“Your reflections on the differences between animals and plants,” he writes, “in the passage to which I previously referred, will be the more agreeable to me because I am at present working out a new plan of a general natural history. I think we ought carefully to seek out the relation of all existences with the rest of nature, and above all, to show their part in the economy of the great All. In this work I should desire that the investigator should start from the simplest things, such as air and water, and after having spoken of their influence on the whole, he should pass gradually to the compound minerals, from these to plants, and so on; and that at each stage he should ascertain the exact degree of composition, or, which is the same thing, the number of properties it presents over and above those of the preceding stage, the necessary effects of these properties, and their usefulness in creation. Such a work is yet to be executed. The two works of Aristotle, De Historia Animalium, and De Partibus Animalium, which I admire more each time that I read them, contain a part of what I desire, namely, the comparison of species, and many of the general results. It is, indeed, the first scientific essay at a natural history. For this reason it is necessarily incomplete, contains many inaccuracies, and is too far removed from a knowledge of physical laws.” He passes on from Aristotle to Pliny, Theophrastus, Discorides, Aldovrandus, Gesner, Gaspar Bauhin, and Ray, rapidly sketching the history of natural history as a science; and concluding with this criticism on these attempts at a nomenclature which neglected real science:—“These are the dictionaries of natural history; but when will the language be spoken?”
No one who reads these letters attentively, will be surprised at the young Cuvier’s taking eminent rank among the men of science in France; and Pfaff, on arriving in Paris six years afterwards, found his old fellow-student had become “a personage.” The change in Cuvier’s appearance was very striking. He was then at his maturity, and might pass for a handsome man. His shock of red hair was now cut and trimmed in Parisian style; his countenance beamed with health and satisfaction; his expression was lively and engaging; and although the slight tinge of melancholy which was natural to him had not wholly disappeared, yet the fire and vivacity of his genius overcame it. His dress was that of the fashion of the day, not without a little affectation. Yet his life was simple, and wholly devoted to science. He had a lodging in the Jardin des Plantes, and was waited on by an old housekeeper, like any other simple professor.
On Pfaff’s subsequent visit, things were changed. Instead of the old housekeeper, the door was opened by a lackey in grand livery. Instead of asking for “Citizen Cuvier,” he inquired for Monsieur Cuvier; whereupon, the lackey politely asked, whether he wished to see M. le Baron Cuvier, or M. Fréderic, his brother? “I soon found where I was,” continues Pfaff. “It was the baron, separated from me by that immense interval of thirty years, and by those high dignities which an empire offers to the ambition of men.” He found the baron almost exclusively interested in politics, and scarcely giving a thought to science. The “preparations” and “injections” which Pfaff had brought with him from Germany, as a present to Cuvier, were scarcely looked at, and were set aside with an indifferent “that’s good,” and “very fine;” much to Pfaff’s distress, who doubtless thought the fate of the Martignac ministry an extremely small subject of interest compared with these injections of the lymphatics.
But it is not my purpose to paint Cuvier in his later years. It is to the studies of his youth that I would call your attention, to read there, once again, the important lesson that nothing of any solid value can be achieved without entire devotion. Nothing is earned without sweat of the brow. Even the artist must labour intensely. What is called “inspiration” will create no works, but only irradiate works with felicitous flashes; and even inspiration mostly comes in moments of exaltation produced by intense work of the mind. In science, incessant and enlightened labour is necessary, even to the smallest success. Labour is not all; but without it, genius is nothing.
With this homily, dear reader, may be closed our First Series of Studies; to be resumed hereafter, let me hope, with as much willingness on your part as desire to interest you on mine.
FOOTNOTES
[5] See on this point what was said in our first Chapter, No. I. p. 67.
[6] Seaside Studies, 2nd edit. p. 59, sq.
[7] Compare Leuckart: Ueber den Polymorphismus der Individuen. Gegenbaur: Grundzüge der Vergleichende Anatomie; and Huxley’s splendid monograph on the Oceanic Hydrozoa, published by the Ray Society.
[8] Lettres de Georges Cuvier à C. M. Pfaff, 1788-92. Traduites de l’Allemand, par Louis Marchant, 1858.