18 Biographical Memoir of Michel Adanson. 



rests upon acquired facts only, he attributed to it an innate vir-- 

 tue, which enabled him to foresee them, and to describe un- 

 known species in advance. " I possess," he said, " all the great 

 routes of science ; what need have I of bye-roads ?"'"' The most 

 profound contempt for the labours of his predecessors, the abso- 

 lute neglect "of modern discoveries, even of objects brought home 

 by travellers, the most obstinate attachment to his old ideas, and 

 complete ignorance of their most decisive refutations; lastly, the 

 utter uselessness of efforts so protracted, so laborious, but so erro- 

 neously directed : — Such were the features of his mind, and the 

 character of his labours. For example, although he was writing 

 on mosses, he did not know, in 1800, the existence of Hedvvig, 

 nor any of the discoveries published upwards of twenty years be- 

 fore, regarding this singular class. 



Those who possessed his confidence were so much the more 

 unwilling to interfere with his peculiar habits, that, while they 

 lamented his eccentricities, they could not but love him. In 

 fact, if a prolonged solitude had given an unfortunate direction 

 to his mind, that fatal suspicion which retirement so often pro- 

 duces, and which has disturbed the repose of so many secluded 

 men, never penetrated to his heart. His manners, always lively^ 

 were also uniformly benevolent. He entertained extravagant 

 ideas of himself, but he did not doubt that every body had the 

 same ; and in the midst of the most cruel privations of his old 

 age, he was never heard to accuse others. 



It must be owned, however, that he had moments when he 

 might with propriety have done so. His principal fortune con- 

 sisted of two moderate pensions, the reward of his labours in Sene- 

 gal, and of the objects which he had given up to the Royal 

 Cabinet. The rigorous measures of the Constitutional Assembly 

 deprived him of both, and his seclusion left him no means 

 of recovering them. The pension of the Academy alone 

 remained. That society was still a point of contact with the 

 world. Nor would it have ceased to watch over his fate, had it 

 not soon fallen also amid the general ruin : a decree of the Con- 

 vention suppressed it, and dispersed its members. Those men, 

 whose illustrious names filled Europe, were happy in having re- 

 mained unknown to the ferocious tyrants of their country. They 

 fled to seek in the most obscure asylums some shelter from the 



