214 Biographical Memoir of Charles Bonnet. 



Pardon us, therefore, ye illustrious shades ! if we first present 

 to public recognition such of your rivals, as, from superior pru- 

 dence, or a happier destiny, kept themselves sheltered from the 

 tempests of which you have been the victims. The day will 

 soon arrive, when we ^lall fully acquit ourselves of the sacred 

 duty. The hand which has repaired our evils, gradually sof- 

 tens the remembrance of them : it makes this epoch retrograde, 

 if we may so speak : soon we shall no longer be the contempo- 

 raries of your executioners, and shall be able to speak of them 

 as history will speak. 



To-day I shall present a sketch of the life of two celebrated 

 individuals, closely allied by blood, and still more by their mode 

 of life, and the similarity of their labours ; — men who, in a 

 country that had experienced convulsions long before ours, had 

 yet commanded the respect of all parties, by their devotedness 

 to science, and by the practice of peaceful virtues, Charles 

 Bonnet, and Horace Benedict de Saussure, the two men to whom 

 Natural History has been indebted in our days for such brilliant 

 advances, and solid improvements, were uncle and nephew, — a 

 happy family, to which a scion already inscribed in our lists, 

 still ensures for one generation, more an heirship of talents so 

 rarely to be met with. 



Such phenomena in families could only happen in those small 

 states whose independence is secured by the jealousy of greater 

 powers. Confined within a narrow circle, freed of the care of 

 providing for their safety, neither war, nor pubhc offices, nor 

 the other avenues to rapid success, presented sufficient allure- 

 ments to turn their minds aside from those long and silent la- 

 bours which lead to celebrity in science. Being to themselves^ 

 their proper centre, no great metropolis drew away the geniuses 

 which nature produced among them ; while their prudent eco- 

 nomy, and the purity of their manners, prevented talents from 

 being stifled by luxury. 



Such was the city of Geneva since the period of the Reforma- 

 tion ; and to all the advantages of its political situation, it ad- 

 ded that of speaking the same language as those who, of all the 

 other European nations, have carried civilization, among the 

 upper classes, to the highest pitch, and who, moreover, enjoy 

 that unrestrained liberty of inquiry which the Protestants autho- 



