There is a name which is very familiar to young and old botanists nowadays, and which is always mentioned with feelings of great respect. It is that of M. de Candolle, one of the founders of the modern system of the classification of plants which is used by everybody now in preference to the celebrated artificial method taught by Linnæus.
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was born at Geneva, in February, 1778, and his father, M. Augustine de Candolle, was descended from one of the oldest families of Provence. One of his ancestors, M. Pyramus de Candolle, became a Protestant, and left France for the freer air of Switzerland, and settled at Geneva in 1591. This gentleman became a citizen of the town, a member of the legislature, and took up the business of a printer. His presses gave forth translations of the works of Tacitus and Xenophon.
They were stirring times, and this energetic man once, in travelling through Grenoble into Switzerland, learned that the Duke of Savoy intended to take Geneva by surprise, with his army. When the attempt was made, Pyramus de Candolle fought as a citizen of his adopted town. Subsequently he went to Yverdun and established manufactories, but the jealousy of the Bernese ruined him, and he died broken-hearted. The family returned to Geneva to live on small means, and the father of De Candolle became a banker, and was much employed by the State during troublous political times.
An industrious, simple, loving, clever man was the father, and he married Mademoiselle Brière. De Candolle wrote of his mother: “She was an educated woman, good, fond of fun, and clever; she was gifted with all the graces and virtues of the mind, and she contributed by her amiable conversations and teachings to give me a taste for science and literature. She had only one fault, and it strangely enough influenced my character. She was proud of her family, which she considered was superior in station to that of my father, because her mother was a distant relation of La Fort, the minister of Peter the Great of Russia. She took every opportunity of making my father feel this pretended superiority, so that when he became forty-eight years of age, he thought that he would make himself known to his relatives and take up his nobility in Provence, and show his wife that his descent was better than hers. But my father took every opportunity of teaching me that ability alone was the real distinction amongst men, and that nobility by itself was nothing, and was a matter of accident. So that my mother’s exaggerated family notions, and my father’s wise precepts, coming as they did to me, during times of political change, developed in me a sincere love for freedom, and a contempt for all success except that which was deserved.” De Candolle was born when his father was in active office, and the earliest recollections of the future naturalist were about his father’s military command, and the endeavours of this good citizen to pacify the populace and the ruling powers, who were always in opposition. The little fellow was always ill, and lost much of the outdoor play of his companions; but there was compensation, for he learned to read fairly soon, and at five years of age he used to read and pretend to act plays; and his heart was in his studies, for when M. de Florian, an author, came to see the family, the child told him that he was going to write comedies, and had acted them. At seven years of age he was far in advance, and then came illness—scarlet fever, ear-ache, and threatening brain disease. He used to say in after years that he well remembered seeing everything looking double. His recovery was very slow, and he was taken to the country to a brisk air, and then he began to be robust, and for fifty years after he never spent a day in bed. But his father did not send him to the public school; he employed a tutor, and the child learned nothing during three years. Then came a little country life, and the friendship of a man, a distinguished naturalist, Mr. Charles Bonnet. His first start in science was homely enough. His mother used to collect the herbs and fruit out of the garden, and the boy used to arrange what she gathered, keeping the different kinds separate with an exactitude that made everybody amazed. He said that he ought to arrange the fruit according to their natures.
