About this time, the wanderlust, or passion for travel, took possession of our young philosopher; and under its influence, he resolved to see for himself what men of scientific avocations were doing in France and in Germany. His own pinched circumstances would not allow him to undertake such a journey; but he was fortunate enough to win a stipendium cappelianum which allowed him to travel at the expense of the government for a period of five years, though he used it only for three. If ever pecuniary aid was productive of enduring results, it was so in this case.
In 1801, at the age of twenty-four, Oersted set out from Copenhagen on his grand tour, determined to make it a scientific as well as sentimental journey. In Germany, which he first visited, he met Klaproth, the orientalist; Werner, the mineralogist; Olbers the astronomer; the philosophers Fichte, Schelling and the two Schlegels; and above all, the young and brilliant physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter, who discussed with him the theory of the wonderful "pile" invented by Volta in the previous year, 1800.
In Paris, Oersted spent about fifteen months, during which time he was in habitual relations with many of the savants who were just then reflecting great lustre on French science. To mention but a few: there was Cuvier, the leading naturalist of his age; Abbé Haüy, crystallographer of world-wide reputation; Biot, the brilliant expounder of physics; Charles, the discoverer of the law which bears his name; Berthollet, the associate of Monge the mathematician, and Lavoisier, the chemist.
On his return to the Danish capital in 1804, Oersted delivered courses of lectures on electricity and magnetism, light and heat, before numerous and cultured audiences; and such was the success which he achieved that he was appointed, at the age of twenty-nine, to the chair of physics in the University of Copenhagen.
For nearly forty-five years he was destined to occupy this academical position, so that his connection with that seat of learning rounded out the full period of half a century.
While sedulously occupied with the duties of his chair and the pursuit of his favorite scientific subjects, Oersted was not unmindful of his civic and altruistic obligations. He frequently gave popular scientific lectures, which were open to women as well as to men. He helped in the organization of a bureau through which lectures would be given in various parts of the country, and thus became a pioneer in what we call to-day the university extension movement. When democratic ideas began to be discussed in Denmark after the French Revolution of 1830, Oersted was one of those who took part in the onward movement for the betterment of the people. In 1835, he coöperated in the foundation of the Society for the Freedom of the Press; and when Christian VIII. ascended the throne, he addressed the new monarch in a speech of liberal tendency, hailing him because of the interest which he took in the advancement of science and in the uplift of the masses.
An idea of the position accorded to Oersted by his colleagues in the world of science may be gathered from an address made by Sir John Herschel at the closing session of the Southampton meeting of the British Association in 1836, in which the distinguished astronomer said: "In science, there is but one direction which the needle will take when pointed towards the European continent, and that is towards my esteemed friend, Professor Oersted. To look at his cool manner, who would think that he wielded such an intense power, capable of altering the whole state of science, and almost the knowledge of the world? He has at this meeting developed some of those recondite and remarkable forces of nature which he was the first to discover, and which went almost to the extent of obliging us to alter our views on the most ordinary laws of energy and motion. He elaborated his ideas with slowness and certainty, bringing them forward only after a long lapse of time. How often did I wish to Heaven that we could trample down, and strike forever to earth, the hasty generalizations which mark the present age, and bring up another and safer system of investigation, such as that which marked the inquiries of our friend? It was in deep recesses, as it were, of a cell, that a faint idea first occurred to Oersted. He waited long and calmly for the dawn which at length broke upon him, altering the whole relations of science and life. The electric telegraph and other wonders of modern science were but mere effervescences from the surface of this deep, recondite discovery of his. If we were to characterize, by any figure, the usefulness of Oersted to science, we would regard him as a fertilizing shower descending from heaven, which brought forth a new crop, delightful to the eye and pleasing to the heart."
It may be noticed that in Oersted's day early specialization was fortunately unknown. His education was broad and his intellectual activities broader still. Quite as interesting as many of his scientific researches are some of his contributions to philosophy and some of his views on the significance of the material universe. Oersted, a man of the world with a wide range of interests and a philosopher who lived at high intellectual altitudes, was one of the all-round men in the history of thought who took active part in science, in literature, in politics and in social problems. He had the opportunity of meeting many of the renowned scientists and philosophers of the century, and had been very closely in touch with some of them. He was a regular attendant at scientific congresses, in which he distinguished himself by the leading part which he took in their deliberations. His opinions, therefore, on the great problems of life, religious, moral, social and political, challenge our respect even where they do not compel our approval. Our Danish philosopher deserves, then, to stand as the spokesman of his generation of savants on the great questions that concern man's relations to his fellow-men, to an all-wise Providence and to an enduring hereafter. His opinions on these matters are all the more interesting because they are in open contradiction with what is sometimes thought to be the views of scientists on such subjects.
One of the passages of his paper on "All Existence, a Dominion of Reason," contains some surprising anticipations of ideas that created a great stir in the intellectual world some fifty years ago. In 1846, that is, thirteen years before the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species," Oersted discussed evolution and suggested explanations that are generally considered to have been forced from apologists when compelled to take up the work of reconciling Christian doctrines with scientific conclusions.
Writing in the middle 'forties, he said: "If we are now thoroughly convinced that everything in the material world is produced from similar particles of matter, by the same forces and in obedience to the same laws, we must allow that the planets have been formed according to the same laws as our own earth. They have been in process of development during immeasurable periods of time, and have undergone numerous transformations which have also influenced the vegetable and animal kingdoms of those remote periods. The lower forms of life advanced by gradual stages to higher and more complex states of organization, till at length (in a comparatively recent period) a self-conscious being was evolved, the crowning work of this long-continued process of development. Accordingly, we must allow a similar order of organic development to take place on the other planets of our solar family. There may be some which have not as yet attained the same degree of development that we have reached; but everywhere throughout the universe, creatures endowed with reason appear in due time, just as man appeared on our own globe. Their understanding is intimately connected with the organs of sense which they possess; therefore, the nature of their mental faculties cannot be essentially different from our own. That I may avoid even the appearance of materialism, I must direct attention to the conciliatory principle, that the natural environment from which man springs must be recognized as the work of the eternal, creative Spirit. In other words, our conception of the universe is incomplete, if not comprehended as a constant and continuous work of the eternally creating Spirit."