EULOGY ON ARTHUR AUGUSTE DE LA RIVE. 187 



knew themselves wiser, from the sympathy awakened by the glow of his 

 lecture. Besides, no one could be indifferent to the moral example dis- 

 played by this, the first syndic, the chief of state, the possessor of a 

 large patrimonial fortune, who was thus laborious in the discharge of a 

 daily duty, without other motive than the love of science — lor no other 

 recompense than the respect accorded to noble and unselfish conduct. 

 Those favorites of fortune who pass their days in the pursuit of idle 

 pleasure, have no idea of the rational enjoyment to be derived from the 

 pursuit of knowledge or the disinterested instruction of youth. Were 

 an entire aristocracy similarly disposed, leading its followers through 

 the learning of ancient times and the science of the present, what con- 

 quests would be made in the domains of intelligence; conquests which 

 would necessitate no violation of right nor infliction of wrong, would 

 bring loss or distress to none, but benefit to all. 



During the long wars of the revolution and of the empire, Geneva 

 rendered great service to the scientific world by the publication of a 

 review which her extended commercial relations and the cosmopolitan 

 habits of her people supplied with abundant information upon all sub- 

 jects, and which was edited by a distinguished physicist, M. Pictet, 

 under the title Bihliotlieque Britanniqne. It was by means of this period- 

 ical that the works of the English scientists became known over the 

 continent; and through the personal influence of the eminent men who 

 assisted in its compilation, it retained long after peace was established 

 the monopoly of the earliest foreign intelligence. In its pages Arago, 

 who was on a visit to Geneva, in 1820, first learned of the great discovery 

 of Oersted, the action exerted by the electric current of the voltaic pile 

 upon the magnetic needle. At that time it was known that two sub- 

 stances could act upon each other, combining and producing changes in 

 their properties, exhibiting phenomena which constitute an essential part 

 of chemistry, but no one had ever seen what was then called an impon- 

 derable fluid act upon another. Light produced no effect upon heat, and 

 neither acted upon electricity. Oersted, however, announced that elec- 

 tricity could be made to act upon magnetism. A new science, with the 

 most remarkable practical applications, of which the electric telegraph 

 is only one example, was developed from this fruitful germ. All who 

 assisted in establishing the genuineness of this wonderful discovery 

 were greatly impressed by it, and no one felt inclined to contradict the 

 grave comment of Pierre Prevost, the author of the theory of the un- 

 stable equilibrium of radiant heat : Novus reruni nascitur ordo. 



Arago, on his return to Paris, thus speaks of the event : " Professor 

 De La Eive, of Geneva, who has himself discovered many curious phe- 

 nomena with the powerful battery in his possession, allowed me to wit- 

 ness his verification of the experiments of M. Oersted before j\IM. 

 Prevost, Pictet, Th. de Saussure, Marcet, de Candolle, &c., and I was 

 entirely convinced of the accuracj' of the principal facts stated by the 

 Danish philosopher." I am, I believe, the sole survivor of this histor- 



