When the reign of terror had ceased, Teissier wrote to Jussieu and other friends at Paris in terms of high commendation of his new acquaintance. The result was that Cutler was requested to forward some of his papers to the Society of Natural History, and shortly after, in 1795, being then twenty-six years of age, he went to Paris, and in the same year was appointed assistant to 31ortrtid in the superintend mace of the Jardio des Plants, which locality became from that time his home, and the scene of his labours and of his tune. Here ho began the creation of that now splendid collection of comparative anatomy, and in Docembar of the same year he opened his first course on that branch of science. In 1796 the National institute was formed, and Cuvier was one of its first members. In 1793 he published his' Tableau Elementaire de l'Ilistoire NatureIle des Animaux; and afterwards his '31ernoire our les Ossemens Poodles dee Quadrupedes,' and 'Mel:noire stir les Ossemetis Fossiles qui se tronvent dans les Gypsee de Mont martre.' Ile continued to illustrate the subject of fossil remains by subsequent memoirs. In the year 1800 he was named professor of natural philosophy at the College de France, continuing at the sense time his lectures on comparative anatomy at the Jardin des Planter. In that year wore published the first two volumes of his ' Loons d'Anatomio Comparee; which met with the greatest success. The three following volumes appeared in 1805. In 1802 the First Consul Bonaparte appointed Cuvier one of the six inspectors-general for establishing lycea, or public schools, which were supported by the government, in thirty towns of France. Cuvier established those of Marseille, Nice, and Bordeaux. Ile was about the same time appointed perpetual secretary to the Institute for the Department of Natural Sciences, with a salary of 6000 francs. In 1803 he married the widow of M. Duvaucel, a former formier-general : four children whom he had by this marriage all died before him. In 1808 he was commissioned by Napoleon to write a report on the prorates of the natural sciences from the year 1789. The luminous and interesting treatise which he produced on this occasion was formally presented to Napoleon in the council of state. Cuvier declares the true object of science to be, "to lead the mind of man towards its noble destination—a knowledge of truth; to spread sound and wholesome ideas among the lowest classes of the people; to draw human beings from the empire of prejudices and passions; to make reason the arbitrator and supreme guide of public opiuion." his next appointment was that of counsellor for life of the new Imperial University, in which capacity he had frequent personal intercourse with Napoleon. In 1809.10 he was charged with the orgauisation of the new academies, the name designed to be given to the old universities of the Italian states which were annexed to the empire. lie organised those of Piedmont, Genoa, and Tuscany. His reports of those missions exhibit the mild and enlightened spirit which he brought to the task. In 1811 he was sent on a similar mission to Holland and the Hanseatic towns : his report especially concerning Holland is very interesting, as the subject of publio instruction in that couutry is not generally known. lie paid particular attention not only to the higher branches of education, but also to popular or elementary instruction : his principle was, that instruction would lend to civilisation, and civilisation to morality, and therefore that primary or elementary instruction should give to the people every means of fully exercising their industry without disgusting them with their condition ; that secondary instruction, such as In the lyeea, should expand the mind, without rendering it false or presumptuous; and that special or scientific instruction should give to France magistrates, physicians, advocates, generals, clergymen, professors, and other men of learning.
In 1813 Cuvier was sent to Rome, then annexed to the French empire, to organise the universities there. Although his being a Protestant rendered this mission the more delicate, yet his enlightened tolerance and benignity of manner gained him the general esteem and approbation iu the capital of the Catholio world. Soon after Napoleon appointed him mattre-dos-requates to the council of state, and in 1814, just before his abdication, he named him councillor of state, an appoint ment which was oonfirmed by Louis XVIII., who soon after appointed
him chancellor of the university, an office which he held till his death.
Cuvier published in 1817 a second edition of the ' Recherches sur les Osseteens Fos/silos,' in 5 vols. 8vo, and also his ' ltegne Animal,' in 4 vols., in which the whole subject-matter of zoology, beginniug with man, is arranged according to the principle of organisation. Iu 1818 he made a journey to England, where he was received with appropriate honour. In the same year he was elected a member of the French Academy. In 1819 he was appointed president of the committee of the Interior in the council of state, an office which, fortunately for bins, was beyond the splere of political intrigues, and only required order, impartiality, and an exact knowledge of the laws and principles of the administration. In the same year Louis XVIII., AS a personal mark of his regard, created him a baron. He was appointed also temporary grand master of the university, an office however which he willingly resigned for that of grand master of the Faculties of Protestant Theology iu 1822. Ile himself stipulated that he ehonld receive no salary for this latter office. lie was made at the name time one of the vice-preeideuts of the Bible Society. Through his care fifty now Proteatant cures were created in France. Ile also established new professorships of history, living languages, and natural history, in the minor schools of the kingdom. In 1825 he republished, separately, the preliminary discourse to the 'Recherches our lee Ossemens which is generally known by the title of ' Discoura sur lea Revolutions do is Surface du Globe,' and has been translated into most European languages under the title of ' Theory of the Earth.' This work is a 1 series of deductious from actual facts, authenticated by his own researches into the fossil remains, classed according to the strata in which they were found. Cuvier draws the following conclusions : 1st.
That in the strata called primitive there are no remains of life or organised existence. 2nd. That all organised existences were not created at the same time, but at different times, probably very remote from each other—vegetables before animals, the molluscs and fishes before reptiles, and the latter before the mammalia. The transition limestone exhibits the remains of the lowest forms of existence ; the chalk and clay conceal the remains of fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds, the beings of a former order of thiuga which have now disappeared. 3rd. That among fossil remains no vestige appears of man or his works, no bones of monkeys are found, no specimen of the whole tribe of quadrumanous animals. 4th. That the fossil remains in the more recent strata are those which approach nearest to the present type of the corresponding living species. 5th. That the stratified layers which form the crust of the globe are divisible into two classes, one formed by fresh water and the other formed in the waters of the sea ; a fact which leads to the conclusion that several parts of the globe have been alternately covered by the sea and by fresh water. From these and other facts Curler concludes that the actual order of things on the surface of our globe did not commence at a very remote time : he agrees with Deluc and Dolomieu, that the surface of the earth was subject to a great and sudden revolution not longer than five or six thousand years ago, and that this catastrophe caused the disappearance of countries formerly the abode of man and of species of animals now unknown to ns; but he also believes that the countries now inhabited had been at some former period, long before the creation of man, inhabited by land animals, which were destroyed by some previous convulsion, and that this globe has undergone two or three such visitations, which destroyed as many orders of animals, of which we find the remains in the various strata. In many respects this work has been left in arrear by the rapid advances of scientific research and deduction, bat it has not been superseded ; and it will remain a noble monument to its author's extraordinary attainments and great mental power.