Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/48

38 home at the age of attending college. This was particularly true in Switzerland in the last century and the first half of the present one, especially at Geneva and Basle, the towns which have furnished the largest proportion of savants connected by family ties.

Inquiring what personal traits contribute most to the making of a scientific man, a comparison is made of the characteristics possessed in common by four eminent men—Darwin, Linnæus, Cuvier, and the author's father, Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle. They all had heads larger than the ordinary size; strong and persistent will; curiosity for the examination of accessible things and of truths; great activity, exhibited in the walking excursions of Linnæus and De Candolle, the untiring industry of Darwin, and the constant occupation of Cuvier with his work, although he seemed to be phlegmatic; order, shown in their aptitude in classification; observing faculties, in which none could be superior to Darwin and Cuvier; freedom from any taste for metaphysics; sound judgment; excellent memory; great power of attention, and remarkable faculty for generalization. As points of difference, Darwin, Cuvier, and De Candolle were distinguished by amplitude of ideas, while Linnæus was narrow; Darwin and De Candolle were independent in opinion, Linnæus and Cuvier less so. None of the four had a natural taste for languages, but De Candolle and Darwin regretted that they knew so little of other languages than their own. Looking for the origin of the qualities they had in common, we find that Linnæus was the son of a country pastor, and grandson, through his mother, of another pastor. Cuvier, whose brother Frédéric was also a zoölogist, but less celebrated than he, was the son of a military officer, whose life does not throw any particular light on the origin of his distinctive characteristics. The De Candolle family were distinguished by an independence of judgment that compelled them to change the country of their residence, for opinion's sake, four times in three hundred years. These four naturalists were singularly favored by external circumstances. They were born in long-civilized countries; they received a Protestant education which did not repress their curiosity or the independence of their opinions; they found, at home and around them, good examples, counsels, and encouragement; and they studied in good schools.

Special or innate tastes are not as important as they appear to be, unless they prove persistent. In that case they are cultivated in afterlife, and are remembered and spoken of. But those who have the same tastes in infancy and fail to cultivate them, forget them and never speak of them. Multitudes of children chase butterflies and make collections of shells or insects without becoming naturalists, or construct toy houses and machines without becoming architects or engineers. Some scientific men have also been poetasters or amateur dramatists in their youth. Other special tastes and antipathies have some influence, but they result as often from the circumstances of