THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



279 



greater share of popular attention. 1 His mental labours 

 have preserved an individual character, shutting them 

 out during his life from common contact, and limiting 

 their fertilising power, like that of an oasis in the desert, 

 to a narrow circle of casual visitors. Minds like Newton 

 and Faraday, full of new life, but modestly content with 

 deepening and strengthening their secluded vigour, re- 

 frained from boastful publicity or ostentatious parade, 

 working for all ages rather than for a special school or a 

 passing generation. It is the individualism of the English 

 character, the self-reliant strength of natural genius, which |m <* the 

 comes out most strongly in its great examples of scientific character - 

 work. In characters of smaller breadth, in intellects of 

 lesser power, these tendencies show themselves in ways 

 which we cannot always admire or commend : in the 

 emulation for place and position, in the competing for 



43. 

 Individual. 



1 This explains the remarkable 

 richness of English literature in 

 biographies, containing copious col- 

 lections of correspondence, and the 

 almost total absence of such litera- 

 ture in France, which, on the other 

 side, is rich in memoira, written by 

 statesmen and authors themselves. 

 As the students of nature have 

 usually little time for autobio- 

 graphy, we possess of the long list 

 of great names in modern French 

 science hardly any personal records 

 such as are so plentiful in English 

 literature. What we miss in many 

 of these elaborate and frequently 

 gossiping narratives is a just ap- 

 preciation of the position of the 

 subject of the biography in the 

 history of science, literature, and 

 thought, a definition of the exact 

 place and importance which belongs 

 to him and his work. This is what 

 is given in such a masterly and con- 

 densed form in the better iloges of 



Fontenelle, of Cuvier, of Arago, 

 and other secretaries of the French 

 Academies. In Germany biographi- 

 cal literature is less developed than 

 in this country, and memoirs are 

 almost absent those of Varnhagen 

 von Ense and of Perthes, among 

 literary men, being remarkable and 

 rare exceptions. Similarly the great 

 correspondence carried on by Goethe 

 through nearly sixty years is a 

 unique monument of his genius 

 and his influence, comparable only 

 to that of Voltaire during the last 

 century. R. Haym in his biographies 

 of Hegel, Wm. von Humboldt, and 

 Herder, which combine the bio- 

 graphical with the historical and 

 critical elements, has done a great 

 work, and these books are invalu- 

 able contributions to the history of 

 thought. Justi's ' Winckelmann ' is 

 of equal importance ; but Dilthey's 

 ' Schleiermacher ' is unfortunately 

 unfinished. 



