Philosophical Character of Decandolle. 201 



writings of both the above mentioned philosophers, we shall 

 find them in his writings expanded by more extensive infor- 

 mation, and corrected by a sounder and severer judgment. 



Thus he adopted the distinction between monocotyledonous 

 and dicotyledonous plants from Desfontaines, and the doctrine 

 of abortive and rudimentary parts from Lamarck ; but the 

 former truth was exhibited by him, not in the form of the bare 

 announcement of a great principle, but as the very foundation 

 on which all his systems, both in physiological and descrip- 

 tive botany, were based ; whilst the latter never became in 

 his hands the pretext for any such chimerical and dangerous 

 speculations, as were associated with them in the mind of their 

 originator. 



The earliest publication?, however, of a botanical kind in 

 which DecandoUe's name figures, were calculated to display 

 his power of accurately discriminating species, rather than the 

 philosophical character of his genius. 



In 1802 he published the first part of the description of 

 Succulent Plants, drawings of which were supplied by the ce- 

 lebrated Redoute. 



He likewise, about the same time, drew up a description of 

 the Liliaceae for the same author, and published a folio volume 

 on the Astragalus and its allied genera. 



In 1804 he obtained his degree of Doctor of Physic, and 

 delivered on that occasion a thesis on the Medical Properties 

 of Plants, which served as the basis of a work on that subject, 

 brought out by him in 1816, shewing that he was already 

 alive to the connexion that subsists between the natural 

 structure of plants and their medicinal virtues. 



In the same year he delivered, at the College of France, 

 his first course of lectures on the Principles of Botanical Ar- 

 rangement, of which he has given a sketch in the introduc- 

 tion to the Flore Fran9aise published the following year. 



Although this essay may not have attracted all the atten- 

 tion it deserved, in consequence of making part of a Flora, a 

 kind of work in which persons in general do not look for prin- 

 ciples of physiology ; yet it contributed in no slight degree to 

 the establishment of correct principles of classification, and 

 served as the basis of the Treatise which he published on this 

 branch of the subject some years afterwards. 



