sists." Another great naturalist, George Cuvier, takes
care to point out that "Linnaeus used to seize with marked pleasure the
numerous occasions which natural history offered him of making known the
wisdom of Providence."[107] Thus modern botany was founded in a spirit
of piety. Has it, at a later period, made any discoveries calculated to
efface from the life of vegetables the marks of Divine intelligence?
Allow me to introduce here a personal _souvenir_. I received lessons in
my youth from an old man, who, having once been the teacher of De
Candolle, remained his friend.[108] By a rather strange academical
arrangement, M. Vaucher found himself set to teach us--not botany, for
which he possessed both taste and genius,[109] but a science of which he
knew but little, and which he liked still less. So it came to pass that
a good part of the hour of lecture was often filled up with familiar
conversations. These conversations took us far away from church history,
which we were supposed to be learning. The misplaced botanist reverted,
by a natural impulse, to his much-loved science; and I have seen him
shed tears of tender emotion, in his Professor's chair, as he spoke to
us of the God who made the primrose of the spring, and concealed the
violet under the hedge by the wayside. Therefore is the recollection of
that old man not only living in my memory, but also dear to my heart.
Still he was a savant, an enthusiastic naturalist; and, in the broad
light of the nineteenth century, he felt and spoke like Linnaeus.

Let us pass to the study of animals. I had the wish, some years ago, to
procure the best of modern treatises upon physiology. I was directed to
the work of Professor Mueller, of Berlin. This book has not lost its
value,--for, this very morning, a student of our faculty of sciences
came to me to borrow it, by the advice of his masters. Mueller was a
great physiologist, and he made an open profession of the Christian
religion. Have we not the right to conclude that he believed in God? In
France, I could cite more than one name in support of my thesis; I
confine myself to a single fact. The attention of the scientific world
has very recently been occupied with the discoveries of M. Pasteur. M.
Pasteur has ascertained that the decomposition of organized bodies,
after death, is effected by the action of small animals almost
imperceptible, the germs of which the larger animals carry in
themselves, as living preparatives fo