Scientific Biography and the Case of Georges Cuvier: With a Critical Bibliography

E.g., Lyell K. M. , Life and letters … of Sir Charles Lyell (2 vols, London, 1881), i, 249–50.

Apart from some murmurs of unease in Poirier J. , “Georges Cuvier, second fondateur de l'Université”, Revue de Paris (July-August 1932), 85–115. Conversely, the few studies of his political career only mention his scientific pursuits in passing; e.g., Puget H. , “Cuvier au Conseil d'Etat”, Revue politique et parlementaire, lii (1932), 300–19.

There are about twenty of these stock incidents, and it may be found helpful to have a list readily available: His natal year shared with Napoleon, Scott, and Wellington; his mother's care and influence; his first encounters with works by Gesner and Buffon; his reading-circle at school; his declamation to the Duke of Württemberg; refused a place at the theological academy in Tübingen; his journey to Stuttgart; wins the German language prize; made a ‘chevalier’; a tutor in Normandy; his first meeting with the Abbé Tessier, who is responsible for his first contacts in Paris (this is clearly incorrect); refuses to join the Egyptian expedition; various teaching posts in Paris, and membership of the Institut; his marriage and the death of his children, especially Clementine Cuvier; his daily timetable; his unceasing activity; his last lecture; his last illness; leaves only a modest estate; dies in the same year as Goethe and Scott; list of his other offices in the administration of education, religion, and the Ministry of the Interior.

Coleman W. , Georges Cuvier, zoologist: A study in the history of evolution theory (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), was the first serious book-length study since her Memoirs of Baron Cuvier (London and New York, 1833; translated into French by Théodore Lacordaire in the same year). Eulogies of Cuvier were also common in the serious reviews, but these, though often informative, would have reached a smaller audience than that of Mrs Lee. See [ Brewster David ], “Review of Mrs Lee and other works on Cuvier”, Edinburgh review , cxxxvi (1836), 265–97. Mrs Lee gives extensive quotations from the Règne animal and from the Histoire naturelle des poissons (pp. 106; 123).

E.g., Peattie D. C. , Green laurels: The lives and achievements of the great naturalists (London, 1937), 184–205; Hays H. R. , Birds, beasts and men: A humanist history of zoology (London, 1973).

Eloge historique de Georges Cuvier (Paris, 1834). Read to the Académie des Sciences on 29 December 1834. The ‘autobiography’ is now ms. Flourens 2598(3) of the library of the Institut de France.

Pasquier E. , Eloge de M. le Baron Cuvier (Chambre des Pairs, séance du 17 septembre 1832) ; Laurillard C. L. , Eloge de M. le Baron Cuvier … discours couronné par l'Académie des Sciences, Arts, et Belles-Lettres de Besançon, 24 août 1833 . Reprinted (Paris, 1834), both separately and as the preface to Cuvier's Recherches sur les ossements fossiles des quadrupèdes (10 vols, Paris, 1834–36), i, 3–78. The article in the Biographie universelle (ed. Michaud , Paris, 1852), ix, 590–600, is also based on his work.

Mrs Lee has also hallowed several factual errors about Cuvier's life: That his first contacts with Paris were through Tessier in 1795, whereas he had already published papers in Paris in 1792; that he became a member of the Institut in 1796, whereas he did so in 1795; and that he married in 1803, whereas he did so in 1804. The first error is the most important, and may originate in similar statements by St. Hilaire Geoffroy , in his “Discours sur la tombe de Cuvier”, Annales des sciences naturelles , xxvi (1832), 403: A speech delivered at Cuvier's funeral, 16 May 1832.

See ref. 4.

See their correspondence with Babbage, British Museum, Add mss. 37951, 37185, 37187, 37182. Bowdich's own career offers a good example of the kind of difficulties faced by the autodidact without assured financial support. His life is sympathetically described by another participant in the ‘Declinist’ debate, Swainson William , Taxidermy, bibliography and biography (Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, London, 1840), 135–7. Cuvier also contributed notes to Bowdich's Excursions dans les îles de Madère et de Porto-Santo faites dans l'automne de 1823 pendant son troisième voyage en Afrique (Paris, 1826). On the ‘Declinist’ controversy in general, see Foote G. A. , “The place of science in the British reform movement, 1830–1850”, Isis, xlii (1951), 192–208. Babbage Charles , The decline of science in England (London, 1830) is the contemporary locus classicus for ‘Declinist’ opinions, and also uses Cuvier repeatedly to help to prove its case about the organization of science.

