MEMOIR OF CUVIER. 45 



of Louis-Philippe, he was created a peer of France ; 

 but they did not diminish the intensity of his la- 

 bours, and two volumes of his great work on Com- 

 parative Anatomy are said to have been now pre- 

 pared for the press. On the 8th of May 1832, he 

 again opened the College of France, and gave his 

 third course upon the history of the Natural Sciences. 

 His concluding lecture in this course impressed 

 every one who heard him. It was a farewell to his 

 pupils it was the last which he was spared to de- 

 liver as a public teacher. " He displayed," says his 

 eloquent eulogist,* "a calmness and justness of per- 

 ception, combined with a depth and seriousness of 

 thought, which led his auditors to think of that 

 book which speaks of the creation of all mankind. 

 This was the result of his ideas rather than his ex- 

 pressions ; for every thing, in the free exposition 

 which he made, breathed the feeling of the omnipo- 

 tence of a supreme cause, and of an infinite wisdom. 

 He seemed, as it were, by the examination of the vi- 

 sible world, to be led to the precincts of that which 

 is invisible, and the examination of the creature 

 evoked the Creator. At last these words fell from 

 him, in which it is easy to see a presentiment : 

 " Such, gentlemen, will be the objects of our inves- 

 tigation, if time, my own strength, and the state of 

 my health, permit me to continue and finish them." 

 The closing scene of M. Cuvier's life, as a public 



* Baron Pasquier, quoted from Jameson's Philosophical 

 Journal for July 1833, p. 174. 



