Page:Hans Christian Ørsted - The Soul in Nature - Horner - 1852.djvu/21

xviii elaborated his ideas with slowness and certainty, bringing them forward only after a long lapse of time. How often did he (Sir John Herschel) wish to heaven that he could trample down, and strike for ever to the earth, the hasty generalisation which marked the present age, and bring up another and a more safe system of investigation, such as that which marked the inquiries of his friend. It was in the deep recesses, as it were of a cell, that in the midst of his study, a far idea first struck upon the mind of Oersted. He waited calmly and long for the dawn which at length opened upon him, altering the whole relations of science and, he might say, of life, until they knew not where he would lead them to. The electric telegraph, and other wonders of modern science, were but mere effervescences from the surface of this deep recondite discovery, which Oersted had liberated, and which was yet to burst with all its mighty force nponupon [sic] the world. If we were to characterise by any figure the advantage of Oersted to science, he would regard him as a fertilizing shower descending from heaven, which brought forth a new crop, delightful to the eye and pleasing to the heart."

Oersted quitted England at the close of the Southampton Meeting, and joined the Association at Kiel on his road home.

With reference to his worldly position, he had become Secretary to the Royal Society of Sciences in Copenhagen, Professor Ordinarius, a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences in the French Institute, Director of the Polytechnic School at Copenhagen, which he had himself created by the personal influence he possessed with Frederick VI. In 1837 he was made Knight of the Legion of Honour, in 1840 "Conferenz-rath," in 1842 he was made Knight of the Prussian Order "pour le Mérite dans les Sciences et les Arts," in 1843 he received from Erlangen the diploma of honour as Doctor of Medicine, and in 1847 the Grand Cross of Dannebrog.