49 8 Theory of the Nutrition [BOOK in. 



results, and what was still more important, a new method. 

 Saussure adopted for the most part the quantitative mode of 

 dealing with questions of nutrition ; and as the questions 

 which he put were thus rendered more definite, and his ex- 

 periments were conducted in a most masterly manner, he 

 succeeded in obtaining definite answers. He knew how to 

 manage his experiments in such a manner that the results were 

 sure to speak plainly for themselves ; they had not to be 

 brought out by laborious calculation from those small and, as 

 they are called, exact data, which less skilful experimenters use 

 to hide their own uncertainty. The directness and brevity with 

 which precise quantitative results are expressed, the close reason- 

 ing and transparent clearness of thought, impart to the reader of 

 de Saussure's works a feeling of confidence and security such as 

 he receives from scarcely any other writer on these subjects 

 from the time of Hales to our own. The ' Recherches chi- 

 miques ' have this in common with Hales' ' Statical Essays,' 

 that the statements of facts which they contain have been made 

 use of again and again by later writers for theoretical purposes, 

 while the theoretical connexion between them was constantly 

 overlooked, as we shall have reason to learn in the following 

 section. It is not every one who can follow a work like this, 

 which is no connected didactic exposition of the theory of 

 nutrition, but a series of experimental results which group 

 themselves round the great questions of the subject, while 

 the theoretical connection is indicated in short introductions 

 and recapitulations, and it is left to the reader to form his own 

 convictions by careful study of all the details. It was not 

 de Saussure's intention to teach the science, but to lay its 

 foundations ; not to communicate facts, but to establish them ; 



part also in public affairs, being repeatedly elected to the Council of Geneva. 

 His preference for a secluded life is said to have been the reason why 

 he never undertook the duties of a professorship. See the supplement to 

 the ' Biographic Universelle ' and Poggendorf s ' Biographisch-litterarisches 

 Handworterbuch.' 



