34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



DE CANDOLLE ON THE PKODITCTION OF MEN OF 



SCIENCE. 



By W. H. LARKABEE. 



THE first edition of Alphonse de Candolle's " History of the Sci- 

 ences and of Scientific Men during two Centuries," * which was 

 published in 1873, was speedily exhausted, and the book became, as the 

 author says, a rarity in the library catalogues. A search for it two 

 years ago revealed the fact that there was but one copy to be found in 

 the European markets, and that was held at three times the ordinary 

 price. Frequent references to the work as an authority, and many 

 inquiries for it, made a second edition necessary, and it has appeared, 

 with careful revisions and valuable additions, within the year. The 

 primary object of the work was to study the influence of heredity in 

 developing men of science ; but it was obvious from the outset that 

 this was only one of many factors that concurred in producing the 

 result, and by no means always a predominant one. Hence the task 

 became at once that of learning what influence was contributed by 

 birth, and what by exterior circumstances, such as education, examples, 

 institutions, etc. The mixture of the two categories is often inextrica- 

 ble, as Mr. Galton has remarked, but in many cases we may succeed in 

 determining which one of them is predominant. 



M. de Candolle precedes his principal study with general discussions 

 of the subjects of heredity and selection, and of the operation of selec- 

 tion in the human species, to which he has added in the later edition of 

 his book an account of his processes and the results of his newer inves- 

 tigations on heredity. The latter were made upon thirty-one persons 

 belonging to sixteen different families in comfortable circumstances, 

 and bore reference to 1,032 distinct traits of character, for each of 

 which he also inquired into its presence or absence in either or both 

 parents. These traits were arranged in four categories : external, 287 ; 

 internal, 140 ; instinctive and sentimental, 410 ; and intellectual, 195. 

 The general result of the examination was to show in a striking man- 

 ner that heredity is the usual, general, and predominant law, in both 

 sexes and various degrees for all the categories of characteristics not 

 acquired. Other facts of more limited application were brought out. 

 Interruption of heredity during one or more generations, or atavism, 

 was rarely presented, and seemed to say, when it occurred, not that the 

 particular trait was wanting, but that it was feebly accentuated, in the 

 intermediate generations. The more prominent or influential the per- 



* " Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis Deux Siecles." Preceded and followed 

 by other studies on scientific subjects, particularly on " Heredity and Selection." By Al- 

 phonse de Candolle. Second edition, with Additions. Geneva, Basle, and Lyon : H. Georg. 

 Pp. 594. 1-885. 



