MEMOIR OF OERSTED, 169 



him a special interest, sncli as a point of science to discuss or eiTor to combat, 

 than he was seen to put forth a bohlness, a force of intellect, an eloquence which 

 would scarcely have been suspected from his modest exterior and reserved 

 demeanor. 



He first traversed a great part of Germany, passed six months at Berlin, and 

 sojoTuuied for some time at Friburg-, Jena, and Munich. A new life then ani- 

 mated that country. Poets and philosophers of eminence had there given to the 

 human mind an unexpected inipulse. This movement bore esi)ecially on the 

 natural sciences, and that assemldage of somewhat vague ideas which was called 

 the philosophy of nature was in process of development. Oersted, with his 

 philosophic and poetic views on the unity and the beauty of nature, was suffi- 

 ciently disposed to lend attention to the new German doctrines, and he himself 

 avows their influence by saying, in the preface of one of his works, published in 

 1813: " The philosophy of nature, which has been cultivated within 20 years 

 in Gennany, might also assert its claim to some of the views which we are about 

 to offer." Yet he never allowed himself to be turned aside from the severe and 

 positive study of facts and of experiment. 



He enjoyed constant conversations with Klaproth, Hermstadt, Paul Erman, 

 Trommsdortf, with Kielmeyer, the master and friend of Cuvier, with the celebrated 

 Werner, at Friburg, and with the profound mineralogist and cry stall ographer Weiss. 

 lie met also Fichte, Schelling, Franz Baader, Schleiermacher, Tieck, and the 

 two Schlegels. But he associated himself more particularly with the ingenious 

 phj-sicist Kitter, already celebrated for his experiments in galvanism, in which 

 he had established, among other things, that a constant development of electricity 

 accompanies the plienoniena of life. They executed in common a series of 

 remarkable experiments, and Oersted conceived from that time a high opinion 

 of the scientific capacity of his collaborator, which frequently appears in his 

 writings, and particularly in the following passage of the preface of his Hescarclies 

 on thelcknUtyof Chemical and Electrical Forces, published in 1813 : " Ritter may, 

 in this respect, be regarded as a creator.* His grand conceptions, and his 

 labors encotmtered with a zeal which obstacles and sacrifices were incapable of 

 subduing, have shed light on almost all parts of the science." Oersted often 

 expressed the opinion that, with more of sequence in his labors, Ritter would 

 have discovered the electric pile before Volta. Unfortunately Ritter joined with 

 a very ingenious mind great eccentricity, which crippled his pm'suits and abridged 

 his days. 



After sojourning some time at IMunich with Ritter, Oersted published at Ratis- 

 bon, in 1803, a small work entitled 3Iaferials for a Chemistry of the XlXth 

 Century, in which occur highly interesting views respecting the new horizons 

 opened to chemistry by the discovery of the Voltaic pile. Before parting with 

 Ritter, who remained at Munich, Oersted had rendered him services which could 

 only have been inspired'by a warm and symi)athizing friendship. He proceeded 

 afterwards to Paris and passed there 15 months in habitual intercourse with 

 Cuvier, Haiiy, Vanquelin, Charles, Berthollet, Biot, Guiton-Morveau, Thenard; 

 assiduously following the courses of, the distinguished professors and sometimes 

 making communications, on his own experiments, to the Philoinathic Society. 



Dining his stay at Paris he translated into French a German memoir of Ritter 

 on the pile a charyer, or secondary ])il(;, {Lad/iny's Sdide). This translation, 

 accorupanied by notes on the experiuients made by himself, was presented to 

 the first class of the Institute and {)rinted in the Journal de Physique, number 

 for Brumairc, an XII, (1803.) Ritter, who had co-operated in the translation by 

 ail uuinterrujtted correspondence with Oersted, was fully satisfied with it, and 

 even avoweil that he comprehended himself in the French v(!rsion better than in 

 his own original German text. He died soon afterwards, and Oersted, independ- 



* See ResciiTchis snr r Indnntitf ties Furris Chitnir/iifs ct fUcctriqucs, by M. Oersted, tnius- 

 lated from the German by M. Marcel de Serres, ldi:3, p. JU. ' 



