[Review of his Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, 1845] / [Sir Paul Edmond de Strzelecki].

  • Strzelecki, Paul Edmund de, 1797-1873
Date:
[between 1840 and 1849?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Review of his Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, 1845] / [Sir Paul Edmond de Strzelecki]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    servers,—a matter doubtless of much importance—this supe¬ riority of method mainly depends on the more enlarged and various knowledge of the sciences, and their mutual connexions, which the traveller brings with him, ready and ripened, into the field of action. What old Roger Ascham says on another sub¬ ject, * Even as a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellency with one language,’ is in some sort applicable here. The man of one science only, from default of that power which works among the relations of things, can never attain the highest excellence even in his own proper pur¬ suit. And this is equally true whether he be studying quietly at home, or pursuing knowledge through toil and adventure in fo¬ reign lands. An important qualification must, however, be admitted here. The traveller who starts with a single object of research, ignorant or careless of others, may yet, by earnest devotion to this, obtain re¬ sults which could be gained in no other way. Such instances have been frequent, particularly in the sciences of mineralogy, zoology, and botany ; and as we have read somewhere a warm eulogium upon an ‘ illustrious arachnologist,’ we see no reason to limit this pro¬ fitable division of labour, or to doubt that the especial collectors of spiders, beetles, algae, and lichens, are each and all rendering valuable services to the cause of knowledge. That eminent na¬ turalist, Ehrenberg, whose consummate researches with the microscope we have ourselves witnessed, has laboured for years, and in every part of the world, among the living and fossil Infu¬ soria, the most minute, as far as we know', of organized beings; and by his devotion to the subject has defined what may almost be termed a new science, viz., the formation of mineral masses, and even mountains, from the debris of the countless myriads of these microscopic animalcules, wThose generations have lived and perished in the succession of ages. But Ehrenberg, though de¬ voted to this subject, is far from being limited to it, or he had failed in attaining what he has done. And it may be fairly re¬ peated that knowledge in its higher advancements, * quel cibo Che saziaudo di se, di se asseta,’* whether derived from travel or from other sources, depends for its superiority chiefly on that happy combination of faculties and methods which can bring the several parts of science into relation with each other, and make them gradually converge towards an harmonious whole. No man can put forth powers for all parts of this wmrk; but every one may hold in view the principle and * Dante, Purgatorio, xxxi. 128. methods