An interesting study could be made of Cuvier's reputation in England before 1832, but would go well beyond the scope of this paper. On Cuvier and geology in England, see Page L. E. , “Diluvianism and its critics in Great Britain in the early nineteenth century”, in Schneer C. J. (ed.), Toward a history of geology (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1969), 257–71. For Stewart Dugald , Collected works (ed. Hamilton Wm Sir , 10 vols and supplement, Edinburgh, 1854), iv, 387–8. (I owe this reference to Karl Figlio).

For a thoughtful study of press attitudes towards Cuvier during the public debate with Geoffroy, see Lubosch W. , “Die Akademiestreit zwischen Geoffroy St. Hilaire und Cuvier im Jahre 1830, und seine leitenden Gedanken”, Biologische Centralblatt, xxxviii (1918), 357–84, 397–456. Possibly the most detailed and sensitive study of these issues, Lubosch's work is also alone in recognizing that the historiography of Cuvier poses a problem in its own right.

See the accounts of the conflicts with Arago in 1830 (p. 310), with Geoffroy from 1830–32 (p. 129), and the brief account of the differences with Lamarck (p. 99).

In 1932, André Mayer still found it necessary to assure his audience that although Cuvier was a man of science, he had not preached violent revolution. See Peuteuil S. , Les fêtes du centenaire de Cuvier (Montbéliard, 1933), 118–23.

Histoire des sciences de l'organisation et de leurs progrès comme base de la philosophie (3 vols, Paris, 1845), iii, 335–466.

Burkhardt R. W. Jr , “Lamarck, evolution, and the politics of science”, Journal of the history of biology, iii (1970), 275–98, though correcting the usual presentation of Lamarck as Cuvier's helpless victim, nevertheless still envisages their relationship as one of unceasing conflict. This assumption has obscured their common ground in zoological thought, and has contributed to a lasting misinterpretation of the work of both men.

Blainville (ref. 15), iii, 351: “La vie de M. de Lamarck est une belle vie de savant, et elle nous montre comment il était apte à tous les parties des sciences naturelles”.

“… have exalted him above his true worth; because of his political power, it has been easy for them to represent him as the ornament of his age, the Aristotle of modern times”.

“… angered by political factors or for other reasons, have attacked him with a fury so violent as to be the result only of prejudice”.

“a fatal reef for most intelligences so gifted”.

For example, the articles collected in the memorial volume of the Archives du Muséum National d'histoire naturelle, ser. 6, ix (1932), emphasize this interpretation of Cuvier, to validate an onslaught on contemporary vitalism.

There is no full-length study of Blainville's thought, though valuable indications are given in Gouhier H. , “La philosophie positive et chrétienne de Ducrotay de Blainville”, Revue philosophique, cxxxi (1941), 38–69.

It is interesting to note that these concerns are present through the entire range of accounts of Cuvier, and do not remain the exclusive property of ‘academic’ surveys of his life. The extensive literature for children and adolescents often differs from works by such writers as Lee, Pasquier, and even Flourens, only in the complexity of the language employed. Aspects of Cuvier's life which find particular emphasis in these accounts for young people are his achievements in classification and in paleontology, which emphasise the mastery of the human enquirer over nature in both space and time. No other scientist attracted such interest from popular writers in the first half of the century; partly this represents the success of propaganda for Cuvier at the higher ‘academic’ levels, partly Cuvier's own success as a popularizer; but the continuity of concerns throughout the spectrum also points to shared concerns at all levels about the problems of the social and personal role of the scientist which Cuvier's career seemed to contain. Examples of writing for young people, both to be found in the British Museum, are Day G. , Naturalists and their investigations (London, 1896), 98–131; and Demoulin Mme Gustave , Cuvier (Paris, 1881), a work designed for use in lycée classes, and written in a clear and pleasing style.

