It is this which gives Cuvier’s Letters to Pfaff[8] their charm. I confess that, M. le Baron Cuvier, administrator, politician, academician, professor, dictator, has always had but a very tepid interest for me; probably because his career early became a continuous success, and Europe heaped rewards upon him; whereas, his unsuccessful rival, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, claims my sympathy to the close. If, however, M. le Baron is a somewhat dim figure in my biographical gallery, it is far otherwise with the youth Cuvier, as seen in his letters; and, as at this present moment there is nothing under our Microscope which can seduce us from the pleasant volume, suppose we let our “Studies” take a biographical direction.
“Genius,” says Carlyle, “means transcendent capacity for taking trouble, first of all.” There are many young gentlemen devoutly persuaded of their own genius, and yet candidly avowing their imperfect capacity for taking trouble, who will vehemently protest against this doctrine. Without discussing it here, let us say that genius, or no genius, success of any value is only to be purchased by immense labour; and in science, assuredly, no one will expect success without first paying this price. In Cuvier’s history may be seen what “capacity for taking trouble” was required before his success could be achieved; and this gives these Lettres à Pfaff a moral as well as an interest.
It was in the Rittersaal of the Academia Carolina of Stuttgardt that Pfaff, the once famous supporter of Volta, and in 1787, the fellow-student of Cuvier, first became personally acquainted with him. Although they had been three years together at the same university, the classification of students there adopted had prevented any personal acquaintance. Pupils were admitted at the age of nine, and commenced their studies with the classic languages. Thence they passed to the philosophical class, and from that they went to one of the four faculties: Law, Medicine, Administration, and Military Science. Each faculty, of course, was kept distinct; and as Pfaff was studying philosophy at the time Cuvier was occupied with the administrative sciences, they never met, the more so as the dormitories and hours of recreation were different. The academy was organized on military principles. The three hundred students were divided into six classes, two of which comprised the nobles, and the other four the bourgeoisie. Each of these classes had its own dormitory, and was placed under the charge of a captain, a lieutenant, and two inferior officers. These six classes in which the students were entered according to their age, size, and time of admission, were kept separate in their recreations, as in their studies. But those of the students who particularly distinguished themselves in the public examinations were raised to the rank of knights, and had a dormitory to themselves, besides dining at the same table with the young princes who were then studying at the university. Pfaff and Cuvier were raised to this dignity at the same time, and here commenced their friendship.
What a charm there is in school friendships, when youth is not less eager to communicate its plans and hopes, than to believe in the plans and hopes of others; when studies are pursued in common, opinions frankly interchanged, and the superiority of a friend is gladly acknowledged, even becoming a source of pride, instead of being, as in after years, a thorn in the side of friendship! This charm was felt by Cuvier and Pfaff, and a small circle of fellow-students who particularly devoted themselves to Natural History. They formed themselves into a society, of which Cuvier drew up the statutes and became the president. They read memoirs, and discussed discoveries with all the gravity of older societies, and even published, among themselves, a sort of Comptes Rendus. They made botanical, entomological, and geological excursions; and, still further to stimulate their zeal, Cuvier instituted an Order of Merit, painting himself the medallion: it represented a star, with the portrait of Linnæus in the centre, and between the rays various treasures of the animal and vegetable world. And do you think these boys were not proud when their president awarded them this medal for some happy observation of a new species, or some well-considered essay on a scientific question?
