P. Martin Duncan

“ I shall never hope to make money by geology, but not to lose, and tax others for my amusement; and unless I can secure this, it would, in my circumstances, be selfish in me to devote myself as much as I hope to do to it.” These sentiments did Lyell great honour. “My work is in part written, and all planned. It will not pretend to give even an abstract of all that is known in geology, but it will endeavour to establish the principle of reasoning on the science. ”

“ It was not vanity, nor the desire of being great, that made Buffon work; certainly it was not amusement. But he was happy in his work, and he stated that genius is a gift which comes not from man; and the great man is an instrument in the Divine hand; he has a mission which may be for light or to ruin, and neither the environment of pleasure or glory or the troubles of fortune, ill-health, or misery should deter him from his ends. ”

“ The very root of science, it is that which we are to hold in our consciences against all opposition. Appreciated by the savage, dear to pagan, the pride of the Christian, the giver of confidence amongst all men. Hard to get at, yet it is at the foundation of all those branches of knowledge which relate to the study of the Creation. Aristoteles studied natural history, that is, the plants and animals which came before him, especially. He recorded their description, noted their reproduction, and tried to make out their resemblances. ”

“ But Lamarck added something: “A species consists of a collection of individuals resembling each other, and reproducing their like by generation, so long as the surrounding conditions do not alter to such an extent as to cause their habits, characters, and forms to vary.” He stated what is only known to those naturalists who have had experience; the more we advance in the knowledge of the different organized bodies which cover the surface of the globe, the more our embarrassment increases to determine what ought to be regarded as a species, and still more how to limit and distinguish genera. ”

“ The two companions pursued their favourite studies with an honourable spirit of emulation. They divided the kingdoms and provinces of nature between them, and while Linnæus yielded the palm to Artedi in ichthyology (the science of fish) , the latter acknowledged Linnæus to be his superior in entomology, or that of insects. Each kept his discoveries to himself, though for no great length of time, since not a day passed without one surprising the other by narrating some new fact, so that emulation produced mutual industry of research, and stimulated each to new exertions. ”

“ When one reflects on all that an accomplished botanist ought to know, it is enough to frighten him. His memory is loaded with the names of twelve or thirteen thousand plants, and he is expected to recall, on occasion, the image of any one of them. There is perhaps not one of those plants but has insects peculiar to itself; and some trees, such as the oak, give sustenance to several hundred different species. And after all, how many are there that do not live on plants? How many species that devour others? How many that live at the expense of other animals? ”

“ Dying from the results of a fall, Lyell was buried in Westminster Abbey, as a representative man of science. He was a brilliant example of a man who sought out truth, and braved public opinion for its sake, and who enlightened the world, caring little for ease and luxury, and assisting every fellow-labourer in the great science of geology. ”

“ Swammerdam made an epoch in zoology by showing the value of the microscope, and by his extreme exactitude in descriptions, drawings, and dissections. His contributions to human anatomy alone will always render his name illustrious.
Although everybody must regret that Swammerdam had not good means, and that his work was so sadly brought to a close by poverty and trouble, yet it must be remembered that wealth is not a great incentive to distinction in subjects that require great self-denial, and which are not much valued by what is called public opinion. ”

“ The great merit of Pennant was that he observed so much and was a capital practical zoologist. Moreover, his great knowledge of other things and his general accomplishments enabled him to sift the good from the bad zoology of his day. He appears to have lived the life of a student and naturalist when the kingdom was always in a whirlwind of politics, and when foreign troubles prevailed. Unlike most of his class, for he was a little country squire, living on his own estate at Downing, he devoted himself to nature, and for many years his books gave great enjoyment to thousands of his countrymen. ”

“ The nature of the science of zoology—Great zoologists usually botanists also—Aristoteles as a zoologist—Plinius—The long age of no progress—The life of Conrad Gesner—The zoology of Ray and Willughby—Swammerdam—Réaumur—The zoology of Linnæus.
Zoology does for animals what botany does for plants. It is the science which treats of the resemblances and differences of animals, their shapes, and habits, and which explains their position on the earth in different countries, and classifies them. ”

