Martins, on the Life and Labors of De Candolle. 231 



publicanism have not given place to the modern spirit, — the spirit 

 of monarchical centralization. This old classical mode of think- 

 ing showed itself in many other great Swiss scholars, in Conrad 

 Gessner, Alb. von Haller, Saussure, &c, as well as in De Candolle, 

 though not in an equal degree. For however attached from in- 

 ward conviction to the form of government of their country, not 

 one of them had so earnest a desire to take an active part in the 

 internal affairs of the republic. They were all rather theoretical 

 students ; while in De Candolle was reflected the spirit of our 

 age, which passes onward from theory, from pure science, into 

 realization in the form of useful ideas. The thought of the dig- 

 nity and perfectibility of man, which the French revolution had 

 so often in its mouth, only to degrade, shone out in the noble- 

 minded, ardent citizen of Geneva, a son of the revolution in the 

 highest sense of the word. 



A comparison of Linnaeus with De Candolle in this point of 

 view, will result greatly in favor of the latter. We see Linnaeus 

 in Upsal, a remote and inconsiderable university-town of the 

 north, active in the professor's chair, where he is surrounded by 

 a crowd of young men eager for knowledge from almost every 

 part of the earth ; or we see him at the writing table of a small 

 room, from which the dictator of natural history sends through- 

 out the world his works, written in that terse, genial Latin in 

 which his whole self is mirrored. There only lives Linnaeus ; 

 or in aula academica, presiding over the discussions of his schol- 

 ars ; or in the small primitive botanical garden, where the regis- 

 trator of the vegetable kingdom walks between formal rows of 

 box and regular flower-beds in silent meditation. The northern 

 natural historian withdrew himself from the world ; he did not 

 even deign to take part in the administration of the academic sen- 

 ate, which he regarded only as a burden. Restricting his society 

 to a few friends, and to the infrequent visitors from other coun- 

 tries, Linnaeus looked not upon the bustle of the world, except 

 sometimes to deprecate it ; only in the concrete study of nature 

 does he find himself at ease. He is no cosmopolite, except that he 

 studies nature in every zone ; he recommends Swedish medicinal 

 and esculent plants, instead of those which distant countries might 

 offer. His mind becomes a denizen of every corner of the earth, 

 but he belongs personally to Sweden alone. He allowed all po- 

 litical commotions to pass by him unheeded while absorbed in 