For the evolution of this ideal, see Marsak L. M. , “Bernard de Fontenelle: The idea of science in the French Enlightenment”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, xlix (1959); Sonntag O. , “The motivations of the scientist: The self-image of Albrecht von Haller”, Isis, lxv (1974), 336–51. An interesting comparative study could be made along these lines by examining, for example, collections of funeral orations for and by members of the Académie des sciences, and would help to explore, on a wider basis than can be achieved in this paper, the exploitation of biography to establish the stereotype of the scientist.

Cuvier et Geoffroy St. Hilaire: Biographies scientifiques. Blainville died in 1865.

Almost all studies of Cuvier have tied the events of his last years to evolutionary concerns, and this interpretation has only just begun to crumble. A forerunner here was Piveteau J. , “Le débat entre Cuvier et Geoffroy St. Hilaire sur l'unité de plan et de composition”, Revue d'histoire des sciences , iii-iv (1950–51), 343–63. However, the tendency to attempt to explain Cuvier by reference only to the scientific sphere of his life is also present in works unconcerned with the evolutionary debate. E.g., Rudwick M. J. S. , The meaning of fossils: Episodes in the history of paleontology (London-New York, 1972), 101–63. In 1865, Flourens published De l'unité de composition et du débat entre Cuvier et Geoffroy St. Hilaire (Paris).

“Les premiers temps de l'idée évolutionniste: Lamarck, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, et Cuvier”, Annales de la Société royale et malacologique de Belgique, l-lii (1919–21), 53–89. On Pelseneer himself, see Brien P. , “Le lamarckisme de Paul Pelseneer”, Bulletin de la Société zoologique de France, lxxi-lxxii (1946–47), 134–40.

“… the rigour of his narrow Protestantism … which led him always to defend the letter of biblical tradition. But it seems that this was really due to his Germanic mentality, formed by his early education”.

I hope to provide some more information on Cuvier's early contacts in Paris in my forthcoming edition of his correspondence with the Tuscan physicist Giovanni Fabbroni.

“… which led to his dominance of situations and influence, and which were lacking in men exclusively occupied, as were his two rivals, with scientific work. … Thus Cuvier benefited by his prominence in the extra-scientific world of administration, from his scientific prestige; and on the other hand, in the scientific world, he benefited from and abused his political situation and administrative influence”.

Another example of this reworking is Trouessart E. , Cuvier et Geoffroy St. Hilaire d'après les naturalistes allemands (Paris, 1909), which is almost entirely taken up with an attack on K. E. von Baer's view of Cuvier; and more recently, Huard P. and Montagné M. , “Georges Cuvier et son temps”, L'extrême-orient médical , i (1949), 179–259, which also provides an extensive and inaccurate bibliography.

“When knowledge is sufficiently advanced and ideas are mature, they arise automatically, irresistibly, in the brain of a man whose learning is sufficient to rear them; and if these qualities are lacking in one individual, the idea will come from another”.

Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. Gillispie C. C. , iii (New York, 1971), 521–7.

As well as consecrating Cuvier's “somewhat Germanic mentality”, Bourdier's article is also marred by factual inaccuracies: Cuvier visited England in 1818, not in 1817; he became a member of the Institut in 1795, not 1796 (see ref. 8); and Kielmayer was not the founder of Naturphilosophie, a movement which he detested.

See ref. 4. This book was based on a doctoral thesis. Coleman's more recent work on Cuvier shows a considerable advance in the complexity of its viewpoint, and in its grasp of the whole context within which Cuvier operated. See, for example, the valuable article “Les organismes marins et l'anatomie comparée dite expérimentale: L'oeuvre de Georges Cuvier”, Vie et milieu , suppl. vol. xix (1965), 225–38. It should also be noted that no reviews of Coleman's book showed any awareness of the special problems and implications of scientific biography; e.g., Wilson L. G. , Isis , lv (1964), 223, de Beer Gavin , Journal of the history of medicine, xx (1965), 80–81.