“ Aristoteles, Theophrastus, Plinius, and Dioscorides are the men of mark who raised botany and plant-learning out of their infancy and gave them a youthful vigour. They placed the method of learning, on its right basis. Instead of imagining what was true, and then collecting and studying plants to prove the correctness of the imagined notion, they began in the opposite direction. They strove to learn and discover facts,—truths, and then reasoned upon them. ”

“ His master, Plato, was not a naturalist, but accepting the truths handed down to him by those who were observers of nature, he generalized about them, and got ideas by thinking out the bearings of the truths. He loved the ideal, and wrote, “Behold this world! You will find that its efficient cause is God, by whom it was brought into being; its moving cause, the goodness of the [8] Creator.” He could no more occupy time by studying the structure of the flowers, plants, and sea-shells, than Aristoteles could in imagining or speculating on the causes of things. ”

“ The same energies and forces have always been and have acted by law in much the same manner as at the present time. With his true scientific spirit Hutton would have nothing to do with convulsions or with the origin of the globe; he did not want to guess or speculate, but to argue logically on facts which anybody could observe. He took geology out of the age of the marvellous and laid the foundations of the present aspect of the science. ”

“ Not a few believed that the hills and dales, mountains and plains, cliffs and valleys, were first formed as they are now.
A Scottish gentleman, a quiet retiring man, having some means of his own, studied the structure of the rocks and taught himself physical geography. He mastered a great number of undoubted facts, and reasoned upon them, and produced a theory which made geology a science, instead of a jumble of guesses flavoured with the love of the marvellous. ”

“ Linnæus, whose life has been given under the title of a hero in botanical science, was almost as great a zoologist as botanist and mineralogist. His classification of animals produced as great a change in the direction and possibility of studying zoology, as that of plants did in the case of botany. It led the way, through an artificial system, by which animals could be readily known, to a natural system which united animals not only by their common general shape, but also by the nature, position, and use of their internal organs. ”

“ Beyond the reach of direct politics, the professors of Montpellier had their little evenings, and even got up private theatricals. In the midst of a scene in one of these came the news that Napoleon had landed at Cannes, and was on his way to Paris. That was the last quiet hour that De Candolle had in the town. An unfriendly man, who was a royalist, began to set people against the professor, who resented their interference. He began to limit his circle of friends, left literature alone more and more, and plunged more deeply into science. He determined to leave Montpellier and its littlenesses. ”

“ Cuvier was one of the committee, and was made chancellor of the University, a position which he retained until his death under most trying circumstances. No man did greater or better and more lasting work for state education than Cuvier. His heart was in the work of education; he had nothing but mental progress to desire; and it was a much more satisfactory thing for France to have a renowned, scientific man at the head of a great university, who, moreover, really controlled the education of the country, than to have had such important offices held by mere politicians and soldiers. ”

“ Hitherto, quite as many people believed that the highest and most intelligent animals were created first, and that the lower ones had degenerated from them. Lamarck conceived that nature, acting by law, commenced with the simplest things, and that one species formed others, so that the present animals and plants are the outcome of those of the past history of the earth. He believed in incessant change in nature, and that when our knowledge is complete the apparently well separated and defined species will be found to be united by intermediate forms, and cease to be species. ”

“ Solomon loved nature, because it brought him into the presence of truth and beauty, and he “spoke of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.” This was part of his wisdom. And the great traveller, Herodotus, shows us that a taste for natural history had, in his time, found a place in the mind of the Greeks—a great race who followed after the first child-like nature-studies of the Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Babylonians had merged into real knowledge. ”

“ The above resolution of our author is no doubt highly commendable, but the world has rather to lament that so many able men have formed the same determination, at least in natural science. If it were universally adhered to, scarcely any work would see the light, for few can be so sensible of the defects of any other person’s attempt to illustrate the works of nature, as a man of tolerable judgment must be of his own. This is especially the case with those who, like Ray, direct their aspiring views towards system and philosophical theory. ”

