38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



home at the age of attending college. This was particularly true in 

 Switzerland in the last century and the first half of the present one, 

 especially at Geneva and Basle, the towns which have furnished the 

 largest proportion of savants connected by family ties. 



Inquiring what personal traits contribute most to the making of a 

 scientific man, a comparison is made of the characteristics possessed 

 in common by four eminent men Darwin, Linnaeus, Cuvier, and the 

 author's father, Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle. They all had heads 

 larger than the ordinary size ; strong and persistent will ; curiosity for 

 the examination of accessible things and of truths ; great activity, exhib- 

 ited in the walking excursions of Linnaeus and De Candolle, the untir- 

 ing industry of Darwin, and the constant occupation of Cuvier with his 

 work, although he seemed to be phlegmatic ; order, shown in their 

 aptitude in classification ; observing faculties, in which none could be 

 superior to Darwin and Cuvier ; freedom from any taste for meta- 

 physics ; sound judgment ; excellent memory ; great power of atten- 

 tion, and remarkable faculty for generalization. As points of differ- 

 ence, Darwin, Cuvier, and De Candolle were distinguished by amplitude 

 of ideas, while Linnaeus was narrow ; Darwin and De Candolle were 

 independent in opinion, Linnaeus and Cuvier less so. None of the 

 four had a natural taste for languages, but De Candolle and Darwin 

 regretted that they knew so little of other languages than their own. 

 Looking for the origin of the qualities they had in common, we find 

 that Linnaeus was the son of a country pastor, and grandson, through 

 his mother, of another pastor. Cuvier, whose brother Frederic was 

 also a zoologist, but less celebrated than he, was the son of a military 

 officer, whose life does not throw any particular light on the origin of 

 his distinctive characteristics. The De Candolle family were distin- 

 guished by an independence of judgment that compelled them to 

 change the country of their residence, for opinion's sake, four times in 

 three hundred years. These four naturalists were singularly favored 

 by external circumstances. They were born in long-civilized coun- 

 tries ; they received a Protestant education which did not repress their 

 curiosity or the independence of their opinions ; they found, at home 

 and around them, good examples, counsels, and encouragement ; and 

 they studied in good schools. 



Special or innate tastes are not as important as they appear to be, 

 unless they prove persistent. In that case they are cultivated in after- 

 life, and are remembered and spoken of. But those who have the 

 same tastes in infancy and fail to cultivate them, forget them and 

 never speak of them. Multitudes of children chase butterflies and 

 make collections of shells or insects without becoming naturalists, or 

 construct toy houses and machines without becoming architects or en- 

 gineers. Some scientific men have also been poetasters or amateur 

 dramatists in their youth. Other special tastes and antipathies have 

 some influence, but they result as often from the circumstances of 



