EULOGY ON ARTHUR AUGUSTE DE LA RIVE. 185 



had beeu driven out of FraDce by the revocation of the edict of Nantes; 

 and, in the hist century-, three generals, one in the service of the Turks, 

 another in Holhind, and a third in Sardinia. Up to this time there is 

 no appearance of a scientific tendency among the members of this fam- 

 i\y, so rich in every other line of persoual distinction, probably because 

 the public mind was not turned in that direction ; but toward the end of 

 the last century, we see them attaining in science the same high po- 

 sition they held in public affairs. The mother of the illustrious historian 

 of the Alps, De Saussure, belonged to the family of La liive, and also 

 the wife of the learned philosopher, Charles Bonnet; both of whom, 

 tradition says, exercised great inHuence, the one over her son, the other 

 over her husband. In fact, the history of the family from the beginning 

 of the present century would give not only that of the country, but 

 also the most interesting chapters in contemporary science. 



Charles Gaspard De La liive, father of our lamented associate, was 

 the first savant of the name. His works form, with those of his son, an 

 indivisible whole. Destined for the magistracy, he pursued his law- 

 studies until, in 1794, Geneva suffered a deplorable repetition of the 

 French revolution. He took an active part in resisting the insurgents, 

 and was imprisoned and condemned to death by the revolutionary 

 tribunal. Thanks to the exertions of his friends, he escaped, took refuge 

 in England, and went to Edinburgh to study medicine. His mother was 

 very much opposed to his adopting this profession, as she considered it 

 beneath the dignity of the family. She refused to pardon him for pur- 

 suing a course contrary to her wishes, and, as she forbade his return to 

 his native laud, he remained in exile long after the decree of amnesty 

 allowed his appearance in Geneva. That he should have regarded such 

 an unjust prohibition, caused by what seems to us a strange and unrea- 

 sonable prejudice against an honorable profession, is very remarkable; 

 but it must be remembered that in Geneva, at that time, aristocratic 

 feelings largely prevailed, and i^ublic and private education, in spite of 

 Eousseau, was based upon the inculcation of entire submission on the 

 l^art of a child to the absolute authority of the parent. 



On his return to his country, Gaspard De La Rive devoted himself 

 with diligence to such studies as were necessary to fit him for the chair 

 of chemistry, and through the liberal character of his mind, which was 

 open to the widest generalizations of science, was led to the investiga- 

 tion of the electrical forces, to take part in the grand reform in natural 

 philosophy then occupying the attention of France, and to lay the 

 foundation for the future course of his illustrious son. If, in the history 

 of science, the De La Rives may not be placed in exactly the same rank 

 as Oersted, Ampere, Arago, and Faraday, whose labors they shared, 

 certainly they cannot be widely separated from them. The united 

 efforts of this brilliant pleiad of physicists, which includes M. Becquerel 

 as a later and none the less distinguished representative, have added 

 to civilization a knowledge of forces which are now indispensable to 