When eleven years of age, De Candolle was sent to the college at Geneva, and was placed in the fourth class, under a master of only moderate powers of teaching. No great progress was made in study, and the boy was rarely seen in the upper part of the class. One day his father came to the college to inquire how the boy was getting on, and being a Government official was, of course, well received. A little arrangement by the master, which excited the contempt of the boy, placed him at the head of the class, and so unfair did this seem that the little fellow told his father that he had no right to be there. However, he was removed to the third class, and fortunately came under a better master. Young De Candolle played hard and got more healthy, and his studies were not onerous. In fact, his mother did more for him than the school. She taught him his native language, and gave him a love for poetry. But this was almost crushed out by the foolish method of teaching in the school. If a boy wanted a holiday he had to write to the rector of the college for it in Latin verse, and of course children of twelve years of age could not compose sufficiently well. So they copied, and the result was that, year after year, the rector received a collection of Latin letters which resembled those of the year before, and this had gone on for several generations. However, the boy wrote to the rector in French verse, and in original verse. This was considered something out of the common, and the boy was praised, and his peculiar gift was fostered. He became very intimate with a school-fellow named Gaudy, who had the same tastes, and they used to spend much of their time in turning Latin prose and poetry into very bad French verse. Soon after his old fondness for acting returned, and he was successful in private theatricals. The boy worked hard at this amusement, and learned many of the great French tragedies and comedies, and although the time was apparently wasted, yet De Candolle used to say that it did his memory good, gave him a good style, and took away nervousness. Then his father gave him a good private tutor, and the boy entered the first class. There he found a master who insisted on regular and profitable study, besides Latin verse, and the result was that De Candolle began to distinguish himself and took prizes. One prize which he gained, made him think very deeply afterwards. It was an essay relating to the existence of God. De Candolle wrote his essay in four hours, and it consisted of from fifteen to twenty pages; it included all he had learned of his catechism, what he remembered of many sermons, and a host of quotations from the Bible. But although the youth got the prize, and was much applauded, he felt that he was a complete stranger to the spirit of the truths he had written, and that his heart had little to do with the sentences which came from his pen. He learned religion just as he learned Greek and Latin. In 1792 De Candolle left the college and began to study literature, and, released from the troublesome discipline of the class, worked as if he were a man. But things did not go on smoothly, for the political troubles of that age soon affected Geneva. A French army occupied Savoy and encamped near Geneva. The Government prepared to defend the town, and the fathers of families began to send their wives and children into the interior of Switzerland. De Candolle was in despair when his father told him and his brother to accompany their mother; he longed to fight for his country, but he had to leave, and they went to Champagne, a small village near Grandison, where the father, foreseeing the trouble, had bought an estate. There the summer and autumn were passed peaceably, and in superintending the vines, the gathering of the grapes, and managing the property with his mother. Montesquieu, the French general, did not care about crushing the little town of Geneva, and other matters called him away. So the immediate danger passed and the family returned to Geneva.
The youth returned to his studies amidst popular discontent within the town. A revolution occurred, and a provisional committee occupied the position of the former Government. Strangely enough this occurred whilst De Candolle’s father was chief magistrate, and the Government fell whilst he was in office. Of course the man who had done so much for the town was obliged to go into exile, and he left for his little estate at Champagne, leaving his son behind to pursue his studies. The youth was left under the charge of his tutor, a young married man, and much good work was done, and in 1793 he rejoined his father. During the next year M. Vaucher gave some lectures on botany in the very modest little Botanical Garden of Geneva. He was a clergyman and Professor of Theology, but his amusements led him to study plants, and especially those which live in fresh water. His manner of teaching and the subject, attracted De Candolle, and indeed so much so that he felt that botany would be his special study through life. What he learned from M. Vaucher was about the principal organs of plants, and he began to get books describing plants and to endeavour to describe for himself. Singularly enough, the methodical courses of study which De Candolle had undergone assisted him; for although he obtained some botanical works of a very indifferent kind, which would have satisfied most youths, he began to see their errors of method. Knowing nothing of the labours of the great botanists, the youth managed to see his way to the most reasonable plan of describing plants, and he noticed the organs, one after the other, in the proper manner. Teaching himself the rudiments of the study of plants, and giving much time also to literature, young De Candolle remained much at home, for Geneva was in a horrible state of political revolution. Robespierre managed to send emissaries there, and most of the better class of citizens were imprisoned. De Candolle’s father was sentenced to death, but being away from the town the sentence had no effect. This state of things lasted for some time, until the good sense of the majority annulled the sentence and restored order. Many Genevese emigrated to America, and when De Candolle returned to his studies he found the town sad, and nearly all his old friends exiled or gone in disgust. He had no amusements and therefore his studies were prosecuted with vigour, and he began a course of natural philosophy. In 1796 he left his studies and spent the summer with his father, reading good botanical works on the natural philosophy of trees, the uses of leaves; and, what was of more importance, he wandered far and wide over the Jura Mountains, collecting plants to describe and study. He got Linnæus’s European Botany, and soon began to learn many plants by their proper names. But he used Linnæus’s book as a simple dictionary, for he saw that although the names of plants could be easily found out by it, there were plants grouped together in it that had no close resemblance in their most important parts. At this time his interest in his study was intensified by a terrible instance which he witnessed of the hidden powers of simple-looking plants. He saw three little children die who had eaten belladonna berries.
