CHARTER. V 
LAST DAYS AND DEATH 
LAMARCK’S life was saddened and embittered by 
the loss of four wives, and the pangs of losing three 
of his children;* also by the rigid economy he had 
to practise and the unending poverty of his whole 
existence. A very heavy blow to him and to science 
was the loss, at an advanced age, of his eyesight. 
It was, apparently, not a sudden attack of blind- 
ness, for we have hints that at times he had to call 
in Latreille and others to aid him in the study of the 
insects. The continuous use of the magnifying lens 
and the microscope, probably, was the cause of en- 
feebled eyesight, resulting in complete loss of vision. 
Duval + states that he passed the last ten years of his 
life in darkness; that his loss of sight gradually came 
on until he became completely blind. 
* I have been unable to ascertain the names of any of his wives, or 
of his children, except his daughter, Cornelie. 
+‘ L’examen minutieux de petits animaux, analysés a l’aide d’in- 
struments grossissants, fatigua, puis affaiblait,sa vue. Bientot il fut 
complétement aveugle. Il passa les dix derniérs années de sa vie 
plongé dans les ténébres, entouré des soins de ses deux filles, a l'une 
desquelles il dictait le dernier volume de son Azstotre des Animaux 
sans Vertebres.’"—Le Transformiste Lamarck, Bull, Soc. Anthro- 
pologie, xii., 1889, p. 341. Cuvier, also, in his history of the progress 
of natural science for 1819, remarks: ‘‘M. de La Marck, male é 
laffoiblissement total de sa vue, poursuit avec un courage inaltérav.e 
la continuation de son grand ouvrage sur les animaux sans vertebres.” 
(p. 406). 
