Cuvier
Cuvier, the great naturalist, paid the debt of nature in May last, after a life devoted to science with an unwearied application and a success exceeded by none in modern times. He was born at Montbelliard in 1769, a year which gave to so many remarkable men—a Napoleon—a Chateaubriand—a Wellington—a Humboldt, &c. and his first discoveries were on the Mollusca, and shook to its base the zoological classification which then universally prevailed.
Invited to Paris to fill the place of Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, his lectures speedily drew crowds around him, attracted by his popular eloquence and lucid arrangement. His next work, Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee, 1805, was rewarded by the Institute with the decennial prize for the work which had contributed the most to our knowledge of the Natural Sciences during that period. At the same period he published a series of Memoirs on the Anatomy of the Mollusca, and devoted his attention to a detailed examination of the fossil remains of the bones of mammiferous animals; he particularly examined the numerous fossils in the environs of Paris, assisted in the geological part of his task by his friend M. A. Brogniart. The sagacity and accuracy which M. Cuvier displayed in the examination of fossil bones, raised this branch of inquiry to the dignity of a perfectly new science, which has thrown a powerful light on geology, and directed it into a more philosophical route. A number of works and of elaborate memoirs published since by various naturalists, have shown the prodigious influence which the labours of Cuvier have exercised on the study of geology, of the animal kingdom, and even of fossil botany. M. Cuvier amused himself during these laborious works by particular researches which would alone have been sufficient to have distinguished any other man, such as his five Memoirs on the Voice of Birds, on Crocodiles, and on numerous subjects of zoology; such also as his descriptions of the living animals in the menagerie, &c. In all his works, even to the minutest details, we discover the same luminous, clear, and methodical mind, and the sagacity which characterized him. Feeling the want of a work which should present a general view of his ideas on zoological classification, he published in 1817 his work entitled Le Regne Animal distribue d'après son Organisation, in 4 vols, 8vo. which speedily became the text-book of all zoological students. When employed on this work he felt how far in arrear of the other branches of zoology was that which respects the class of fish, and saw how much difficulty had accumulated in it, as well from our ignorance of the anatomy of these animals, and the impossibility of determining with precision the laws of their comparative organization, as from the want of large collections, and perhaps also from the too artificial spirit which had hitherto prevailed in ichthyology. He employed his influence to form a collection in the Paris Museum of specimens of fish from all parts of the world, and was so successful in his endeavours that the number of specimens which at first scarcely amounted to 1,000, in a few years amounted to 6,000. Of these he dissected a large portion with a care hitherto unknown, having the advantage of an able associate in the study of the details in M. Valenciennes; he was thus enabled in a period of time that may be called short, looking to the extent of the results, to collect the materials of his great Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, of which eight volumes have appeared, with their appropriate plates, and for the continuation of which we have to look to his laborious assistant. The recent embarrassment among the Paris publishers having occasioned a stoppage in the progress of this work, M. Cuvier availed himself of this (as the part prepared for the press was already in advance of the printer) to make preparations for republishing his Lecons d'Anotomie Comparee, of which a second edition had been long anxiously called for. This design, however, he was not permitted to complete; but it is to be hoped that we shall not be long deprived of the edition he had contemplated, and that it will be accompanied with those beautiful and accurate plates on which he had bestowed so much pains, and in the execution of which he himself excelled; for he was a skilful draftsman, and seized external forms with rapidity and accuracy, and possessed the art of representing in his drawings the forms of organic tissues in a style peculiar to himself. His last course of lectures, on the History of the Natural Sciences, and on the Philosophy of Natural History, delivered at the College of France, is now publishing in livraisons, and will extend to three or four vols, 8vo. This work, however, we believe, has been published without his consent or revision. His memory was prodigious, and he scarcely knew what it was to forget anything. Although his great powers were more particularly devoted to natural history, no part of science was a stranger to him, and his taste for literature and works of imagination was particularly refined and elegant. In his Eloges of illustrious men, delivered in his capacity of perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, he always displays the utmost impartiality and love of truth; he never debased the dignity of science by any love of intrigue, and displayed the utmost disinterestedness in his efforts to promote science. The qualities of his heart were not less estimable than those of his head, and he possessed the happy art of inspiring his friends with an unalterable attachment. His conversation was varied and animated, adapted by turns to every subject, and he may truly be said to have been the grace and ornament of society. We must not forget the great services he rendered to public education as head of the University; his Report on the State of Primary Education in Holland is a lasting monument of his solicitude for the education of the people, and all those who have observed his conduct with regard to the higher branches of education, know how constantly his influence was directed to favour their progress and to remove obstacles. In other departments of the civil service into which he was successively called, as Master of Requests, Counsellor of State, President of the Section of the Interior, Director of Protestant Worship, (for he was an enlightened and liberal Protestant, and watched over the interests of his co-religionists with constant solicitude,) and at last as a Peer of France—in all these he displayed the same superiority of talent. The office of Censor of the Press, which was offered to him, he, to his eternal honour, refused. Such was the man whose loss the world has now to deplore: but the mind that traced her age and history—in the wrecks of ages dug from her bosom—will live for ever in his works to enlighten and instruct mankind.—Foreign Quarterly Review.
Cuvier is said to have died of a paralytic affection of the oesophagus. His body was examined by several eminent pathologists: his brain is stated to have presented a mass of extraordinary volume, weighing three pounds thirteen and a half ounces; a fact which will be treasured up by contemporary phrenologists as evidence of Cuvier's great intellectual capabilities.
[Cuvier was Professor of Geology in the College of France. The chair, vacant by his death, has just been filled by the appointment of M. Elie Beaumont, celebrated for his investigation of mountain formations.]