CUVIER, GEORGES (b. Montbéliard, Württemberg, 23 August 1769; d. Paris, France, 13 May 1832), zoology, paleontology, history of science.

    chain. Cuvier objected that as many chains must be supposed as there were systems of organs, because in the groups of living beings it was not the same systems of organs that exhibit increasing complexity. Pfaff seems to have replied that this chain might lead in different directions and might be branched like a family tree, for Cuvier replied in 1792: “I believe, I see that aquatic animals were created for the water and the others for the air. But whether it is a question of branches or roots, or even different parts of a single trunk, I say again this is what I am unable to comprehend.”

Cuvier seems to have reached soon after a sort of intellectual turning point: in the same year he published in the Journal d'histoire naturelle his first work devoted to wood lice. There he suddenly appears to be a proponent of the chain of being: “Here, as else-where, nature makes no jumps . . . therefore, the descent is by degrees from crayfish to Squilla, from Squilla to Asellidae, then to wood lice, to Armadilladiidae and to galley worms. All of these genera must be related to a single natural class.”

Cuvier, who had become a French citizen upon the annexation of the territory of Montbéliard in 1793, sought recognition in the scientific world of Paris. He wrote to Lacépède and Haüy; and at the suggestion of the agronomist H. A. Tessier he sent a selection of his unpublished works to Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who had been appointed professor at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle when only twenty-one. Geoffroy, full of youthful enthusiasm, encouraged Cuvier to come to Paris; he did so at the beginning of 1795. Shortly after his arrival, he took advantage of the numerous dissections that he had performed in NOrmandy and presented a paper that marked a new stage in the study of invertebrates. “Before me,” he wrote in 1829, “modern naturalists divided all nonvertebrate animals into two classes, insects and worms. I was the first . . . to offer another division . . . in which I pointed out the characteristics and limits of mollusks, crustaceans, insects, worms, echinoderms, and zoophytes.”

Lamarck, in the introduction to his course of 1796, acknowledged that he was going “to follow to a very great extent [the classification] devised by the learned naturalist Cuvier.” Geoffroy had invited Cuvier to work with him, and their collaboration lasted a year. Geoffroy, like his patron Daubenton, was hostile to the idea of the chain of being but changed his mind, probably under the influence of his new friend. In their paper on tarsiers Cuvier and Geoffroy felt that “this genus could be considered as the link uniting quadrumana to Chiroptera or bats.” In a paper on orangutans they audaciously proposed the idea of the origin of species from a single type. Lamarck claimed that he owed his theory of the transformation of species to J. J. Barthélemy, who in 1788 had revived the ideas of the Greeks on this subject. Lamarck was very close to Geoffroy, however; and he was certainly influenced in 1795 by Geoffroy's conversion to the theory of the chain of being, a theory that Cuvier may well have borrowed from Kielmeyer through Pfaff.

The rapidity and brilliance of Cuvier's career was the consequence both of the importance of his scientific work and of his ability as a teacher; after only a few minutes of preparation he was able to deliver a logically constructed lecture in a confident manner; without stopping his lecture he illustrated his ideas by means of quick blackboard drawings that were as clear as they were accurate. In Paris, where there was a shortage of zoologists, it was only natural that shortly after his arrival he should be appointed professor of zoology at the Écoles centrales (which replaced the former universities for a few years) and assistant professor of animal anatomy at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. Because of his position at the museum, Cuvier was given quarters in the Jardin des Plantes, near the menagerie. He lived there until his death.

In April 1796, Cuvier became a member of the Class of Physical Sciences at the Institut de France. He was only twenty-six at the time. He succeeded Daubenton as a professor at the Collège de France in 1800 and was given the responsibility for organizing the lycées in Bordeaux, Nice, and Marseilles. In 1803 he assumed the remunerative duties of permanent secretary of physical sciences at the Institute. The following year the Empire replaced the Consulate. In 1808 Napoleon appointed Cuvier university counselor. He contributed enormously to the organization of the new Sorbonne in Paris. Next he was sent on a mission to Italy, the Netherlands, and southern Germany to reorganize higher education there (1809-1813). As payment for his services he received an endowment and the title of chevalier in 1811.

The restored monarchy succeeded the Empire in 1814 and Cuvier—whose political ideal, it was said, had been enlightened despotism—became the devoted servant of the kings. Stendhal wrote: “What servility and baseness has not been shown toward those in power by M. Cuvier!” And indeed, in order to placate those in power, he did not hesitate to contradict his past by associating himself with the adversaries of that liberalism which was so dear to Protestants. On the other hand, he did support the exercise and even the development of Protestantism at a time when the ultraroyalists were hostile to it. He was the director of Protestant universities and, for a while, was