Philosophical Character of DecandoUe. 243 



yet, I must freely own, that but for my stay at Geneva, I might 

 never have obtained a sufficient mastery of the subject, to have 

 held with any satisfaction to myself the Office I have the hon- 

 our to discharge in this Seat of Learning. 



Unacquainted as I was, until the period of my residence at 

 Geneva, with any other than the artificial method of classifi- 

 cation, it required the influence of such lectures, and of such 

 writings as those of DecandoUe, to remove from my mind the 

 prejudices arising from early association, and to invest the 

 science of botany with dignity and importance in my eyes. 



And though I have since attended, with much satisfaction, 

 the course delivered in London by Professor Lindley, and have 

 corrected on many points the notions I received from Decan- 

 doUe by the subsequent perusal of the papers of Mirbel, Brown, 

 Schleiden, and others ; yet it is but fair to admit, that it was 

 at Geneva I first began to estimate at their true weight the 

 pretensions of botany to be regarded as a science, and not 

 merely as an ingenious art for discovering the name of any 

 plant that might be put before us. 



I then began to comprehend on what principle a certain 

 acquaintance with botany was inculcated at the academy at 

 Geneva as constituting an essential part of a liberal educa- 

 tion, perceiving that, like every other branch of natural know- 

 ledge, if prosecuted in a philosophical spirit, and with a con- 

 stant reference to first principles, it might be capable of serv- 

 ing an important purpose in training and disciplining the mind 

 of the student. 



For the furtherance indeed of this object, the lectures of few 

 Professors could have been better adapted than those of the 

 individual who forms the subject of my memoir, combining, as 

 he did, great powers of generalization, with a most extensive 

 acquaintance with facts relating to all branches of natural 

 history, and able, from his correct and classical taste, as well 

 as from his perfect clearness of understanding, to render the 

 most technical portions of the subject interesting, and the ob- 

 scurest intelligible. 



For my own part, I can only say, that, although by no 

 means familiar with the language in which he spoke, I fol- 

 lowed, nevertheless, the thread of his discourse, even when 

 it related to the more intricate points of structural or physio- 