When eighteen years of age, De Candolle went to Paris and lived in the same house as Dolomieu, a very distinguished mineralogist, a wise and moderate man whose simplicity charmed the young man. This wise friend did not press his special study on De Candolle, but advised him to follow his fondness for botany, giving him, however, some little insight into the nature of crystals and their laws of form. De Candolle then learned that there was a philosophy in stones, and he always stated in after life that this instruction made him think about the philosophy which linked plants together in the scheme of creation. He had an instructive conversation with a well-known botanist, about the structure of the stems of palms and grapes—which differ so much from those of the oak, plane, willow—and of ordinary shrubs; and this distinction of two great groups of plants gave him an insight into some of the grand distinctions between plants, and which enabled hundreds of species or genera to be grouped and separated. Unfortunately, at the time of his arrival at Paris, the botanical courses at the college were not being given, so he began to attend the lectures on chemistry, physics, and mineralogy. He often went to hear Cuvier, the great comparative anatomist, whose great ability and dignity of manner impressed everybody, and he made the acquaintance of the still greater Lamarck in a very curious manner. De Candolle had seen M. de Lamarck at the French Academy of Sciences, but he did not know anybody who could introduce him to the great man. However, he found out that Lamarck used to dine at the same little restaurant which he patronized. So a little plan was adopted to draw the celebrated zoologist and botanist into conversation. De Candolle asked his friend Pictet, who afterwards became a professor at Geneva and a great man, to come by chance as it were and sit beside him at the same table as Lamarck, and they began a conversation about botany. De Candolle especially stated how useful he had found a book called the “Description of the French Plants” in his studies. This was overheard by Lamarck, who was the author of it, and he joined in the conversation. Lamarck asked the young man to come and see him, and a friendship commenced; and although they did not have at that time much to say to one another about botany, still the distinguished French naturalist gave good advice, and, when De Candolle left Paris, presented him with a letter and a book to give to M. Sénebier, of Geneva, whose friendship probably decided the future career of the rising young botanist. Certainly the acquaintance of Lamarck stimulated De Candolle to study the physiology of plants—how they grow, breathe, how the sap circulates, how the colours are produced, and how the young seeds are formed. The happy circumstances which surrounded the young man at Paris enabled him to see the great comedies of the day and to admire the splendid acting at the theatres. But he was a philosopher then, and he could not but be struck with the furious gaiety of society and the great frivolity of the day, and with that careless method of living and thinking which followed as a kind of revulsion on the awful scenes of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror. In the spring of 1797, De Candolle returned to Geneva. There he studied the physiology of plants with M. Sénebier, going to his father’s house in the holidays, which were spent in botanical excursions. In one of these, on the Jura Mountains, De Candolle discovered a new fungus of a beautiful red colour, and his adventure in obtaining the specimen was very characteristic of the man. On the sides of those hills are many very precipitous trough-like paths, down which the wood-cutters pass the fir trees they cut high up on the mountains, to the valleys. They are rugged at the sides, and have really been worn out of the hills by running water and the rushing downwards of the trees. Active people can slide down these “couloirs” by sitting on a stick placed between one’s legs, and down went young De Candolle in that fashion. As he rushed along, he saw a beautiful red plant on a branch of a tree overhanging the couloir, and as he slid down he managed to cut the branch and obtain his prize—his first new plant to describe. But it was done at the expense of his clothes, which got torn off from him in many parts, by the rocks, so that he had to slink home to avoid being seen. Working hard at botany, the young enthusiast had very agreeable hours of relaxation. He was in the midst of a charming homely society; and there is no doubt that his purity of character and thorough honesty of disposition were fostered and intensified, by his having the friendship of several young married and single women of good education and position. They made him a polished gentleman, and he used to say that that was the happy time of his life; he had no cares or anxieties, everything smiled on him, yet he was conscious that it must end, and that he must prepare for work and the struggle of life.
