404 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE 



Society. But it was not till 1783, after an interval of forty years, 

 that he received the crowning honour, that of being nominated 

 one of the eight Foreign Members of the Paris Academy. 



The young student continued to devote himself to further 

 research among the lower forms of life and into their modes of 

 reproduction. But the continual use of the microscope began 

 to affect his general health and eyesight, and he was forced to 

 turn to less exacting inquiries. He took up the investigation of 

 the nature and development of plant -life. His Recherches sur 

 V usage des Feuilles dans les Plantes (1754) represented the labour 

 of twelve years, and was perhaps his most important contribution 

 to Natural Science. In his observations on the functions of 

 leaves, on their powers of sensation, discernment, and adaptation, 

 he led the way in an obscure branch of investigation that has been 

 successfully pursued since by Charles Darwin and his son, Sir 

 Francis Darwin. Bonnet's work as de Saussure was at pains 

 to point out may on one point serve as an illustration of the 

 connection between science and practical results. It is owing to 

 their power of inhaling nourishment through their leaves that 

 broad-leaved vegetables need to draw less from the soil than corn 

 does. The fact is a reason for the rotation of crops. 



Bonnet had a speculative mind as well as an observant eye. 

 As a youth philosophical studies had seemed to him 'Elysium.' 

 He now resumed them and combined his natural history with 

 psychological and metaphysical speculations. It was a time 

 when Buffon had set men thinking on the origin and transmission 

 of life, on the distinctions between men and animals, the limits 

 between the animal and the vegetable world, the connection 

 between nerves and sensations. Buffon was maintaining stoutly 

 his theory of organic molecules . Bonnet asserted the conservation 

 of pre-existing germs. It was a struggle between Buffon's theory 

 of a continuous process directed by an immanent Creator and 

 Bonnet's of a single act of creation. Buffon denounced Bonnet's 

 hypothesis as an absurdity and ridiculed his minute observations, 

 declaring that the microscope had produced more blunders than 

 truths. Bonnet on his part repeated the current criticism of 

 Buffon's excessive love of generalisations that had no adequate 

 foundation in observed facts. 



Bonnet was at heart a firm Christian, though he could smile 



