Biographical Memoir of M. de Lamarck. By the Baron Cuvier.

THE
EDINBURGH NEW
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL.

Biographical Memoir of M. de Lamarck. By the Baron Cuvier.

Among the men devoted to the noble employment of enlightening their fellows, a 
small number are to be found (and you have just witnessed an illustrious example 
*), who, gifted at the same time with a lofty imagination and a sound judgment, 
embracing in their vast conceptions the entire field of the sciences, and 
seizing with a steady eye whatever afforded the hope of discovery, have laid 
before the world nothing but certain truths, establishing them by evident 
demonstrations, and deducing from them no consequences but such as were 
irresistible, never allowing themselves to be led away by what is conjectural or 
doubtful ; men of unequalled genius, whose immortal writings will shed a light, 
like so many phari, on the paths of science, as long as the world is governed by 
the same laws.
 

Others, with minds not less ardent, nor less adapted to seize new relations, 
have been less severe in scrutinizing the evidence ; with real discoveries with 
which they have enriched science they have mingled many fanciful conceptions ; 
and, believing themselves able to outstrip both experience and calculation, they 
leave laboriously constructed vast edifices on imaginary founda [foundations], 

* This Memoir, not yet published, was designed to follow that of Volta, read by 
M. Arago at the meeting on the 27th of June 1831, for which see the 16th vol. of 
this Journal. It was read at the meeting of the French Academy of science, 26th 
November 1832.