Politics were always the trouble of the De Candolle family, and they settled the future career of the young botanist. Geneva was about to become a portion of the French Republic, the father of De Candolle lost one-half of his fortune, and the young man went to Paris to learn how to earn his bread after preliminary study. He had a sad parting from the father who had been so good to him, and who loved him so well, and arrived at Paris, being received by an uncle, in March, 1798. After a few days of quietude, which he spent in calling on his former friends, he determined to go into lodgings near the Jardin des Plantes, and to work, leaving pleasure behind him, and to be sought for when he could afford it. He began to study medicine, and led the odd life of a medical student, attended to by old crones in their second childhood, and witnessing all the sad sights of the hospitals. Whenever he could, he made his way to the Botanical Garden, and yet he did not attend the lectures on botany. He found them not consistent with what he knew. But he was ever studying, describing, and observing plants, and, knowing nobody at the gardens, sought out Lamarck, who offered him some articles in his Encyclopædia to write. The articles were written, and mistakes were naturally made, and in after years they were readily acknowledged and set right. But the work did not advance the young botanist in his studies, although it confirmed him in the necessity of examining all the parts of a plant in classifying it, and in paying especial attention to those organs which are the most important to the life and reproduction of the kind. Leaving his lodgings to board with a friend, De Candolle was robbed, as was usual in those days, by his housekeepers; but he got into a worse scrape by being inveigled into a gambling-house, where he lost nearly all the money he had earned. It cured him of that folly. At work he began to make experiments on the action of different gases on the roots of plants, and obtained some curious results; and M. Desfontaines, the Professor of Botany, gave him hints about the correct method of describing plants, so as to enable him to write the letterpress to the plates of a work on those succulent plants called Crassulaceæ, of which the houseleek and stonecrops are familiar examples. Medicine was quite given up; and, in fact, it was hateful to De Candolle, who used to say, “If I make a mistake in naming a plant, I can set it right, but if I had made mistakes as a medical man, who knows how many dear little children I might not have killed?” He became a friend of the Delessert family, and met at their house all those rising naturalists who were forming the great French school, and this society was of great importance to him. Botanical excursions to Fontainebleau were made by him, with Brongniart, Cuvier, and Dumeril, all great men in their day, and then he went botanizing into Normandy, and nearly got drowned collecting seaweeds. Returning to Paris, he was fortunate enough to be again kindly looked after by some good families, and he became attached to Mdlle. Fanny Torras, one of a bright circle of ladies who liked the brilliant conversation and good manners of the rising young man. Going to Holland for a trip, De Candolle was struck with the curious vegetation of the hills or dunes of sand near the coast, and this appears to have attracted his attention to the geographical distribution of plants. Nevertheless, and in spite of all those attractions, he studied human anatomy and zoology. In course of time he went home to Champagne, and his future marriage was agreed upon. On his return to Paris, he was received as the future husband of Mdlle. Torras.
He studied the “sleep of plants,” the classification of the Vetches, was presented at the Institute, and elected a member of the Société Philomathique, where he met and became the associate of his old botanical companions at Fontainebleau.
There is no doubt that a singular political position which was thrust upon this young man of twenty-two years of age, decided his future career, for it brought him under the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of France. Geneva nominated him as a “notable” to whom the consul might apply for information about the requirements of the town. De Candolle wrote in his memoirs: “I was not much of a partisan. Born a republican, a friend of peace, I saw with anxiety Napoleon’s evident love of war and desire for monarchy, but I was obliged to look favourably on him, for he had destroyed anarchy, and possessed great abilities.” Napoleon and the young man had two interviews, one a peaceable one, which did good to the town of Geneva, and a second and stormy one, during which the simple student of the truth stood up, like a man, against the angry despot, and quailed not beneath that eye which most men feared. He was not forgotten, however, and after a while he was nominated on a commission to investigate the teaching given in the schools of Paris, under the charge of laymen. This commission was necessary, for the Roman Catholic authorities were anxious to put down lay teaching. De Candolle, a firm Protestant, took great care in making his report, and he decided that although there was much to be desired, still the lay schools were doing their duty.
Pursuing his studies, De Candolle began to form an herbarium, and his time was divided between science and philanthropy—for he was a visitor at the hospitals and prisons of Paris—and his Fanny, whom he married in 1802. Immediately afterwards he began to write his description of the plants of France, and Cuvier asked him to lecture for him during a term. The subject chosen was the physiology of plants; it was well managed, and it tempted De Candolle to head his new book with some chapters on it. Grief came in due time; De Candolle and his wife lost their firstborn, a pretty little girl, and a long absence from Paris was necessary. On their return, De Candolle recommenced his work on his book, and after its completion he began a series of excursions in different parts of France, studying the botany and geology. After a while a son was born, and De Candolle was offered the professorship of Botany at Montpellier.
