^2 PROCEED! N (IS OF THE 



Boutliam, taking np the book, was struck with the analytical 

 key for dcterniiniug the names of plants. It exactly fitted in 

 with the habits of tabulation which he had derived from his 

 uncle. He immediately sought in the courtyard of the house a 

 plant upon which to test its value. The first that came to his 

 hand was Salvia 2)rafe}isis ; and this he succeeded in identifying. 

 He now closely studied the subject, and though during the next 

 ten years his versatile mind was diverted to a variety of other 

 topics, it is evident that he never sliook oft' its fascinations, which 

 holiday excursions in the Pyrenees and the Cevennes no doubt 

 irresistibly riveted. A visit to London in 1823 brought him 

 in contact with the brilliant circle of English botanists. He 

 availed himself of the resources which our own body, the foster- 

 motlier of all our modern naturalists, then, as now, liberally 

 extended even to those who were not members of its fellowshij). 

 During a tour in England and Scotland he made the friendship 

 of Dr. Arnott, with whom he subsequently in 1S25 made an 

 extended journey in the Pyrenees. The results of this expedi- 

 tion were the foundation of his first botanical work, ' Catalogue 

 des Plantes indigenes des Pyrenees et du Bas Languedoc ' *. This 

 is remarkable even now for much careful detailed observation ; 

 and it is interesting to notice that in it Eenthara adopted the 

 principle, from which he never deviated, of citing nothing at 

 second-hand or any fact or reference which he had not himself 

 independently verified. 



From 1820 to 1832, when his uncle died, Beutham was asso- 

 ciated with him as Secretary. This must have been in many 

 resi}ects the ciitical period of his life. He was called to the bar 

 by Lincoln's Inn. But his legal studies soon gave way to tlie 

 more abstract ones of logic and jurisprudence. In 1827 he pub- 

 lisluxl his outlines of a New System of Logic. Tliis contained 

 the first promulgation of the doctrine of the Quantification of the 

 Predicate, a discovery which was for some years attributed to Sir 

 AVilliam Hamilton, and was only finally vindicated for Beutham 

 in 1873 by Herbert Spencer. In 1828 he became a Eellow of the 

 Liunean Society, and the continuous botanical labours of his life 

 may be said to have begun from this date, when he became asso- 

 ciated with AVallich in the distribution of the lattcr's vast East- 

 Indian collections. 



Prom 1812 to 18o4 he resided in Herefordshire, and was prin- 

 cipally occupied with the elaboration of various Orders of plants 

 for De Candolle's ' Prodromus.' In 1851' he gave to Kew his 

 fine library and herbarium. At this time he seems to have enter- 

 tained the idea of abandoning botany, as, Sir Joseph Hooker tells 

 us, " with characteristic modesty regarding himself as an amateur 

 who had hitherto pursued the science rather as an intellectual 

 exercise in systematizing than as a scientific botanist, who, in 



* Paris, 18-20. 



