280 MEMOIR OF PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 



the computation of De Candolle, had reached eighty thousand. A 

 single family, that of the Composite, as described by him, embraces 

 more than eight thousand species; thus presenting more species in 

 that family alone than was contained in the entire vegetable kingdom 

 of the times of Linnaeus. The work in which these eighty thousand 

 known plants are brought together and definitively classed bore at 

 first the title of Systema Naturale Regni Vegetabilis, but was recom- 

 menced in 1824, under a more abridged form, with the title of Pro- 

 dromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis. Yet in this abridged 

 form it is not the less an immense work. Eighty thousand plants are 

 there ranged in an admirable order — the order, that is to say, of na- 

 ture itself; each with its characters, its relations, its entire descrip- 

 tion, and that description of a precision of detail till then without 

 example. This work was left unfinished by its author, though com- 

 prising seven massive volumes of from seven to eight hundred pages 

 each. The energy evinced by such vast labors reflects honor not on 

 the individual alone, but on the race; it seems to enhance our idea of 

 the forces of human nature. 



The Prodromus, as has been just said, remained incomplete. In 

 the memoir which the author has left of his own life, he alludes to 

 the impression produced upon him when he felt that strength would 

 fail him for the completion of his undertaking. "That," he says, 

 " is a great and solemn epoch in life when one acquires the convic- 

 tion that he has wrongly calculated his plans, and that it is necessary 

 to renounce that to which he attaches the highest price. It should 

 be observed, however, that my own error of calculation has resulted 

 not from idleness on my part, but from the sudden augmentation in 

 the number of known plants." Who might not be dismayed when 

 such a man as De Candolle is found defending himself from the impu- 

 tation of idleness ? He has himself computed that he had established 

 more than seven thousand new species, and nearly five hundred new 

 genera; that is to say, nearly the fourteenth part of known species 

 and the sixteenth part of admitted genera. 



As only the more important labors of De Candolle can be here no- 

 ticed, a multitude of, memoirs on pure botany must be omitted; nor 

 can more than an allusion be made to his important studies on the 

 fertilization of downs, on the theory of the distribution of crops, on 

 botanical geography, &c. It is by such of his works as had a direct 

 influence on his age that we must be content to remember him — works 

 which led to his adoption into all the learned societies of the world, 

 and to the inscription of his name, in 1814, among those of the eight 

 foreign associates of this Academy. 



Allusion has been made above to the memoir which he left of his 

 own life; and if, in the study of his scientific works, we are struck 

 with the pre-eminence of his intellect and the extent of his acquire- 

 ments, here we are taught to appreciate the gracefulness, the kind- 

 ness, and the simplicity of his character. "I have always loved," 

 he says, "those persons who speak of themselves; they are generally 

 persons of good disposition, and who have little to reproach them- 

 selves with. And my pleasure," he continues, "in the perusal 



