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Rh Nicolai himself in the sense of the character in Terence's play who said, “Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.” Herein lies the great merit of his work; and herein, too, we find its defect. In his eagerness to include everything, he has attempted the impossible. He speaks in one place with an unjust contempt, and with a contempt which he above all should have been slow to express, of the “Vielwisser,” the polyhistor. But he himself is a Vielwisser, one of the finest specimens of this genus, too rare in our day. In all domains, art, science, history, religion, and politics, his insight is penetrating, but at the same time rapid and incisive. Everywhere his opinions are lively, often original, and often debatable. The wealth of his glimpses “de omni re scibili,” the abundance of his intuitions and his reasonings, have a brilliant and at times a venturesome character. The historical chapters are not above reproach. Unquestionably the lack of books accounts for certain insufficiencies, but I think the peculiarities of the author's own genius are partly responsible. He is headlong and impulsive. These qualities give charm to his writing, but they are dangerous. What he loves, he sees beautifully. But woe to what he does not love! Take, for instance, his disdainful and hasty judgments upon the recent imaginative writers of Germany—judgments passed wholesale.

It is a remarkable fact that this German biologist resembles no one living or dead so much as he resembles one of our French encyclopedists of the eighteenth century. I