180 Annual Report of the Council. 



1822. He studied at Bruges, Paris, and Ghent. In 1848 

 he turned his attention to the study of economics, which 

 henceforth became his special pursuit. From 1864 until his 

 death he held the chair of Political Economy in the Univer- 

 sity of Liege. No man ever lived with a greater absorbing 

 capacity for facts and ideas bearing on his favourite science. 

 An omniverous reader, and a frequent contributor to 

 English, French, and American periodicals, he also pub- 

 lished a French translation of the Memoirs of Sir Robert 

 Peel, and was the author of a long series of original volumes 

 on various subjects, several of which have been translated 

 into English. His purely economic writings were chiefly 

 on agriculture and the currency question ; but he also pub- 

 lished volumes on education, on free-trade, on various 

 questions of European politics, on socialism, on the land 

 question, on Italy and the Balkans (countries in the fortunes 

 of which he took a very special interest), on the primitive 

 forms of property, on forms of government, and on the 

 democracy. The purely literary side of his nature was 

 illustrated by translations of the Niebelungen and the Eddas, 

 a treatise on Provencal literature, and a history of the 

 Frankish kings. The combination of literary feeling with 

 observant power, sharpened by his interest in economic 

 problems, is exemplified in the volumes in which he 

 records his impressions as a traveller in various parts of 

 Europe. By his death it may be said that the world has 

 lost one of its most humane economists. In his hands 

 Political Economy was anything but a dismal science. A 

 Liberal of the broadest type, he was prepared to become a 

 Socialist all out if he could have satisfied himself that any 

 form of Socialism would make the general condition of 

 mankind better and happier. It was this spirit of sympathy 

 which led him to urge in his earlier volumes on the agricul- 

 ture of Holland, Belgium, Lombardy, and Switzerland that 

 the personal interest of the small peasant proprietor more 



