78 SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
the exceptions to which they were liable. He 
was more disposed, from the natural caution of 
his mind, to limit a general principle admitted by 
others, than to carry it, in his own speculations, a 
single step beyond the line ascertained and fixed 
by the observation of phenomena. We have a 
striking example of philosophical prudence and 
integrity, in his treatment of the theory of 
Agassiz respecting glaciers. 
These habits of thought, combined with his 
great knowledge, more especially of the vegetable 
kingdom of nature, rendered his services as an 
inquirer peculiarly important in the present state 
of geology,—a science, which offers so many in- 
ducements to rash speculation, and which its 
own friends and cultivators have charged with 
precipitate generalisation.— One quality of a true 
philosopher we may unreservedly claim for him— 
the love of knowledge for its own sake. No 
mind was ever more free from all feelings of envy 
and jealousy, or the craving after that distinction 
in the world, which high intellectual endowments 
are supposed to confer, and for which alone some 
men seem to think they are worth cultivating. 
Truth was to him a treasure which carried its 
own recompense with it. In fact, he was too 
