teach the doctrine of successive creations, of which he distinguished
twenty-seven (_Cours elementaire de palaeontologie stratigraphique_,
1849).

Cuvier, however, can hardly have believed that all species were
present at the beginning, since he does admit a progression of forms.
Probably he had no theory on the subject, for theories without facts
had little interest for him. At any rate it is a mistake to think that
Cuvier was a supporter of the theological doctrine of special
creation. His philosophy of Nature was mechanistic, and he dedicated
his _Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles_ to his friend Laplace. He
admitted the idea of evolution at least so far as to conceive of a
development of man from a savage to a civilised state.[68] He refused
to accept the extravagant evolutionary theory of Demaillet and the
somewhat confused theory of Lamarck (whom he joins with Demaillet),[69]
just as he rejected the transcendental theories of Geoffroy St
Hilaire, because they seemed to him not based upon facts.

[41] _Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee_, tome i., pp. 10 _et
scq._, 1800.

[42] _Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee_, i., p. 18.

[43] _Loc. cit._, i., p. 13.

[44] _Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee_, tome i., Articles
iii.-iv., 1800.

[45] _Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee_, i., p. 47.

[46] _Le Regne Animal_, i., p. 6, 1817.

[47] _Histoire des Progres des Sciences naturelles depuis
1789_, i., p. 310, 1826.

[48] _Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles_, i., p. 60,
1812.

[49] _Ossemens fossiles_, i., p. 60.

[50] _Loc. cit._, i., p. 63.

[51] _Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee_, i., p. 6.

[52] _Le Regne Animal_, i., p. 16.

[53] _Hist. Prog. Sci. Nat._, i., p. 187, 1826.

[54] _Lecons_, i., p. 58.

[55] _Loc. cit._, i., Article iii.

[56] _Loc. cit._, i., p. 60.

[57] _Regne Animal_, i., p. xx.

[58] Cuvier, _Hist. Prog. Sci. Nat._, i., p. 288, 1826.

[59] _Regne Animal_, i., p. 10.

[60] _Regne Animal_, p. 55.

[61] First propounded by Cuvier in 1812, _Ann. Mus.
d'Hist. Nat._, xix.

[62] _Regne Animal_, i., p. 19.

[63] _Loc. cit._, p. 20.

[64] _Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles_, i., p. 74,
1812.

[65] _Loc. cit._, p. 79.

[66] See C. Deperet, _Les transformations du Monde
animal_, Paris, 1907, and G. Steinmann, _Die
geologischen Grundlagen der Abstammungslehre_, Leipzig,