18 Biographical Memoir of M. Dauhenton. 



you ; when age forces me to give up my functions, be assured 

 that I shall confer them upon you." He was then eighty-three 

 years of age. 



Nothing can better prove his zeal in behalf of the students, 

 than the pains which he took to keep up with the progress of 

 science, and not to imitate those professors who, once fixed in a 

 situation, never vary their lectures. , At the age of eighty, he 

 was seen obtaining an explanation of the discoveries of one of 

 his oldest pupils, M. Haiiy, and labouring to apprehend them, 

 that he might be able to impart them again to the young people 

 whom he taught. Such an example is so rarely to be met with 

 among the learned, that it must be considered as one of the finest 

 traits in Daubenton'^s character. 



During the ephemeral existence of the Normal School, he de- 

 livered some lectures there. He was received with the most 

 lively enthusiasm whenever he made his appearance, and ap- 

 plauded, as often as he introduced the sentiments by which that 

 numerous auditory were animated, and which they rejoiced to 

 see possessed by the venerable old man. 



We have now to speak of some of his works, which are less 

 destined to make known discoveries, than to give a systematic 

 account of some body of doctrine ; such as his articles for the 

 two Encyclopaedias, and especially for the Encyclopedic Metho- 

 diquC; in which he composed the dictionaries for quadrupeds, 

 reptiles, and fishes ; his Tableau Miner alogique^ and his lec- 

 tures at the Normal School. He has left the entire manuscript 

 of those of the Veterinary School, of the College of France, 

 and of the Museum. It is to be hoped that they will not be 

 withheld from the public 



These didactic writings are remarkable for great perspicuity, 

 sound principles, and a scrupulous exclusion of every thing 

 doubtful. The only astonishing thing in them, is to see that the 

 man who had reasoned with so much force against all classifica- 

 tion in natural history, should have ended with adopting ar- 

 rangements which are neither better than, nor perhaps so good 

 as, those with which he found fault, as if he had been destined 

 to prove by his own example how much his first prejudices were 

 contrary to the nature of things and the constitution of man. 



Lastly, Besides all these works and lectures, Daubenton was 



