IV LIFE AND WORKS OF NICOLAUS STENO 



servations, though perhaps most of all for his power of drawing 

 sound, far*reaching, often ingenious conclusions from the observa* 

 tions made; while at the same time he was loved for his modesty, 

 his kindness, his upright way of thinking and his candour. 



Besides these two teachers of his and Swammerdam, who had also 

 gone to Leyden, there were other well*known scholars, who belonged 

 to Steno's most intimate circle. Of the latter may be mentioned his 

 former teacher, now his friend, Ole Borch, who made a long stay in 

 Leyden, and Matthias Jacobxus, a young Dane of the same age as 

 Steno, the son of Jacob Matthiesen, who after having been professor 

 in Copenhagen had been made Bishop of Aarhus in Jutland. In Ley* 

 den Steno also made the acquaintance of one more country*man, which 

 acquaintance, though at the time it seemed only temporary, was later 

 on to be renewed under quite different circumstances. This country* 

 man of Steno's was Peter Schumacher, who was then merely a young 

 student, but who was afterwards to become the famous and unhappy 

 High Chancellor of Denmark, Count Griffenfeldt. Among the Dutch 

 scholars with whom Steno was most in contact during his stay in Ley* 

 den, must be mentioned the highly gifted Jacob Golius, who besides 

 being an able mathematician was a great traveller, known for his 

 knowledge of Arabian, Turkish and Persian. He was Professor of 

 Arabian and Mathematics in Leyden, and, no doubt, it was to him 

 that Steno essentially owed his knowledge of languages, for instance 

 Arabian, as well as of mathematics, which branch of science attracted 

 Steno so much that, for a time, he thought of devoting himself ex* 

 clusively to the study of mathematics, or more particularly of geo* 

 metry. Finally we may mention Steno's intimate friendship with 

 Benedict Spinoza, who during this period was living outside Leyden 

 in Rijnsburg, but the religious views of the two men diverging 

 more and more this friendship was destined to be of no long du* 

 ration. 



The many notable men, who during these years were connected 

 with Steno by ties of friendship, were however not the only factors 

 contributing towards his development; of great importance were also 

 those, who acted as his scientific, sometimes even his personal, ad* 

 versaries. Among these Blaes plays the most prominent part, and 

 Steno later on looked upon his controversy with Blaes as a link in 

 his religious development. Besides him some others must also be 

 mentioned: Bils, Deusing and Everaerts. — Lodevijk de Bils was a well* 

 to*do, but not very cultured amateur anatomist, who at that time en* 

 joyed a great reputation, chiefly because he pretended to have found 

 a way of embalming dead bodies so as to keep them for ever in a 

 perfect state of preservation, for which discovery he demanded the 

 sum of 150,000 florins. He also made believe that he had a trick of 



