This debate stirred all intellectual Europe. Cuvier won as being the better debater and the better manager of his case. He pointed triumphantly to the four branches of the animal kingdom which he had established, maintaining that these four branches represented four distinct types of organization; and, furthermore, that fixity of species and fixity of type were necessary for the existence of a scientific natural history. We can see now that his contention was wrong, but at the time he won the debate. The young men of the period, that is, the rising biologists of France, were nearly all adherents of Cuvier, so that the effect of the debate was, as previously stated, to retard the progress of science. This noteworthy debate occurred in February, 1830. The wide and lively interest with which the debate was followed may be inferred from the excitement manifested by Goethe. Of the great poet-naturalist, who was then in his eighty-first year, the following incident is told by Soret: "Monday, Aug. 2d, 1830.--The news of the outbreak of the revolution of July arrived in Weimar to-day, and has caused general excitement. In the course of the afternoon I went to Goethe. 'Well,' he exclaimed as I entered, 'what do you think of this great event? The volcano has burst forth, all is in flames, and there are no more negotiations behind closed doors.' 'A dreadful affair,' I answered; 'but what else could be expected under the circumstances, and with such a ministry, except that it would end in the expulsion of the present royal family?' 'We do not seem to understand each other, my dear friend,' replied Goethe. 'I am not speaking of those people at all; I am interested in something very different. I mean the dispute between Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, which has broken out in the Academy, and which is of such great importance to science.' This remark of Goethe came upon me so unexpectedly that I did not know what to say, and my thoughts for some minutes seemed to have come to a complete standstill. 'The affair is of the utmost importance,' he continued, 'and you can not form any idea of what I felt on receiving the news of the meeting on the 19th. In Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire we have now a mighty ally for a long time to come. But I see also how great the sympathy of the French scientific world must be in this affair, for, in spite of the terrible political excitement, the meeting on the 19th was attended by a full house. The best of it is, however, that the synthetic treatment of nature, introduced into France by Geoffroy, can now no longer be stopped. This matter has now become public through the discussions in the Academy, carried on in the presence of a large audience; it can no longer be referred to secret committees, or be settled or suppressed behind closed doors.'"