JULIUS SACHS. 173 



one by one a few strings of an instrument that has answered 



to the touch of some great musician. 



One may well say with the Psalmist in speaking of his 



days : — 



Yet is their strength but labour and sorrow. 



Nevertheless his life has borne rich fruit ; his name is 

 for ever bound up with the history of botany. He has 

 enriched this science by the discovery of new and important 

 facts and conceptions and by his unrivalled power of clear 

 definition. In the nature of things it is impossible that all 

 his theories should retain acceptance, but they have all 

 profoundly influenced his contemporaries. There is no doubt 

 that in any other calling Sachs would have risen to the first 

 rank ; eccentricities and narrow " specialising " were alike 

 repugnant to him. In the last years of his life he applied 

 himself eagerly to palaeontological and zoological studies ; 

 " I must be learning, always learning," he wrote in a letter. 

 In spite of his incessant labours he was one of the few men 

 of the present day who possess the gift of letter-writing and 

 withal a spirited style, clear and trenchant. 



And yet these letters, written during the last fifteen years 

 of his life, form one long report of illness. 



At last Death, who in the latter years had often drawn 

 very near, took him gently by the hand and led him to his 

 final rest. 



K. Goebel. 



