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 nobility 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 