He visited the city to see how he liked it, and he took this opportunity, also, to go to the Pyrenees for a botanical trip, collecting at the time many interesting plants. A difficulty existed about the acceptance of the position, for there was much teaching required, and there would not be much time for these excursions about France, which were absolutely necessary for the knowledge of the different local assemblages of plants or floras. De Candolle had a salary of about £160 a year, which enabled him to start from Paris and to botanize. If he went to Montpellier, all his original work might cease, and he could not earn this money and teach at the same time. So, loving real work, he determined not to accept the position. A great endeavour was being made, however, to restore the teaching of natural history at Montpellier, and the friends of the young man called on the then Minister of the Interior, M. Cretet, and urged him to see the rising botanist. At the interview Mr. Cretet, who had no botanical tastes, was wonderfully amused at a man’s giving up a good place for the sake of running about France picking up plants, and said, in a good-humoured manner, “Now, young man, if you don’t take both the situations you shan’t have either.” The professorship at Montpellier was accepted, and the necessary journeys were to be allowed. This M. Cretet seems to have been a man of great sense, and quite upset M. de Laplace, the great mathematician, about De Candolle. Laplace wanted to pay a compliment to the minister, and also to bring the young botanist before his notice, so he said, “Sir, you have done us a doubtful service in sending M. de Candolle to Montpellier, for we expected soon to have him as a member of the Institute.” M. Cretet turned on him with an angry air and said, “Your institute! Do you know what I should like to do with your institute?” “What?” said Laplace, rather astonished at the tone of voice. “I should like to fire a cannon well into the middle of it.” M. de Laplace seemed as if he would sink. “Yes,” continued the minister, “I would fire a cannon at you all, and disperse you all over France. It is frightful to concentrate all the lights of the age in Paris, and to leave the departments in ignorance and idleness! I have sent M. de Candolle to Montpellier to stimulate others to activity.” Considering that the members of the Institute of France have always considered themselves the very cream of the cream of science, this was very shocking.
The new professor started with his wife, little boy, his library and herbarium, and with many a regret at leaving such friends as those who enlightened Paris as anatomists and botanists. It was a great position for a man of thirty years of age, however, and it gave him sufficient to live upon; and this was welcome, for hitherto he had been poor.
When he was settled in his new establishment his father, then seventy-two years of age, came to see him, and, after a short sojourn, took his leave, accompanied by his daughter-in-law and grandson. Whilst they all went to Geneva, De Candolle prepared for and went on an excursion into Italy. During the visit to Italy, in 1808, politics came in the way of botany, and nothing was heard of De Candolle for a month, his letters having gone astray; but he turned up at Geneva, well, and in good spirits, for he heard that he had a chance of being made a member of the Institute. But he found that even great scientific men have their little foibles and favourites, and he did not get elected. In fact, he never was elected a member, although he was the most distinguished botanist of the age. Years afterwards, when he was in Geneva, he was made one of the eight foreign members, and that has always been considered a great honour. Nevertheless, politics, social position, and agreement with the authorities of the day, on all subjects, are of very considerable moment in these elections.
The return to Montpellier was sad, but the fine sunshine of the south, and cheerful society, soon made De Candolle forget his disappointment. After a botanical trip in Savoy, De Candolle wrote an important volume on geographical botany and agriculture. The first of these subjects infers a thorough knowledge of the names and kinds of plants, and it is of great importance in associating certain plants with soils, rocks, and climates.
By November, 1811, De Candolle had nearly completed his botanical tours, and he then considered that he was settled at Montpellier for a long time, and that his work would be more that of a teacher than investigator. He found that travelling and collecting had enlarged his mind, and he never regretted the six years of wandering about. About this time the young professor commenced a great work on the statistics of French vegetation. It did not deal with descriptions of species, or of the special localities where they could be found; but, first, with the general distribution of wild plants in France, and then with the relation of the plants of France to the different wants of mankind. This last part was eminently practical, and it dealt with food plants, medicinal plants, dye plants, and those which are used for clothing. It was a prodigious attempt, and it never came to a conclusion; only fragments of it were in his possession fourteen years afterwards, and he attributed much of the difficulty thrown in his way, to the alterations which occurred in the boundaries of France after the fall of Napoleon. Moreover, he had to complete his description of the plants of France, and that was not done until 1815.
De Candolle was always fond of society, and, after his labours of the day, was glad to go into or receive company. Being a Protestant, and a man of mark in his native town, he was well received by most of the families of Montpellier, and his wife also. Society consisted of good Protestant families of old, so-called nobles, and some who thought themselves nobles. It was split up like the society of most small towns, into cliques, but De Candolle escaped, for a long time, any discomforts or social antagonisms. They came at last, however.
De Candolle, like many active-minded men, was not popular with the officials who had “places” in their gift. He was intrigued against, and lost the rectorship of the University, but he had the pleasure of exposing the intrigue in 1813.
