The secret of such an extraordinarily e&ctive 

 influence lay in the equally extraordinary mixture 

 of the animal and social gifts, the intellectual powers, 

 and the desires and passions of the man. From his 

 boyhood, he looked on the world as if it and he were 

 made for each other, and on the vast diversity of 

 living things as if he were there w^ith authority 

 to take mental possession of them all. His habit 

 of collecting began in childhood, and during his long 

 life knew no bounds save those that separate the 

 things of Nature from those of human art. Already 

 in his student years, in spite of the most stringent 

 poverty, his whole scheme of existence was that of 

 one predestined to greatness, who takes that fact for 

 granted, and stands forth immediately as a scientific 

 leader of men. 



His passion for knowing living things was com- 

 bined with a rapidity of observation, and a capacity 

 to recognize them again and remember everything 

 about them, w^hich all his life it seemed an easy 

 triumph and delight for him to exercise, and which 

 never allowed him to waste a moment in doubts 

 about the commensurability of his powers with his 

 tasks. If ever a person lived by faith, he did. 

 When a boy of twenty, with an allowance of two 

 hundred and fifty dollars a year, he maintained an 

 artist attached to his employ, a custom which never 

 afterwards was departed from, — except when he 

 maintained two or three. He lectured from the 

 very outset to all those who would hear him. '^1 



