XIV 



Such an account would not, however, completely enable the reader to 

 form a just conception of the influence which he exercised during 

 the last ten years of his life, by his writings and public utterances. It 

 would, indeed, be doing scant justice to his memory if, even in record- 

 ing the dry additions to knowledge which resulted from his work, we 

 were to forget what science owes to him for having awakened in the 

 minds of thousands of readers, both in England and in America, that 

 interest in the relations of man to his living surroundings, which is 

 so often the first step in the training of a naturalist. All who know 

 Romanes' writings will agree that, quite independently of the subjects 

 to which they relate, they possess qualities which sufficiently account 

 for the favour with which they have been received on both sides of 

 the Atlantic. Even those who are at variance with Romanes on 

 fundamental questions, are charmed by the unconstrained and natural 

 way in which his originality shines out in his language, and reconciled, 

 in spite of their convictions, by the directness and simplicity of his 

 reasoning. A considerable share of the interest which the questions 

 on which he wrote at present excite, may be directly traced to his 

 writings, the popularity of which affords the best evidence of their 

 adaptedness to their purpose. 



One word as to Romanes' personal qualities. He had many 

 opponents, no enemies. Transparently honest himself and scarcely 

 knowing what bitterness meant, he looked for and found the same 

 kindliness and honesty in others and thus often made friends of his 

 antagonists. The wide range of his interests and the number of the 

 subjects about which he was able to talk suggestively, made him a 

 most attractive companion. He was courteous to all, but reserved 

 the best of his gifts his overflowing charity and ungrudging 

 sympathy for his intimate friends. To how many who stood in this 

 relation to him is his loss an irreparable calamity ! 



J. B. S. 



ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE : When the history of the progress of 

 botany during the 19th century shall be written, no names will be 

 more conspicuous for the value and extent of their united labours 

 than those of the de Candolle's, father and son, Auguste Pyrame and 

 Alphonse. Their labours embraced every department of the science, 

 morphological, physiological, systematic, geographical, and economic, 

 and were uninterrupted during ninety-five years, those of the father 

 extending from 1798 to 1842, and of the son from 1824 to 1893. 

 And if the period during which their labours overlapped be taken 

 into account, the total amounts to 113 years. 



The subject of this notice, Alphonse Louis Pierre de Candolle, was 

 born in Paris, October 27, 1806, and passed his earlier years at Mont- 

 pellier, where his father, a Genevese, of Huguenot descent, and a 



