Georges Cuvier

We have just seen that the views of the two great naturalists, Lamarck and Geoffroy, shared a close intellectual relationship to those of Buffon. They considered almost all the philosophical aspects of the natural history of animals and developed marvelous insights based on their ability to synthesize from an intimate knowledge of zoology. With admirable logic, they developed insights drawn from other branches of science that enabled them to explore a wide range of ideas and make them consistent with a single, supreme goal: to discover the secret plan of creation. In a similar way, Cuvier expanded on the work of Linnaeus. The background of this person who would one day dominate the natural sciences through his brilliant discoveries and intellectual innovations was quite different from that of Geoffroy. While still a student in Paris, Geoffroy undertook to pursue his studies of the higher vertebrates under Daubenton, whereas the young George Cuvier, who at that time was a tutor for the Héricy family at the chateau of Fiquainville near Fécamp, was devoting his leisure time to studies of the lower animals, mainly the invertebrates that flourish in the sea. There was no attractive central plan that Cuvier could build on. The class of worms, in which Linnaeus had included almost all marine invertebrates except the crustaceans, was a highly diverse assemblage of species that did not seem to have anything in common other than their low place in the ranks of animal life.