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Les Misérables vocabulary
23 famous people mentioned
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Georges Cuvier
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Definition:[1769 - 1832]a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils.text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
By By François-André Vincent - Christie's, Public Domain,
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Uses:
To spread healthy ideas among even the lowest classes of people, to remove men from the influence of prejudice and passion, to make reason the arbiter and supreme guide of public opinion; that is the essential goal of the sciences; that is how science will contribute to the advancement of civilization, and that is what deserves protection of governments who want to insure the stability of their power.
Georges Cuvier. Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences naturelles (1810)
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As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.
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I thought of you when I was reading the quotation from Cuvier. Upon my word, I believe he’s going crazy.” “I haven’t read it yet,” said a “faithful”. “What, you haven’t read it yet? You don’t know the delights in store for you. It’s so perfectly idiotic that I nearly died of laughing.”
Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 7]
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