OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 241 



and to which in his Cosmos he refers more frequently than to any- 

 other work. It is no doubt because there he had expressed his deepest 

 thoughts, his most impressive views, and even foreshadowed those inti- 

 mate convictions which he never expressed, but which he desired to 

 record in such a manner that those that can ' read between the hues ' 

 might find them there ; and certainly there we find them. His aspira- 

 tion has been to present to the world a picture of the physical world, 

 from which he would exclude everything that relates to the turmoil of 

 human society and to the ambitions of individual men. A life so full, 

 so rich, is worth considering in every point of view, and it is most in- 

 structive to see with what devotion he pursues his work. As long as 

 he is a student, he is really a student, and learns faithfully, and learns 

 everything he can reach. And he continues so for t.wenty-thi'ee years. 

 He is not one of those who are impatient to show that they have some- 

 thing in them, and with premature impatience utter their ideas, which 

 become insuperable barriers to independent progress in later life. 

 Slowly, and confident of his sure progress, he advances, and while he 

 learns, he studies also independently of those who teach him. He 

 makes his experiments, and to make them with more independence he 

 seeks for an ofiicial position. During five yeai's he is a business man, 

 in a station which gives him leisure. He is Superintendent of the 

 Mines, but a Superintendent of the Mines who can do much as he 

 pleases ; and while he is thus ofiicially engaged journeying and super- 

 intending, he prepares himself for his independent researches. And 

 yet it will be seen he is thirty yeai's of age before he enters upon his 

 American travels, those travels which must be said to have been the 

 greatest undertaking ever carried to a successful issue, if judged by the 

 results ; they have as completely changed the basis of physical science, 

 as the revolution which took place in France about the same time has 

 changed the social condition of that land. Having returned from these 

 travels to Paris, a new period of his life begins, — that of concentrated 

 critical studies. He works up his materials then with untiring ardor 

 and devotion ; and he is not anxious to appear to have done it all 

 himself. Oltmanns is called to his aid to revise his astronomical 

 observations and his barometrical measurements, by which he has de- 

 termined the geographical position of seven hundred different points, 

 and the altitude of more than four hundred and fifty of them. 



" The large collection of plants which Bonpland had begun to 



VOL. IV. 31 



