46 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



the Indian who warmed himself at the flames of his 

 bed.' The craze of that age, especially in France, was 

 the manifestation of all material palpable truths just 

 the things that their bodily senses could appreciate ; to 

 this they sacrificed all the other truths, which are to these 

 as is the sound of music to the written notes. All the 

 rest they laughed to see Voltaire destroy, and dance 

 upon the pyre (the dunghill Carlyle calls it) like a 

 mocking imp. France has been the poorer ever since. 

 Savonarola's burning of the vanities was a different 

 form of sacrifice. A ' cold, sharp, hard, unmalleable 

 logic-chopper,' like Voltaire as a destroyer of idols, is 

 only c good to behold at rare intervals.' 



Tired of the ethical and didactic writers, they had all 

 become philosophers or philosophasters in France at that 

 time. Plato defines the philosopher as the man who 

 seeks after the objects of knowledge while others seek 

 after those of opinion. Some one smaller says, 'Man is 

 a genus whereof the philosopher is only a species/ 

 Linnaeus was welcome to all to the Due de Noailles, 

 the nobleman of the eighteenth century, one of the 

 ' Corinthian pillars of the polished society,' with his 

 refined and finished manner, so masterly in its perfect 

 practice that it was like an early impression thrown off a 

 precious print, whose plate has taken years to work, yet 

 has a grace beyond the reach of art ; as well as to the phi- 

 losopher Rousseau, who was enthusiastically fond of the 

 study of Nature, and of Linnaeus as the best interpreter 

 of her works; and equally so to the c Colossus of gossamer,' 



