Georges Cuvier

French naturalist

• Born: August 23, 1769
• Birthplace: Montbéliard, Württemberg (now in France)
• Died: May 13, 1832
• Place of death: Paris, France

Cuvier was an anatomist who greatly extended the classification system of Linnaeus by dividing living organisms and the fossil record into phyla. He was also an antievolutionist who adapted the theory that organic changes in the world were shaped by series of catastrophes.

Early Life

Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (kew-vee-ay) was the son of a retired French officer. His father had married late in life and had moved to Montbéliard. Montbéliard had been part of French Burgundy but came under the control of the duke of Württemberg. The region kept the French language but adopted Lutheranism. His family had originally wanted young Cuvier to become a Lutheran minister, but he was denied a scholarship to theology school. In 1784, he found a patron in the wife of the governor of the city and was able to attend Caroline University, near Stuttgart. Although his initial studies were in legal and administrative areas, Cuvier befriended the zoology lecturer Karl Kielmayer, who taught him comparative anatomy and the intricacies of dissection. Cuvier was a short man with bright blue eyes and thick red hair. His weight increased throughout his life, with the result that he eventually was given the nickname “Mammoth.”

Cuvier completed his studies in 1788, and for the next six years he served as a private tutor to a noble Protestant family in Normandy. During this time, the French Revolution was occurring, and, while many dramatic and far-reaching events were taking place in Paris, Cuvier lived his life quietly in the countryside. There he continued his dissection of various ocean organisms and recorded his work. An acquaintance suggested to Cuvier that he send his unpublished papers to Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Invited by Geoffroy to be his assistant at the Museum of Natural History, Cuvier went to Paris in 1795 and launched his career in science.

Life’s Work

Once Cuvier settled in Paris, his career progressed rapidly through the combination of his scientific accomplishments, his teaching abilities, and his administrative acumen. As a result of the dissections he performed in Normandy, he presented a paper in which he demonstrated that the classification of invertebrate animals into insects and worms could be reclassified into mollusks, crustaceans, insects, worms, echinoderms, and zoophytes. With his keen eye for detail and his ability to classify organisms accurately, he was appointed both professor of zoology and assistant professor of animal anatomy.

Through the rest of his life, promotions and honors came to Cuvier almost without pause. In 1800, he succeeded the eminent anatomist Louis Daubenton as a professor at the Collège de France and was given the responsibility of organizing the science departments of several lower schools. In 1808, Napoleon I made him university counselor, and he provided leadership in organizing the new Sorbonne in Paris. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, Cuvier continued to offer his services. Beginning in 1819, he chaired the Council of State in the Interior Department. He was made a baron in that same year, was elevated to the Legion of Honor in 1824, and became a Peer of France in 1831.

Cuvier’s scientific accomplishments were the direct result of his position at the Museum of Natural History. The French government was committed to the creation of an internationally recognized research institution. Upon Cuvier’s arrival, he immediately arranged to increase the anatomy collection. By 1804, he had increased this collection to three thousand items and by 1832 to more than thirteen thousand items. Without leaving Paris, Cuvier could dissect and prepare the anatomy of his organisms and create his classification systems for birds and fish. In fact little progress had been made before Cuvier in the classification of invertebrates. They were all thrown into a single catchall group called worms. In 1795, when Cuvier first arrived in Paris, he divided these into six new classes. By 1812, he was able to classify all animals into four phyla: vertebrates, mollusks, articulates, and radiates. Within these phyla, Cuvier discovered a number of new classes, orders, and families. Some of these had been grouped with others, and many were simply overlooked.

Cuvier’s method of classification was a departure from the earlier Linnaean system, in which an organism had a number of independent and arbitrary characteristics. Taking a cue from Comte de Buffon, who treated an organism as a whole entity, Cuvier expanded this idea into the correlation of parts. Because all the functions of an organism are dependent on one another, the anatomical parts are also integrated in the organism. Through one well-preserved bone, it is possible to determine the class, order, genus, and in many cases the species of the animal. The application of this method not only produced rapid advances in the study of comparative anatomy but also was expanded to fossil remains. As early as 1804, Cuvier had tried to reconstruct the shape of the muscles of an extinct animal from the imprint left on the bones. The final step was to imagine a skin on this extinct animal, and it was resurrected.

Cuvier’s contributions to anatomy and paleontology could have placed him among the earliest of the evolutionists. He found that several geological strata contained organisms peculiar to them. He also possessed ample evidence of extinction, because he examined the remains of an extinct elephant that differed significantly from any known living species.

In addition, Cuvier’s knowledge of comparative anatomy was unequaled until the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Cuvier, however, rejected all evolutionary explanations of his discoveries. One possible explanation for this position can be found in his belief that nature was an immense network that had remained fixed in place since the Creation. After 1812, he admitted that creation must have taken place over several stages, and he adapted Charles Bonnet’s theory of catastrophism , which postulated that the world was totally flooded on several occasions. After each flood, life was created again, hence the various strata and different organic remains.