At this period Cuvier’s outward appearance was as unlike M. le Baron, as the grub is unlike the butterfly. Absorbed in his multifarious studies, he was careless about disguising the want of elegance in his aspect. His face was pale, very thin, and long, covered with freckles, and encircled by a shock of red hair. His physiognomy was severe and melancholy. He never played at any of the boys’ games, and seemed as insensible of all that was going on around him as a somnambulist. His eye seemed turned inwards; his thoughts moved amid problems and abstractions. Nothing could exceed the insatiable ardour of his intellect. Besides his special administrative studies, he gave himself to Botany, Zoology, Philosophy, Mathematics, and the history of literature. No work was too voluminous, or too heavy for him. He was reading all day long, and a great part of the night. “I remember well,” says Pfaff, “how he used to sit by my bedside going regularly through Bayle’s Dictionary. Falling asleep over my own book, I used to awake, after an hour or two, and find him motionless as a statue, bent over Bayle.” It was during these years that he laid the basis of that extensive erudition which distinguished his works in after life, and which is truly remarkable when we reflect that Cuvier was not in the least a bookworm, but was one of the most active workers, drawing his knowledge of details from direct inspection whenever it was possible, and not from the reports of others. It was here also that he preluded to his success as a professor, astonishing his friends and colleagues by the clearness of his exposition, which he rendered still more striking by his wonderful mastery with the pencil. One may safely say that there are few talents which are not available in Natural History; a talent for drawing is pre-eminently useful, since it not only enables a man to preserve observations of fugitive appearances, but sharpens his faculty of observation by the exercise it gives. Cuvier’s facile pencil was always employed: if he had nothing to draw for his own memoirs, or those of his colleagues, he amused himself with drawing insects as presents to the young ladies of his acquaintance—an entomologist’s gallantry, which never became more sentimental.
In 1788, that is in his nineteenth year, Cuvier quitted Stuttgardt, and became tutor in a nobleman’s family in Normandy, where he remained till 1795, when he was discovered by the Abbé Tessier, who wrote to Parmentier, “I have just found a pearl in the dunghill of Normandy;” to Jussieu he wrote—“Remember it was I who gave Delambre to the academy; in another department this also will be a Delambre.” Geoffroy St. Hilaire, already professor at the Jardin des Plantes, though younger than Cuvier, was shown some of Cuvier’s manuscripts, which filled him with such enthusiasm that he wrote to him, “Come and fill the place of Linnæus here; come and be another legislator of natural history.” Cuvier came, and Geoffroy stood aside to let his great rival be seen.
Goethe, as I have elsewhere remarked, has noticed the curious coincidence of the three great zoologists successively opening to their rivals the path to distinction: Buffon called Daubenton to aid him; Daubenton called Geoffroy; and Geoffroy called Cuvier. Goethe further notices that there was the same radical opposition in the tendencies of Buffon and Daubenton as in those of Geoffroy and Cuvier—the opposition of the synthetical and the analytical mind. Yet this opposition did not prevent mutual esteem and lasting regard. Geoffroy and Cuvier were both young, and had in common ambition, love of science, and the freshness of unformed convictions. For, alas! it is unhappily too true, that just as the free communicativeness of youth gives place to the jealous reserve of manhood, and the youth who would only be too pleased to tell all his thoughts and all his discoveries to a companion, would in after years let his dearest friend first see a discovery in an official publication; so, likewise, in the early days of immature speculation, before convictions have crystalized enough to present their sharp angles of opposition, friends may discuss and interchange ideas without temper. Geoffroy and Cuvier knew no jealousy then. In after years it was otherwise.
Geoffroy had a position—he shared it with his friend; he had books and collections—they were open to his rival; he had a lodging in the museum—it was shared between them. Daubenton, older and more worldly wise, warned Geoffroy against this zeal in fostering a formidable rival; and one day placed before him a copy of Lafontaine open at the fable of The Bitch and her Neighbour. But Geoffroy was not to be daunted, and probably felt himself strong enough to hold his own. And so the two happy, active youths pursued their studies together, wrote memoirs conjointly, discussed, dissected, speculated together, and “never sat down to breakfast without having made a fresh discovery,” as Cuvier said, truly enough, for to them every step taken was a discovery.
Cuvier became almost immediately famous on his arrival at Paris, and his career henceforward was one uninterrupted success. Those who wish to gain some insight into the causes of this success should read the letters to Pfaff, which indicate the passionate patience of his studies during the years 1788-1795, passed in obscurity on the Norman coast. Every animal he can lay hands on is dissected with the greatest care, and drawings are made of every detail of interest. Every work that is published of any note in his way is read, analyzed, and commented on. Lavoisier’s new system of chemistry finds in him an ardent disciple. Kielmeyer’s lectures open new vistas to him. The marvels of marine life, in those days so little thought of, he studies with persevering minuteness, and with admirable success. He dissects the cuttlefish, and makes his drawings of it with its own ink. He notes minute characters with the patience of a species-monger, whose sole ambition is to affix his name to some trifling variation of a common form; yet with this minuteness of detail he unites the largeness of view necessary to a comparative anatomist.