“ There is no doubt that Cuvier was, in his private life, a very estimable man, and that in his public life he upheld the teachings of his conscience to his disadvantage. It was to be expected that a man whose work proved the great antiquity of the kinds of animals now living on the surface of the earth, and the existence of a great philosophy in nature which linked the past and present animals in a scheme which showed that life had been continuous for ages, would be abused and called an atheist by some ignorant people or other. ”

“ So in the early days of civilization, men believed in everything that was told them, and ascribed wonderful properties to the nature around them which they saw was so beautiful and yet often so terrible. As the world got older, curious legends were associated with truths and falsities; and with the general diffusion of learning, and the careful exercise of the reasoning powers, knowledge became more exact and useful, and was followed for truth’s sake. ”

“ His friends were dying off, month after month, and when death came to him, he was content. He had been a good son, an excellent father, a loving friend, a true patriot, deserving everything that elevated mankind; and it is admitted by all [121] botanists that he consolidated the science, and gave it a definite natural classification.
De Candolle early in life grasped the truth that plants grow, reproduce, and arrive at maturity, not by accident, but according to natural law, and he soon saw that some parts of plants were of more importance to their well-being and multiplication than others. ”

“ There is no better incitement to a youth who has tried to do his best at school, and who is thinking about leading a useful, successful life, than to read the history of the lives of the men whose names are household words in the branches of knowledge he has learned. ”

“ One or two points or peculiarities were not to be considered at the expense of others which belonged to organs of great importance to the animal. He asserted that all the structures of the animal must be studied, and physiology as well as anatomy must be considered. The most important structures must be considered first of all, and the grand divisions of classification must rest upon them. In the “Règne Animal” Cuvier commences with man, whom he places in a genus by himself, and recognizes only one species diversified by varieties or races. ”

“ Theophrastus knew much about geology, and so did Plinius.
These men, then, brought the science of botany out of its childhood, and saw it partly on its way through its youth; they had removed it beyond the fanciful ideas and strange notions of the earliest writers on the subject, and had begun to classify plants, and to study the relations of plants to surrounding nature, and to the wants of man. Chemistry and the use of the microscope were unknown, and therefore progress in the necessary direction could not be made at that time of the world. ”

“ Therefore every man of prudence and observation who has paid the strictest attention to mineralogy, the structure of the earth, and the changes it has undergone, will be very cautious how he sets about to invent a system which nature cannot conform to without having recourse to subterraneous fires, volcanic eruptions, or uncommon convulsions, by which every hill and dale must have been formed and every rock must have been rent to form those chasms, which, in comparison to the strata they are found in, are no more than sun-cracks in a clod of clay ”

“ The temptations incident to, and the real duties of wealth, are as great antagonists of successful scientific research, as poverty. And certainly the frivolity and vice of the wealthier classes of Europe, during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, were not likely to inspire any of their members with a desire for natural science. But some very remarkable instances occurred, in which the genius and determination of some great men prevailed over the intolerance and habits of the age, and enabled them to become men of great mark in zoology and other subjects. ”

“ Risen from the ranks, having been poor and often anxious to know how to learn, Cuvier was a capital man for his position. He paid particular attention not only to the higher branches of education, but also to popular or elementary education. His principle was that instruction would lead to civilization, and civilization to morality, and therefore that primary or elementary instruction should give to the people every means of fully exercising their industry, without disgusting them with their condition. ”

“ One of Linnæus’s biographers says, “He was fonder, on the whole, of meddling with plants than with patients;” and in the true spirit of science, Linnæus gave up his lucrative practice to settle down as Professor of Botany to the University of Upsala. It was the summit of his wishes, and in 1741 he began to reside at Upsala, which was to be his future home.
His zeal, talents, and widespread renown soon produced the desired effect, and in a few years the garden at Upsala ranked equal, if not superior, to similar institutions in Europe. ”

“ William Smith’s portrait hangs in the most distinguished position, over the president’s chair at the Geological Society of London. He was a great genius, and suffered much toil and poverty, in order to produce the truth; but he led a very happy life on the whole for his thoughts about nature were his great and good riches. He proved that there is a regular succession of strata which are characterized by their fossils, each stratum being the burial ground of its time of collection. ”