Читать книгу Essay on the Theory of the Earth - Georges baron Cuvier - Страница 6

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What I especially propose to present in this discourse, is the plan and the result of my labours regarding Fossil Bones. I shall also attempt to trace a rapid sketch of the efforts that have been made up to the present day, to restore the history of the revolutions of the globe. The facts which I have been enabled to discover, form, without doubt, only a small portion of those which would be necessary to complete this ancient history; but several of them lead to decisive consequences, and the rigorous manner in which I have proceeded in their determination, affords me reason to think that they will be regarded as points definitively fixed, and which in their aggregate will form an epoch in science. Lastly, I trust their novelty will be a sufficient excuse for me, if I claim for them the earnest attention of my readers.

My object will first be to shew by what relations the history of the fossil bones of terrestrial animals connects itself with the theory of the earth, and for what reasons a peculiar importance is to be attributed to it, with reference to this subject. I shall then unfold the principles upon which is founded the art of determining these bones, or, in other words, of recognizing a genus, and of distinguishing a species, by a single fragment of bone,—an art, on the certainty of which depends that of my whole work, I shall give a rapid account of the new species, and of genera previously unknown, which the application of these principles has led me to discover, as well as the different kinds of deposits in which they are contained. And as the difference between these species and those which exist at the present day is bounded by certain limits, I shall show that these limits much exceed those which now distinguish the varieties of the same species. I shall therefore make known to what extent these varieties may go, whether from the influence of time, or from that of climate, or, lastly, from that of domestication.

In this way I shall be enabled to conclude, and to induce my readers to conclude with me, that great events were necessary to produce the more considerable differences which I have discovered. I shall next mention the particular modifications which my researches must necessarily introduce into the hitherto received opinions regarding the revolutions of the globe; and, lastly, I shall inquire how far the civil and religious history of different nations corresponds with the results of observation with regard to the physical history of the Earth, and with the probabilities which these observations afford concerning the period at which societies of men may have found fixed places of abode, and fields susceptible of cultivation, and at which, therefore, they may have assumed a durable form.