Cuvier was the lion of that day, for he managed the remarkable feat of adapting science to the ideas, not only of the increasing bourgeoisie, but also of the diminishing feudal power. He pleased the feudal regime, such of it as remained, by denying evolution, and endorsing its theology. This made his theories welcome also among those shrewd early capitalists, as the English, who realized more quickly than their fellows, that religious belief might constitute as great a prop for one ruling class at it had already been for another.
But in his capacity of scientific reflection of the class interest of his masters, Cuvier’s masterpiece was his “cataclysmic theory.” According to this theory, organisms were not the result of evolution, but they were now just as when they issued from the hands of the Creator. The difference between existing forms, and those creatures whose story is preserved in the rocks, was explained by a series of cataclysms or catastrophes by which, at certain widely separated periods, all living forms were destroyed, and a completely new stock was created to take their places.
It would be impossible to conceive a better scientific justification of the French revolution than Cuvier’s theory presented. For many decades before that event these rising commercialists had groaned under the yoke of feudal dues and feudal restraints of trade. Nothing could be more to their wishes than a sudden social “cataclysm” that would destroy the feudal system with its trade despising and plundering nobility, and exalt its own trading class to fill the vacancy. And when this had been accomplished, and that same nobility had been sent to the guillotine, it was great consolation to have on Cuvier’s authority, that this method of sudden violence had no less a precedent than the methods of the Almighty in suddenly destroying the living things in his own universe.
Cuvier’s theory however, almost died with him, for the violent desires of the bourgeoisie were short lived. When it realized the completeness of its own victory, and that the next “cataclysm” would mean its own overthrow and the enthronement of some successor, cataclysms lost favor and were frowned down. Preachers of sudden and violent changes were now regarded as the enemies of society, and Cuvier’s once lauded theory of cataclysms was sneered at as a relic of the dark ages. What the capitalist class wanted now was peace, and long life, and above all, no disturbances.