DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 463 



Eugenics. Here we recognise the influence of Tronchin, as else- 

 where that of Bonnet. 



De Saussure was not only a man of science and a Professor 

 of Philosophy, he also to the end of his life remained a scholar. 

 On the title-page of his Voyages he quotes two lines from Ovid, 

 which might equally have served Darwin : 



' Nee species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix 

 Ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras.' 1 



On the first page of the last volume he cites Homer, and elsewhere 

 Lucretius. During his long detention at Chamonix by bad 

 weather in 1787 he diverted his thoughts by reading the Iliad, 

 and a copy of Horace figures among the ' requisites ' for his 

 'Voyage au Mont Blanc.' In his later years he wrote a confi- 

 dential diary in Greek. In 1792 he gave the lecture already 

 referred to at the Society of Arts, ' On the Lack of any Expression 

 of the Sentiment of Gratitude in Greek Literature,' at which Gibbon 

 was one of the audience. 2 



In the preceding pages I have endeavoured, to the best 

 of my ability, to set out and estimate de Saussure 's qualities 

 and activities in the various stations of life which he was called 

 on to occupy ; to present him as the centre of a family and a 

 member of a brilliant society, as a citizen, as a professor and 

 practical educational reformer, as an observer and experimentalist 

 in many branches of science, and last, but not least, from the 

 point of view in which he has been most generally regarded, as 

 an Alpine traveller and author. 



In so doing I have watched, forming itself slowly before my 

 eyes, the picture of a very definite and distinguished personality. 

 If I can to any extent succeed in transmitting it to my readers 

 I shall have attained my object. To me the great geologist and 

 the conqueror of Mont Blanc stands revealed in his published 

 works, and still more in the diaries and intimate correspondence 

 which I have been allowed to handle, as a singularly attractive 

 figure. As a son, a husband, and a father, in every family relation, 

 he showed a warmth of affection which happily met with a full 



1 Metamorphoses, bk. xv., line 252. The following lines run : 

 ' Nee perit in tanto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo, 



Sed variat, faciemque novat, nascique vocatur.' 

 8 See p. 359. 



