458 JOSEPH DECAISNE. 



Those privileged to know him well will certify that he was one of the 

 most kindly and charming, unaffected, simple-hearted, and lovable 

 of men. 



How far and how long the Darwinian theory will hold good, the 

 future will determine. But in its essential elements, apart from a 

 priori philosophizing, with which its author had nothing to do, it is an 

 advance from which it is evidently impossible to recede. As has been 

 said of the theory of the Conservation of Energy, so of this : " The 

 proof of this great generalization, like that of all other generalizations, 

 lies mainly in the fact that the evidence in its favor is continually 

 augmenting, while that against it is continually diminishing, as the 

 progress of science reveals to us more and more of the workings of the 

 universe." 



[The outlines of a portion of this memorial, written on the day of Mr. Dar- 

 win's funeral, were printed in " The Literary World " of May 6.] 



JOSEPH DECAISNE. 



Joseph Decaisne, the oldest member of the Botanical Section on 

 the foreign list, died at Paris, on the 8th of February last, in the 

 seventy-fifth year of his age. He was elected into this Academy in 

 Auo-ust, 1846, along with Agassiz and De Verneuil. He was born at 

 Brussels, March 11, 1807, the second of three brothers, one of whom 

 became a distinguished painter, and the other the head of the medical 

 department of the Belgian army. He came to Paris and entered the 

 Jardin des Plantes when a lad of seventeen years, and in its service 

 his whole subsequent life was passed. The young employe, attracted 

 the attention of Adrien de Jussieu, who, seeing his promise and unusual 

 botanical knowledge, soon placed him at the head of the seed depart- 

 ment, and in 1833 made him his Aide-naturaliste, thus giving the 

 young gardener opportunity for the studies and researches by which 

 he won a place among the foremost botanists of the time. For more 

 than forty years the administration of the Jardin des Plantes and 

 the duties of the cl)air of Culture at the JMuseum were in his 

 hands, he having supplied the place of Mirbel through the closing 

 years of the latter's life, and succeeded him as professor in the 

 year. 1851 ; and these duties he continued to fulfil to the last. He 

 was elected a member of the Institute in 1847, in succession to Du- 

 trochet ; for forty years he was one of the editors of, and since the death 

 of his colleague, Adolphe Bronguiart, he was the sole editor of the 

 botanical portion of the " Annales des Sciences Natui-elles." In the 



