CUVIER. 205 



tion of respect. The funeral procession was fol- 

 lowed by the representatives of all the great learned 

 bodies of France. 



Cuvier was too generous, and too desirous for 

 the advancement of his branch of natural history 

 knowledge, to die very rich. He had several 

 important sources of income, and there is no 

 doubt that, had he chosen so to do, he could have 

 saved much money. He spent largely when it 

 was necessary to procure specimens from abroad, 

 and to dig out fossils at home, and his private 

 charities were numerous. He only left about the 

 sum of four thousand pounds sterling, a library 

 worth about the same sum, and a house for his 

 family. There is no doubt that Cuvier was, in his 

 private life, a very estimable man, and that in his 

 public life he upheld the teachings of his conscience 

 to his disadvantage. It was to be expected that a 

 man whose work proved the great antiquity of the 

 kinds of animals now living on the surface of the 

 earth, and the existence of a great philosophy in 

 nature which linked the past and present animals 

 in a scheme which showed that life had been con- 

 tinuous for ages, would be abused and called an 

 atheist by some ignorant people or other. His 

 true character has been written as follows : — " He 

 promoted the cause of true religion by every means 

 in his power, both public and private ; he was a 

 warm supporter of the Bible Society, and caused 

 the Old and New Testaments to be widely dis- 

 seminated in every part of Protestant France, 



