By Baron Cuvier

Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, Member of the Senate and of the Institute, Professor of Natural History to the Museum and the College of France, Member of the Academies and Scientific Societies of Berlin, Petersburg, London, Florence, Lausanne, Philadelphia, etc, formerly Stipendiary Anatomist to the Academy of Sciences, Curator and Demonstrator to the Cabinet of Natural History, was born at Montbar, in the department of Cote d'Or, on the 29th May, 1716, of Jean Daubenton, notary in that place, and Marie Pichenot.

He was distinguished from his infancy for the gentleness of his manners; and he obtained from the Jesuits of Dijon, where he first studied, all those little distinctions so flattering to youth, without being always the presages of more lasting success. These he remembered with pleasure to the close of his life, and always preserved the written testimonials.

After having completed, under the Dominicans of that same town, what was then called a course of philosophy, his parents, who intended him for the church, and made him assume the ecclesiastical dress at twelve years of age, sent him to Paris to be initiated in theology; but, inspired perhaps by a presentiment of what he would one day become, young Daubenton secretly devoted himself to the study of medicine. At the schools of the faculty he attended the prelections of Baron, Martineux, and Col de Villars; and, in the same Jardin des Plantes which he was afterwards so largely to benefit, those of Winslow, Hunauld, and Antoine de Jussieu. The death of his father, which happened in 1736, having left him at liberty to follow the bent of his inclinations, he took his degrees at Rheims in 1740 and 1741, and then returned to his native place, where he limited his ambition to the exercise of his profession. But destiny reserved him for a more brilliant theatre.

The little town where he first saw the light, had likewise produced an individual of independent fortune, whose bodily and mental qualifications, and ardent taste for pleasures, seemed to destine him for any other career than that of the sciences, yet who found himself attracted to them by an irresistible inclination, which is almost a certain indication of extraordinary talents.

Buffon (for it was that individual), for a long time uncertain to what object he should apply his genius, tried, in turns, geometry, physics, and agriculture. At last, Dufay, his friend, who was called upon, during his brief administration, to rescue the Jardin des Plantes from the state of disorder into which it had been allowed to fall by the carelessness of former curators, hitherto born to the office of superintendents of this establishment, having intrusted him with this duty, Buffon's choice became fixed for ever on Natural History, and he saw opening before him that extensive career which he ran with such wide-spread reputation.

From the very first he formed an estimate of the whole extent of it. He perceived at one glance what was requisite to be done, what he had it in his power to do, and what he required from the assistance of others.

Overloaded, from its birth, by the indigested erudition of the Aldrovands, Gesners, and Johnstons, natural history appeared, so to speak, mutilated by the scissors of nomenclators - the Rays, Kleins, and even Linnaeus himself, presented us with nothing but naked catalogues, written in a barbarous language, and which, with their apparent precision, and the care their authors seemed to have taken to include in them nothing but what could at any time be verified by observation, contained nevertheless a multitude of errors, both in the details, in the distinctive characters, and in the systematical arrangements.

To restore life and motion to this cold and inanimate body; to paint Nature as she really is, always young and always in action; to sketch with a comprehensive pencil the admirable agreement of all her parts, the laws by which they are restrained and kept in a uniform system; to transfuse into this picture all the freshness and splendour of the original: - such was the most difficult task that author had to undertake who would restore this beautiful science to the lustre it had lost; such was that in which the ardent imagination of Buffon, his elevated genius, and deep feeling for the beauties of nature, ought to have enabled him to undertake with perfect success.

But if truth had not been the foundation of his undertaking; if he had lavished the brilliant colours of his palette on incorrect or unfaithful drawings, and had combined only imaginary facts, he might indeed have appeared as an elegant writer or ingenious poet, but he would not have been a naturalist, and he could not have aspired to the object at which his ambition aimed, that of being a reformer in science.

It was necessary, therefore, that every thing should be reviewed, collected, and observed; it was necessary to compare the forms and dimensions of beings; to carry the scalpel into their interior, and disclose the most secret parts of their organization. Buffon felt that his impatient mind would not allow him to engage in such toilsome labours; and that, moreover, the weakness of his eye-sight would deprive him of the hope of engaging in them with success. He sought for an individual, who, joined to the correctness of judgment and delicacy of tact, necessary for such researches, had enough of modesty and devotion to the subject, to be satisfied with a part of the duty apparently secondary; to be in some degree as an eye and a hand to him; and he found such an individual in the companion of his youthful sports, Daubenton.

He indeed found in him more than he sought for, more even than he thought necessary for his purpose; and it is not perhaps in the department in which he asked for his assistance, that Daubenton was most useful to him.

In fact, it may be affirmed, that there never was a connection more appropriate. Both in regard to physical and moral qualifications, there existed between the two friends that perfect contrast which one of our most amiable writers assures us is necessary to render a union lasting; and each of them seemed to have received precisely those qualities fitted to temper those of the other by their opposition.