320 EAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



From this time forth Geoffroy undertook no more 

 expeditions, but devoted himself exclusively to science. 

 Although he was elected deputy for his native town, he 

 never took part in the debates, and very soon renounced 

 a position which drew him away from his studies. In 

 the latter years of his life he was stricken with total 

 blindness, and we have often had occasion to admire the 

 serenity with which he supported this misfortune. His 

 resignation was indeed rendered more easy to him by 

 the cares of a devoted family. " I am almost happy in 

 being blind," he sometimes remarked, " since it has made 

 me better understand how much I am beloved." The 

 physical repose to which he was condemned, seemed 

 only to redouble his intellectual activity, and to his last 

 hour he was occupied with those abstruse questions of 

 natural philosophy which had influenced and guided his 

 scientific life. He died happy in being able to leave his 

 scientific heritage in the hands of a son *, and a friend. f 



* M. Isidore GeoflFroy Saint-Hilaire, -who is a member of the Insti- 

 tute, and a professor at the Jardin des Plantes, and in the Faculty of 

 Sciences, has more especially directed his attention to general zoology. 

 His treatise on Teratology, in which he has applied ordinary methods 

 to the description and classification of monstrosities, will always serve 

 as a starting point for those who may occupy themselves with this 

 important branch of the natural sciences. At the present time, he is 

 publishing a great work, entitled Histoire Generate des JRegnes Orga- 

 niques, and it is easy to foresee that, being penetrated with a deep ve- 

 neration for the memory of his illustrious father, he will endeavour in 

 this work, as he has done in all his other writings, to develope the 

 doctrines which have been handed down to him. This sentiment 

 of filial piety has already led him to write a special work, entitled 

 I7e, Travaux et Doctrine Scientifique de Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 

 M. Isidore GeoflFroy has also specially studied the collateral affinities 

 of animals, or zoological analogies, and on the considerations which 

 he has deduced from this order of ideas, he has established a mode of 

 classification which he has called parallel classification, and which he 



f See next page for note. 



