Martins on the Life and Labours of DeCandolle, 13 



midst of his numerous works on physics, natural history and 

 philosophy, to write others on politics ; as nearly all the Grecian 

 philosophers, in addition to their widely different pursuits, were 

 also practical or theoretical statesmen, so we find the citizen of the 

 small Swiss canton penetrated with ideas and feelings which be- 

 long to him only as a citizen of this inconsiderable spot of earth ; 

 he, the same man whose writings, composed in either the Latin 

 or French language, are read from the Ganges to the Mississippi. 

 We cannot escape the thought, that so active a devotion to the 

 interests of the community could only exist in the mind of a 

 learned man in whom the ancient associations of republicanism 

 have not given place to the modern spirit, — the spirit of monar- 

 chical centralization. This old classical mode of thinking showed 

 itself in many other great Swiss scholars, in Conrad Gessner, Alb. 

 von Haller, Saussure, &c., as well as in DeCandolle, though not 

 in an equal degree ; for however attached from inward convic- ' 

 tion to the form of government of their country, not one of them 

 had so earnest a desire to take an active part in the internal affairs 

 of the republic. They were all rather theoretical students ; while 

 in DeCandolle was reflected the spirit of our age, which passes 

 onward from theory, from pure science, into realization in the 

 form of useful ideas. The thought of the dignity and perfecti- 

 bility of man, which the French Revolution had so often in its 

 mouth, only to degrade, shone out in the noble-minded, ardent 

 citizen of Geneva, — a son of the Revolution in the highest sense 

 of the word. 



A comparison of Linnaeus with DeCandolle in this point of 

 view, will result greatly in favour of the latter. We see Linnseus 

 in Upsal, a remote and inconsiderable university-town of the 

 North, active in the professor^s chair, where he is surrounded by 

 a crowd of young men eager for knowledge from almost every 

 part of the earth ; or we see him at the writing-table of a small 

 room, from which the dictator of natural history sends through- 

 out the world his works, written in that terse, genial Latin in 

 which his whole self is mirrored. There only lives Linnaeus ; or 

 in aula academica, presiding over the discussions of his scholars ; 

 or in the small primitive botanical garden, where the registrator 

 of the vegetable kingdom walks between formal rows of box and 

 regular flower-beds in silent meditation. The northern natural 

 historian withdrew himself from the world ; he did not even deign 

 to take part in the administration of the academic senate, which 

 he regarded only as a burden. Restricting his society to a few 

 friends, and to the unfrequent visitors from other countries, Lin- 

 nseus looked not upon the bustle of the world, except sometimes 

 to deprecate it ; only in the concrete study of nature does he find 

 himself at ease, He is no cosmopohte, except that he studies na- 



