58 
MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 
attention was directed, together with some of the 
results to which his investigations led him. After 
his establishment in the Museum of Natural History, 
much of his time was occupied with the objects 
whose history he was appointed to teach; and so 
favourably were his labours in this department re- 
ceived by the public, that his interest as well as his 
inclination would have conspired to make him cul- 
tivate it to the uttermost. But his exertions re- 
ceived an early check, and were at last entirely 
stopped, by the inroads of a most afflicting cala- 
mity. His eyes had long been weak, and as he 
advanced in years, they became so diseased, that he 
was obliged to refrain from using them for the 
examination of any minute object. Hence it was 
that he had recourse to the celebrated Latreillc to 
assist him in that part of his system of invertebrata 
which related to insects. Notwithstanding every 
precaution, the disorder increased, and at last pro- 
duced total blindness, which continued till his death. 
“ This event was the more distressing,” says Cuvier, 
“ because it overtook him in such circumstances that 
he could obtain none of those means of alleviation 
which might otherwise have been procured. He had 
been married four times, and was the father of seven 
children. The whole of his little patrimony, and even 
the fruits of his early economy, were lost in one of 
those hazardous investments which shameless spe- 
culators so often hold out as baits to the credulous. 
His retired life, the consequence of his youthful 
habits, and attachment to systems so little in accord- 