Napoleon had fought his last fight, and had gone to Elba, and the Bourbons had been restored. Disgusted with the military spirit of the Empire, De Candolle rejoiced at the restoration of the Bourbons, and even became a volunteer to keep the town in order. He began to change his mind soon, however, for the Count d’Artois, one of the royal family, received the professor with great haughtiness, and, by way of making amends, paid particular attention to a rascal of the first water who had returned from the galleys, where he had been sent for stealing, and not for devotion to the Bourbons, as he told the duke. Going to Geneva on a visit, to place his eldest son at school, De Candolle found the city just being received into the Confederation of the Swiss Republic. He returned to Montpellier, which was full of rejoicing at Napoleon’s exile, but shortly afterwards all was disorder during the hundred days in which Napoleon was, for the last time, ruler of France. Beyond the reach of direct politics, the professors of Montpellier had their little evenings, and even got up private theatricals. In the midst of a scene in one of these came the news that Napoleon had landed at Cannes, and was on his way to Paris. That was the last quiet hour that De Candolle had in the town. An unfriendly man, who was a royalist, began to set people against the professor, who resented their interference. He began to limit his circle of friends, left literature alone more and more, and plunged more deeply into science. He determined to leave Montpellier and its littlenesses. His principal care was to enlarge and utilize the botanic garden of the place, and then he devoted much time to teaching, and with great success. Civil war was imminent, and the defeat at Waterloo produced outbreaks at Montpellier. De Candolle had been elected Rector of the University during the Hundred Days, and was ordered to give up the title. This he did, and prepared to leave the place. He had sent his family to Geneva, and in travelling himself to join them, by way of Nimes, he saw traces of the horrible treatment the Protestants had received. Subsequently the family went to Paris, passing through the towns occupied by the allied troops. Having time, De Candolle visited England, and became the guest of Dr. Marcet, and was introduced to the best of the scientific world. He met and enjoyed the reticent Robert Brown, and went to a sitting of the Royal Society, which he said was dull. He was introduced to Hooker and Sir James Smith, the proprietor of the Herbarium of Linnæus, which he very properly said was the basis of botanical nomenclature. In 1816 De Candolle found himself settling down in his native town of Geneva, where he was well received, and became Professor of Natural History, and taught students of both sexes, and began to establish a botanic garden of some importance. There he was obliged to go into local politics, and for years was a representative of the town, doing good work for the poor, for liberty by receiving and protecting political fugitives and by insisting on the freedom of the press, which was considerably hated in France under the restored Bourbons. Nevertheless, year after year he taught well, and most of the great botanists of later years were either his students or his visitors and friends. As age crept on, De Candolle continued his researches, and got through the description and classification of a considerable number of known plants. These were published in a book which will always be his masterpiece. Honours crowded on him, the gifts of learned societies of all nations, and he visited most of the great cities of the Continent. In 1832 he published the second part of his work. He had great happiness with his wife, and his parents lived to great ages, content with the prosperity of their son, who was ever good and loving to them, and got his reward. He had a little estate, out of Geneva, at Saint Seine, and enjoyed it much; but, as years rolled on, the death of a son there, affected his tender heart, and he sold the place and bought another, called La Barrière, near Geneva. His eldest son, Alphonse, followed well in the father’s steps. Finally, when old age troubled De Candolle, he gave up his professorship.
Ill health succeeded, but the man worked on at his great book, and even entered the political arena once again at a time of emergency. The winter of 1840-41 was one of illness, and he could no longer work. His friends were dying off, month after month, and when death came to him, he was content. He had been a good son, an excellent father, a loving friend, a true patriot, deserving everything that elevated mankind; and it is admitted by all botanists that he consolidated the science, and gave it a definite natural classification.
De Candolle early in life grasped the truth that plants grow, reproduce, and arrive at maturity, not by accident, but according to natural law, and he soon saw that some parts of plants were of more importance to their well-being and multiplication than others. He was thus a follower of Ray, and he became impressed with the belief that in arranging plants, the resemblances of the most important parts and organs, should be considered before those of the less important. This manner of proceeding he called the natural method. It was founded upon the knowledge of the anatomy of the plants and upon their physiology, and the method required care and research. The artificial method of Linnæus enabled botanists to distinguish plants readily, by examining the most readily examined, and often unimportant, parts of the plant’s flower. It was not a scientific plan, but a ready method. It did not bring one plant into relation with another, showing the common method of growth and reproduction, but simply enabled one plant to be separated and distinguished from another, and this is the least part of botany.
The works of Whewell on the inductive sciences, the article on botany in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Pulteney’s “Life of Linnæus,” and that written by Miss Brightwell, of Norwich, and De Candolle’s “Mémoires et souvenirs écrits par lui même” have been freely and largely quoted in these chapters.