Although Cuvier was a devout Christian, his opposition to evolution could have originated from his intellectual makeup rather than from his religious beliefs. A review of his extensive writings shows that religious doctrines rarely entered his scientific work. Possibly, Cuvier rejected the notion of evolution because he did not see a chain of organisms that evolved from simple to more complex functions. His network was not a continuous one moving from a series of related species, but rather a discontinuous one in which each species was complete in itself, and the parts worked in total harmony. Also, the geological record of his time was limited and supported the conclusion that organic forms from one stratum could not be found in a later one. Later, when Cuvier found a similar organic form in several strata, he modified his catastrophe theory toward local events such as earthquakes, volcanic action, and mountain building.

Whatever Cuvier’s reasons were for rejecting a theory of evolution, he became engaged in a famous academic conflict, beginning in 1802, that was to last until his death in 1832. The conflict involved his former friends Geoffroy and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck . The conflict produced secret investigations on the religious beliefs of Lamarck and Geoffroy. Mummified animals were brought back from Egypt to demonstrate the transformation of species. In a further episode, Cuvier had erroneously classified an extinct crocodile, an event that brought Geoffroy to the attack. While this battle was vigorously fought among the combatants and their disciples, the press and political groups also entered the fray to champion their own views. Despite his power and prestige, Cuvier was unable to prevail in this dispute. As Cuvier lay dying, Sir Charles Lyell published his work on geology, which produced crucial evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Significance

Georges Cuvier lived and worked in a world that was undergoing rapid change. The French Revolution dramatically altered European society and culture. Cuvier moved adroitly through a dangerously revolutionary Paris, rose to prominence under the empire of Napoleon, and maintained his administrative positions through the restoration of the monarchy and its fall in the July revolution of 1830. He was a Protestant in a predominantly Catholic country, and he was a poor man who acquired wealth and titles. Even without his scientific contributions, his activities would rate a minor place in the history of France. He was a man who had extensive interests; indeed, his personal library included more than nineteen thousand books covering history, law, and natural sciences. He absorbed this material and committed it to memory. With this knowledge, he completed a vast amount of work as secretary of the National Institute, and under Napoleon he shaped and changed the university system of France.

It was not a narrowness of vision which kept Cuvier from arriving at a theory of evolution or considering the merits of such an idea. He possessed a grand and ordered view of nature, along with an intricate knowledge of the anatomical parts of hundreds of species. For him, each organic form was already perfect, with not one evolving into greater complexity. Perhaps he understood too much to see the simple mechanism of change built into the individuals of a species. Without his discoveries in anatomy, paleontology, and the theory of correlation of parts, however, many others would have had to duplicate this work before the theory of evolution could have been developed.

Bibliography

Bourdier, Franck. “Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Versus Cuvier: The Campaign for Paleontological Evolution (1825-39).” In Towards a History of Geology, edited by Cecil J. Schneer. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969. Covers the acrimonious conflict between Cuvier and Geoffroy through the differences in their temperaments and careers. The author’s sympathies lie with Geoffroy, and he cites him as one of the great precursors to Darwin. Reviews some new sources of information to make his case.

Coleman, William R. Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964. Covers Cuvier’s zoological and anatomical work in detail. Several sections are too complex for the general reader, but the information on Cuvier’s methodology and classification is valuable. Suggests that Cuvier’s rejection of evolution is less influenced by his religious attitudes than by his intellectual makeup.

Cuvier, Georges. Cuvier’s Animals: 867 Illustrations from the Classic Nineteenth Century Work. Selected and arranged by Carol Belanger Grafton. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1996. A collection of Cuvier’s engraved illustrations of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, mollusks, and other creatures.

Eisley, Loren. Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958. Presents Cuvier as a crucial predecessor to Darwin in the story of evolution. The sections on Cuvier are scattered in several parts of the text. Written in a simple style with ample information on Cuvier. An excellent overview of the history of evolutionary theory.

Mayr, Ernst. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Mayr is the recognized authority on Darwin and the history of biological evolution. In each of the major sections of this work there are sections on Cuvier and his contributions to the world of biological ideas. The material can be difficult at times, but the treatment is definitive.

Nordenskiöld, Eric. The History of Biology. New York: Tudor, 1928. Chapter 2 of part 3 covers Cuvier’s life and career. The topics include comparative anatomy, correlation of parts theory, paleontology, catastrophe theory, and the controversy with Geoffroy. Dated but competent.

Outram, Dorinda. Georges Cuvier: Vocation, Science, and Authority in Post-revolutionary France. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1984. Biography of Cuvier, placing him within the context of nineteenth century French science and politics.

Rudwick, Martin J. S. George Cuvier: Fossil Bones and Geological Catastrophes—New Translations and Interpretations of the Primary Texts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Rudwick has translated and interpreted many of Cuvier’s writings on fossils and catastrophes. He advocates the importance of the ideas expressed in these works, which anticipated modern research into mass extinction and the use of fossils as a record of plant and animal life.