126 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE 



in August, perhaps on his return, de Saussure ascended the Dent 

 de Jaman behind Montreux. He praises the view and tells an 

 amusing story of a minister from the Pays de Vaud who went with 

 him, but was so terrified on the descent that he had to be carried 

 down by his legs and shoulders like a corpse. 1 



For the following summer (1771) a more ambitious plan was 

 formed, a tour beginning in June with the Simplon, and having 

 for its principal object the flora of the Italian Lakes . De Saussure 

 rowed up Lago Maggiore to Locarno, crossed the Monte Cenere, 

 ascended Monte Bre, visited Como and Pliny's Villa. He went 

 on to Milan. In a long letter to his wife he describes how he was 

 taken round the town by Pere Frisi, a Professor of Physics, 

 Science, and Engineering, and introduced to Pere Boscovich, 

 celebrated as a philosopher, an astronomer, and an optician. I 

 quote part of the letter as a specimen of de Saussure in his lighter 

 mood : 



' Pere Frisi took me in a carriage the round of the churches, and 

 then we called together on Pere Boscovich, who was out, so we went 

 on to the Corso. I noticed many fair ladies bow and smile to Pere 

 Frisi. He told me the names of everyone, but he did not repeat a 

 single scandalous tale of the kind you would have cared for ; he seems 

 so good, so upright, that I believe he never thinks any evil. I took him 

 home and had a long talk over physics and natural history ; conversa- 

 tion with him is a great pleasure ; his gentleness and modesty are 

 charming. 



' Next day I visited Pere Boscovich. He is in quite a different 

 style to Pere Frisi. His style is that of the French savant whose 

 object is to make a great show of his learning and new ideas in your 

 eyes, without thinking much of his visitor. Let me tell you something 

 of his ideas. I am glad to write them down before I forget them. He 

 does not believe that the soul has any fixed seat in the brain, but that 

 it moves about from one place to another, so that if a man survives 

 the loss of a great part of his brain from a wound, it is owing to his 

 luck in the soul having been in the part of the brain that was un- 

 touched, while another time a slight wound in the part where the 

 soul is may cause death. He believes that if God created the world 

 He must have created it such as it would have been had it previously 

 existed for millions of years. At the moment of creation according 

 to him the rivers filled their beds although the water had not flowed 



1 Voyages, section 1659. 



