238 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



Other evolutionists, and amongst these we are sorry 

 to have to place the great Haller * and Cuvier 



* 



* Haller was born at Berne in 1708, and died in 1777. He was 

 one of the most distinguished scientific men of the eighteenth 

 century, and nature appears to have been most bountiful to him 

 in every respect. He was at once noble, rich, and handsome, 

 and he moreover was endowed with a very uncommon degree of 

 mental power. From the age of nine, he began to distinguish 

 himself, and at a very early period he was admitted as member 

 of several scientific societies. The rest of his life was in perfect 

 accordance with this beginning, for he devoted his time almost 

 exclusively to science, poetry being the only relaxation in which he 

 indulged. Two odes which he composed are said to have been 

 remarkably good, one being " On the Alps," and the other " On the 

 Death of his Wife." Haller spoke almost all living languages, and 

 wrote equally well in German, French, and Latin. 



Having been appointed at a very early age as professor at the 

 University of Gottingen, he continued for seventeen years to occupy 

 the chairs of anatomy, surgery, and botany. Several sovereigns 

 endeavoured to attract him to their courts, but having been nomi- 

 nated member of the supreme council of his native town he returned 

 to Berne, where he received all the honours at the disposal of a 

 republican government. Haller having been attacked by the disease 

 to which he afterwards succumbed, devoted his attention to the 

 study of his own symptoms, recording the progress of his malady 

 and the progressive failing of his vital forces, until the moment 

 when his pulse" had nearly stopped, when a sign to the friends who 

 were standing round him indicated that he had maintained his 

 presence of mind to the very last moment of his existence. Cuvier, 

 who has recorded this remarkable example of moral courage, 

 exhibited in his turn a precisely similar instance of consciousness 

 and self-possession. 



The works of Haller are very numerous ; but although the greater 

 number of them relate to medicine and human physiology he did 

 not neglect the natural sciences properly so called, and he deserves 

 to be regarded as one of the founders of comparative physiology. 

 His great work, which appeared under the modest title of Elementa 

 Physiologice Corporis Humani, will always be regarded as one of the 

 noblest monuments of human intelligence, while his Opera Minora 



