Hans Christian Oersted. 275 



mourn. It has been truly said of liim, that the position which 

 he occupied in Denmark was very similar to that of Hum- 

 boldt in Germany. He was the philosopher, man of science, 

 the scholar, — the kind friend of youth the judicious counsellor 

 of age, — one whom monarch and citizen alike delighted to 

 honour. Oersted was born August 14, 1777, in Rudkjobing, 

 a small town on the Danish island of Langeland. The poverty 

 of his parents and the isolation of their little village were 

 alike unfavourable to the attainment of a thorough education. 

 But Oersted, like many of his predecessors in the same path, 

 learned for himself the elements of knowledge, and especially 

 arithmetic, from old school-books which fell in his way, 

 and taught his brother Anders, who was a year younger, all 

 that he had thus acquired for himself. And like the brothers 

 Plumboldt, the brothers Oersted seemed in after life almost 

 to divide between themselves the realm of human knowledge. 

 Wliile in each case, one brother followed the paths of actual 

 science, and adorned the university and the academy, — the 

 other rose to equal eminence in the other division of human 

 knowledge, and finally became minister of state. 



Oersted came to Copenhagen in his 18th year, and devoted 

 himself to his studies with intense zeal. His fellow -student, 

 Oehlenschlager, afterwards the celebrated poet, was at this 

 time almost the only person who shared his friendship with 

 his brother, and the intimate friendship thus begun continued 

 undiminished and uninterrupted till dissolved by death. 



In 1799, Oersted published his inaugural dissertation on the 

 *' Architecture of Natural Metaphysics," (Architectonik der 

 Naturmetaphysik). This treatise shews that, even at that 

 period, his mind was deeply imbued with tastes and sentiments 

 similar to those which characterise the last writings of his life. 



At this time he proposed his new theory of the alkalies, a 

 theory which was afterwards universally adopted. In 1800, 

 he was appointed adjunct in the medical faculty of the Uni- 

 versity, and began to lecture on chemistry and the philosophy 

 of nature. 



This was the year in which Volta discovered the battery 

 which bears his name ; setting this discovery, as Moller has 

 admirablv said, like a milestone at the close of one century 



82 



