THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 



PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Life and Writings of Berzelius. By M. P. LOUYET.* 



Whenever an individual whose life and labours honour 

 and ennoble humanity sinks into the grave, we cannot help 

 feeling deep regret at the loss of so much intellectual riches. 

 We are filled with sorrow when we reflect that the voice we 

 were accustomed to honour will be heard by us no more, 

 and that we shall no longer benefit by his enlightened in- 

 structions ; we lament the extinction of the bright torch 

 which guided our hesitating steps in difficult paths, and can 

 scarcely regard with resignation this terrible proof of death 

 to which the Creating Power has subjected us, which so in- 

 fallibly brings us all, great and small, weak and powerful, to 

 its own inexorable level. 



These reflections arose in our minds three months ago, 

 when the journals brought the sad but not unexpected 

 news of the death of Berzelius. For several years, this 

 calamity had been threatening us. Having sufi"ered, on 

 several difi'erent occasions, from attacks of apoplexy, he 

 never completely rallied. For several months back, the half 

 of his body may be said to have been in the grasp of death. 

 Every courier from Stockholm might therefore be expected 

 to announce one of the greatest losses which it has been the 

 fate of scientific Europe to sustain. Berzelius himself was 

 fully conscious of his condition ; he did not disguise from 

 himself that death was near; but he witnessed its approach 

 with the calmness of a philosopher, and the faith of a 

 Christian. 



* Read in the Aci»<leniy of Sciences of Brussels on IGtli December 1848. 

 VOL. XLVII. NO. XCIll. — JULY 1849. A 



