SKETCH OF JACOB MOLESCHOTT. 405 



Ludwig, who had been called to Vienna. On June 21st of the same 

 year he delivered his introductory lecture, the subject of which 

 was Light and Life. It was printed as a pamphlet, which went 

 through three editions. On his way to the lecture room he met 

 the rector of the university, Hermann Kochly, who was not only 

 an acute philologist but also something of a wag, and who assured 

 him that the peasants, led by their pastors and armed with clubs, 

 were coming down the lake to put a stop to such godless proceed- 

 ings, just as a dozen years before they had overthrown the govern- 

 ment that ventured to offer a professorship to David Strauss. 



At that time the society of Zurich was uncommonly attractive, 

 owing in a great measure to the presence of many political refu- 

 gees from France, Germany, and Italy, whom the reaction which 

 followed the Revolution of 1848 had driven into exile. Very pleas- 

 ant, too, and stimulating were his associations with G. H. Lewes 

 and George Eliot, who came to Zurich on purpose to visit him ; 

 with Varnhagen von Ense, Gottfried Keller, Princess Wittgen- 

 stein, Countess d'Agoult, and especially the geologist Eduard 

 Desor, at whose country seat in the Jura, Combe- Varin, a select 

 circle of congenial spirits met from time to time for the inter- 

 change of thought and the discussion of scientific questions. 

 Among those who were wont to assemble under Desor's hospi- 

 table roof besides Moleschott may be mentioned Carl Vogt, Charles 

 Martin, Jacob Venedey, Liebig, Schonbein (the discoverer of gun- 

 cotton), Dr. Hans Kuchler (a German Catholic parson), and Theo- 

 dore Parker, who spent the summer of 1859 in the Alps for the 

 benefit of his rapidly failing health. At these meetings papers 

 were read, and Moleschott speaks in the highest terms of one by 

 Parker, entitled A Bumblebee's Thoughts on the Plan and Pur- 

 pose of Creation, an exceedingly acute and amusing persiflage of 

 the anthropocentric theory of the universe. These essays form 

 the contents of Desor's Album of Combe- Varin, a unique memo- 

 rial volume of about three hundred pages. Moleschott aud Parker 

 often differed in their ideas, but entertained the warmest regard 

 for each other as earnest and honest seekers after truth. Curi- 

 ously enough, a peculiarly strong attachment sprang up between 

 Parker and Kuchler, the radical Unitarian and the German Cath- 

 olic, who used to sit for hours in conversation under an evergreen 

 tree, a fit symbol of their lasting friendship and now known as 

 "Parker's Fir."* 



* Moleschott's charming autobiography, Fur meine Freunde (Giessen: Emil Roth, 1894, 

 pp. 326), gives a pleasant account of the days spent with Desor and his illustrious guests at 

 Combe-Varin. Indeed, these personal reminiscences are most delightful reading, and it is 

 to be regretted that they have remained a fragment extending only to 1860, and thus com- 

 prising but a little more than one half of his life. The life at Combe-Varin is also de- 

 scribed in Alfred Altherr'a Theodor Parker, in seinem Leben vnd Werken (St. Gallen : 



