410 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
titled names; but it is scarcely necessary to add, 
that not one has been the reward of intellectual 
acquirements, while of those in our list who have 
contributed to the Philosophical Transactions, and 
have thereby demonstrated their scientific know- 
ledge, there appears to be only one.” —“ It must not, 
indeed, be inferred,” observes our author, “ that 
the titles of nebility in the French list were all of 
them the rewards of scientific eminence; yet many 
are known to be such; but it will be quite sufficient 
for the argument to mention the names of Lagrange, 
La Place, Berthollet, Chaptal,” and, last, though not 
least, Cuvier. 
(280.) Need we, after such facts as these, search 
for further details on the decorations and orders of 
merit bestowed upon living philosophers by Prussia 
and Bavaria, which, at the present moment, of all 
the European nations, are not inferior to France, in 
their munificent encouragement of science, — by 
Saxony, whose chief astronomer is likewise an am- 
bassador, — by the Grand Duke of Tuscany; whose 
prime minister is a celebrated mathematician, — or 
by Russia, whose Aulic councillors are almost ex- 
clusively chosen from the ranks of science? These 
instances, taken at random, are sufficient indica- 
tions of the state of feeling throughout Europe 
on the question before us, —that philosophers should 
have the option of accepting those titular dis- 
tinctions, which are so much coveted by the bulk 
of mankind, and so profusely lavished upon others. 
Their possession, it is true, by such men, can add 
little or nothing to that imperishable fame which 
is their chief desire; a paramount feeling which 
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