Species

128 Species

generated in some manner at the time of a catastrophe, and previous forms were

obliterated. Nordenskiöld writes

The immutability of species is to Cuvier’s mind an absolute fact; he has not a trace

of Linnaeus’s hesitation, which he expressed in his old age, in face of the difficulty of

drawing a line of demarcation between the species; according to Cuvier’s definition,

species consist of “those individuals that originate from one another or from common

parents and those which resemble them as much as one another.” In this definition no

mention is made of the creation of the species, which, it will be remembered, Linnaeus

took as his starting point, but which, on the whole, Cuvier does not discuss at all.^56

C u v i e r ’s d e fi n it io n^57 is interesting in several respects. Despite the superficial
resemblance to Linnaeus’ definition given above, Cuvier’s more closely resembles
John Ray’s definition. It is a historical definition, and yet it requires resemblance,
presumably to bar monsters. It is, as was Ray’s, a generative and yet still a formalist
definition. For Cuvier, species come into existence at the beginning of each geo-
logical epoch and never vary thereafter. He notes that if species have changed by
degrees, then we ought to have found traces of these gradual modifications and inter-
mediate forms between, say, a paleotherium and modern elephant, which we do not.
Hence, species are stable. Although spare, Cuvier’s definition was very influential on
philosophers, as the discussion in Whately’s and Mill’s logics show. His fixism has
the following rationale:

These forms are neither produced nor do they change of themselves; life presupposes

their existence, for it cannot change except in organisations ready prepared for it.^58

In his Éloge, or funeral oration, of Lamarck, Cuvier set to demolishing Lamarck’s
idea of species transmuting.^59 Basing his argument upon the static nature of Egyptian
mummies of various animals when compared with the modern version, and the lack
of apparent progress from simple to complex forms that Lamarck’s view required in
the fossil record, Cuvier established the default view that species did not themselves
change. He did not require, as Russell notes, that faunal epochs were an illusion—he
simply claimed to have no theory of how the new faunas came into existence, as he
had little time for theory without facts.^60 He tried to minimize the number of special
creations, and said:

(^56) Nordenskiöld 1929, 339.
(^57) Under a section entitled “Lost species are not varieties of living species”:
(^) Cette recherche suppose la définition de l’espèce qui sert de base à l’usage que l’on fait de ce mot,
savoir que l’espèce comprend les individus qui descendent les uns des autres ou de parens com-
muns, et ceux qui leur ressemblent autant qu’ils se ressemblent entre eux. [My research assumes
the definition of species which serves as the basic use made of the term, understanding that the word
species means the individuals who descend from one another or from common parents and those
who resemble them as much as they resemble each other.] Règne Animal, i, 19. [Cuvier 1812, 74]
(^58) Loc. cit. p20 quoted in Russell 1982.
(^59) Cuvier 1835.
(^60) Russell 1982, 43.