Chapter II: Introduction

Most of us, on leaving school or college, are anxious about our future career in the world, and concerning how we are to live, and what will be our occupations. Some young people who have finished their education, find themselves in comfortable circumstances, and are apt to look forward to an easy life; but the majority have a hard struggle before them, ere they can hope to be free from cares and to be successful. Yet it usually happens, that those youths starting with the very best prospects, do not live so happily, usefully, and well, as those who have to struggle with poverty, and who casting aside inglorious ease, labour on perseveringly. It is hard to believe, until the experience of years brings its very practical proofs that knowledge is more valuable than money; and therefore, how to get rich, is a predominant question with the majority of us. But the history of the struggles and successes of some of the men who have led most useful and beautiful lives, generally shows that industry, perseverance and contentment have served them better than pecuniary wealth, and that this has often been a source of trouble to them. 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.

At the present time, much care is taken to instruct young people about the nature and uses of plants, the characteristics of animals and the ancient history of the earth. Museums are readily visited, and little home collections of plants, insects, birds, and fossils are frequently easily made. Natural history, in all its branches, is easily studied; and as one becomes learned in it, the names of many men, constantly, come before the student as the masters of their respective subjects. Who has not heard of Linnæus, Cuvier, and Lyell? If any young naturalist will read the history of the lives of these great men, he will find much that is very noble in them; he will see that they made their way through great difficulties, by constant and great intellectual labour, and that they led very good, and useful, and happy lives.

It may happen that any one just commencing to study nature, is anxious to make a great discovery and to obtain a great name. The history of the lives of these and other heroes of science, will prove to him, however, that discoveries are not sudden gains of knowledge, but are the result of very slow and gradual accumulation of facts. If he is a real student of nature, he will strive for truth and not for personal distinction; and the truth, brings a better reward than the fleeting praise of man. The true lasts. He will be able to glean that the special gifts of men, if properly fostered and cultivated, advance knowledge in particular directions, and that certain great changes and advances in the method of learning, have been due to men who have begun poor, have laboured hard, have been persecuted and vilified, and who have nevertheless lived happily in their consciences, and have often become great men in every respect.

The following chapters contain the history of the lives of some of the most interesting men of ancient and modern times—of men who are the heroes of Botany, Zoology, and Geology, and who have added methods of study and many facts to their sciences.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

CHAPTER I.

THE INFANCY OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.

Old fancies and notions about plants—Aristoteles, the first
botanist—Theophrastus—Plinius—Dioscorides—Their lives, labours,
and troubles 1

CHAPTER II.

THE RISE OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.

John Ray—Joseph de Tournefort—Their lives 27

CHAPTER III.

THE LIFE OF LINNÆUS.

The science of plants begins to mature, to be reformed, and to
be made more exact 52

CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF LINNÆUS (_Continued_).

The publication and reception of the artificial system of
classifying plants 81

CHAPTER V.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.

The life of De Candolle—The Natural System 98

CHAPTER VI.

HEROES OF ZOOLOGY.

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 122

CHAPTER VII.

THE LIVES OF BUFFON, PENNANT, AND LAMARCK.

The popular writings of Buffon, and his life—Pennant’s
life—Lamarck and his life—The rise of popular natural history,
and of exact descriptions and philosophical zoology 144

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LIFE OF CUVIER.

The union of zoology and comparative anatomy, and the
examination and study of fossil remains 178

CHAPTER IX.

HEROES OF GEOLOGY.

The rise of the science which treats of the ancient history
of the earth—Students of the present changes which are
the examples by which the past may be comprehended—The
Greeks—The life of Pythagoras; a notice of the geology of
Aristoteles—Strabo’s life—The nature of fossils and the life of
Steno 209

CHAPTER X.

THE LIFE OF HUTTON.

The rise of the modern school of geology—The continuity of
the operations of nature and their sameness—The necessity of
studying the existing state of things in order to comprehend
the past—The denial of catastrophes—Hutton’s theory of the
earth the foundation of scientific geology 221

CHAPTER XI.

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SMITH.

The succession of the strata recognized—Strata known by their
fossils, position, and mineral contents—England surveyed by
Smith and made the type of the results of the succession of
changes studied by geology 236

CHAPTER XII.

THE LIFE OF MURCHISON.

The older rocks of the globe studied accurately and
surveyed—The general similarity of the succession of strata
in many parts of the world decided—The geology of Wales and
Scotland described—The commencement of accurate geological
surveys 275

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LIFE OF LYELL.

The study of existing nature and its changes undertaken in
order to comprehend the past changes during geological ages—The
uniformity of natural operations under law—Catastrophes
abolished—The succession of life on the globe, and that of the
tertiary ages explained—The antiquity of man and of the great
ice age established 307

HEROES OF SCIENCE.