42 SKETCH OF THE 



comprehensive mind ; nor can I describe the importance of his public 

 teaching, his brilliant speeches before the Academy, when, fresh from 



ma<rni 



ficent contrasts of tropical vegetation. Finally, I would cite, as emi- 

 nently praiseworthy, his spirit of enlightened candour and benevolence, 

 which rendered warm and ample justice to his colleagues, — as his patron 

 Schrank, his fellow-worker Zuccarini, his correspondents Bouvard, 

 Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Ledebour, Oken, De Candolle, the Count de Bray, 

 Treviranus, and many others, of whom he spoke with heartfelt admira- 

 tion and discriminating applause. I must confess myself deeply grateful 

 to M. de Martius for his eloquent eulogium of my father, in 1842; 

 but without dwelling on personal feelings I would look to the history 

 of science, and may assert that Martius's career has yielded much valu- 

 able information for future naturalists. Let us inquire into his peculiar 

 merit, and wherein he peculiarly deserves to be followed, — an inquiry 

 which is the more seasonable, as, for the last few years, Botany has 

 appeared, in France and Germany, to depart from its original course ; 

 and it may be well to ascertain whether its disciples have at all strayed, 

 in pursuing, for half of this century, the now somewhat slighted track 

 of Dioscorides, Bauhin, Tournefort, and Linnaeus. 



Together with these great men and with his more immediate contem- 



poraries, Martius, while paying due regard to diverse branches of Botany, 

 held firmly the opinion that to describe and classify vegetable produc- 

 tions is the main object of the science. In this respect he differed 

 materially from those writers who now limit themselves perhaps to 

 Physiology, perhaps to the study of some particular organs, possibly to 

 the plants of their own country alone, without seeking to trace the 

 causes of geographical distribution, or the analogy of the genera and 

 families in various lands. If this extreme limitation is caused by per- 

 sonal circumstances, — as the difficulty of obtaining access to books and 

 herbaria, — by an inconvenient residence, etc., it is to be commended as 

 a mark of prudence, always provided that every effort has been made to 

 preserve the necessary materials for consultation, at home or abroad. 

 As a system, it is faulty and pernicious ; for even in the most special 

 studies a wide and varied range of ideas and of information is needful. 

 An acquaintance with several languages, and with the methods and 

 processes of other branches of science, are often useful. Thus an ac- 

 nuaintance with botanical affinities is necessarv to the man who studies 



