Georges Cuvier

CUVIER, Georges (1769–1832), a famous comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Born in Montbéliard (Alsace). In 1788, while working as a private tutor, he began studies in natural history and investigated marine animals, especially mollusks on the coast of Normandy. In 1794, he was invited to Paris as a lecturer at the central Pantheon school, and in 1795, he began lecturing on comparative anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, first as a deputy to Professor Mertrud, and later as a professor (1800). All of Cuvier's subsequent activity took place in Paris, where he worked jointly with Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and served as a professor at the Collège de France, a member of the National Institute (1800), founder of the Academy in Italy and Holland (1808 and 1811), councilor (1808) and chancellor of the university (1814), and a Peer of France. Cuvier was a brilliant scientist who also possessed enormous capacity for work. He accomplished a great deal in animal systematics, comparative anatomy, and paleontology, laying a solid foundation for the development of the latter two sciences. Cuvier's scientific activity can be divided into several periods. Initially, he was engaged in the study of invertebrate animals, especially mollusks and worms. Cuvier was a proponent of the fixity of species, although he provided much data for the theory of the evolution of the animal world. He divided the latter into four types: vertebrates, articulates, mollusks, and radiates. During the second period, Cuvier was engaged in the comparative anatomy of vertebrates, having investigated a vast amount of material and analyzed in detail the structure of individual organs. Viewing the organism as a whole, he pointed to the harmonic combination of organs among themselves and between their function and structure. Cuvier was the founder of the theory of correlations. "Every organism," says Cuvier, "forms one indivisible whole, in which all parts cannot change without all other parts undergoing change." From one individual part, one can judge the structure of the whole. This law of the correlation of parts played a huge role when applied to paleontology. As a paleontologist, Cuvier, in his famous memoirs "Researches on Fossil Bones" (Recherches sur les ossements fossiles, 1812), set forth with striking clarity the basic concepts of two related sciences—comparative anatomy and paleontology. Through his work on the investigation of fossil animals (from the gypsum quarries of the Montmartre hill), he recreated a general picture of the extinct world, and he quite clearly outlined the gradual improvement of structure from more ancient forms to later ones. However, Cuvier viewed the change of faunas as the result of periodic catastrophes (Cuvier's theory of catastrophes). The view usually attributed to Cuvier of universal catastrophes with subsequent acts of creation is incorrect, since, according to Cuvier, the catastrophes were local, and the settlement by new organisms occurred through the immigration of animals. The significance of Cuvier for science is enormous, and he is justly considered the main founder of modern comparative anatomy and paleontology. Principal works of Cuvier: "Leçons d'anatomie comparée" (v. I–V, Paris, 1801–1805); "Recherches sur les ossements fossiles" (v. I–IV, P., 1812); "Le règne animal distribué d'après son organisation" (v. I–IV, P., 1817); "Histoire des progrès des sciences naturelles" (P., 1841–45).