body of mollusks was only equivalent to a fraction or subdivision of the vertebrata, &c. Now, since the infinitely varied organization of the animals without vertebra was at last known, it was impossible any longer to pretend that there was not, between all these varied animals, vastly more difference than between certain vertebrates and certain others. But if, of these two divisions, one comprised structures far more varied than the other, the one could not be equivalent to the other; they were not of the same rank; they should not then |