LIFE AND LABORS OF HENRY GUSTAVUS MAGNUS. 



[from the archives des sciences physiques et naturelles, geneva.] 



Translated for the Smithsonian Ftcport. ' 



Tlie processes of scieutific investigation have never been reduced to 

 definite rules, and frequently methods arc adopted of the most opposite 

 character. Sometimes, impelled by the impulse of his genius to achieve 

 immediate distinction the scientist discards beaten tracks and attempts 

 to exj)lore new regions by assays almost without a definite plan in a 

 predetermined direction, and although the resujts of his trials in most cases 

 are of a negative character, yet he occasionally lights upon facts rich in 

 the indications of scientific principles. Sometimes, less a lover of nov- 

 elty than of precision of knowledge, he prefers the critical examina- 

 tion of some region i)reviously traversed by others in order to give it 

 that minute investigation required in every part of the douiain of 

 modern science, and thus unostentatiously contributes essentially^ to 

 the advance of science. These two methods are both fruitful and 

 should not bo entirely separated. The first, perhaps the more brilliant, 

 requires an undaunted spirit, a creative genius. The second, uiore 

 modest, but also more sure, requires extensive erudition, a critical mind, 

 and great talent for experimentation. 



The scientific career we are about to portray belonged essentially to 

 the latter class. The i)art of Magnus was less to discover new phe- 

 nomena than to reinvestigate and render more definite those already 

 known. Such was the precision of his researches that he was fre- 

 quently enabled to draw new truths from subjects apparently exhausted, 

 and, in some cases, even to transform entirely, propositions generally 

 admitted as truths. He valued little bold conceptions and even inge- 

 nious hypotheses when not supported by rigorous demonstration, while 

 a fact apparently the most insignificant he would frequently regard as 

 of the highest importance, provided it was fully established. Exact and 

 conscientious in the extreme, he concentrated his efibrts upon the 

 minutiae of his investigations, removing with the greatest care every 

 cause of uncertainty. Of cautious and candid judgment he was not 

 ready to find his scientific colleagues in error 5 and when a disagreement 

 occurred between his results and those of another, his first impulse was 

 to look for a mistake in his own experiments. Essentially modest, 

 loving science for its own sake, and forgetful of self, he did not shrink 

 from the most arduous labors, from investigations apparently the most 

 unremunerative, and in this way, without ostentation, almost uncon- 

 siously he gained a solid and lasting reputation. 



