294 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



anatomical professor, when Bell visited his lecture-room, 

 dismissed his class with the words, " C'est assez, messieurs, 

 vous avez vu Charles Bell." 



In Germany one of the great achievements of Johannes 

 Miiller, through which he acquired European celebrity, 

 was his actual experimental proof of Bell's thesis, with 

 which he had occupied himself for many years. 



Instances might be indefinitely multiplied, showing the 

 individual greatness, but also the isolation, of English 

 men of science and their discoveries ; how the latter ema- 

 nated so frequently from the depths of original genius 

 in intimate communion with nature ; how they as fre- 

 quently lacked those social advantages, that organisation 

 for development, which the great schools and establish- 

 ments of the Continent all through the century have pos- 

 sessed in so eminent a degree. Not only in the study 

 of nature has this individual character of British research 

 53. shown itself, though it is here most conspicuous. In the 

 geography, exploration of foreign lands and the monuments of by- 

 gone civilisations in the historical branches of research, 

 we meet with similar pioneer work. Who does not recall 

 the names of Dr Young and of Layard ? I will mention 

 only one instance of this kind, where individual ability 

 joined to fortuitous circumstances laid the foundation of 

 a new branch of research on the borderland of natural 

 and political history, the geography of ancient and modern 

 Greece the exploration of the land which produced the 

 most remarkable, and perhaps the most intense, culture 

 which the world has yet seen. Note what Ernst Curtius 1 



Wetteifer der Nationen in der 

 Wiederentdeckung der Lander des 

 Alterthurns" (1880), both reprint- 



1 See his essay in the 'Preussische 

 Jahrbucher,' vol. 38, on M. W. 

 Leake, and his discourse, "Der 



