XV111 



occupied in growth, and not by the means or extremes of annual tem- 

 perature. Influenced, no doubt, by his early legal studies, there is 

 throughout the * Geographic Botanique ' a disregard, almost amount- 

 ing to a negation, of speculative and theoretical considerations j but, 

 under this point of view, it must be remembered that the ' Origin of 

 Species ' had not as yet appeared ; that Forbes' and Ly ell's pregnant 

 suggestions, as affecting the dispersion of species, were not generally 

 accepted, and that the doctrine of the multiple origination of indi- 

 viduals of a species was entertained, if not formally adopted, by de 

 Candolle as the more probable theory of creation ; as also that genera 

 were considered by him to be more natural (better limited) groups 

 than species. 



In 1882 appeared the ' Origine des Plantes Cultivees,' an expan- 

 sion of Chapter IX of the ' Geographic,' but which, being published 

 thirty years later, and containing a vast amount of additional matter, 

 is really a new and independent work. It is prefaced by two chapters, 

 one on the supposed origin of the art of cultivation in different 

 countries, the other on the methods he employed in tracing the 

 sources whence cultivated plants have been obtained. These methods 

 are botanical, archaeological, palaeontological, historical, and linguistic, 

 in the application of all of which the author has shown great learning 

 and judgment, and the result is a work of extraordinary interest and 

 value. It has already gone through three editions, and a fourth is 

 urgently needed, because many tropical cultivations have still to 

 be dealt with, and because some very important supplemental facts, 

 especially as regards plants of American origin, have been published 

 in an elaborate review of de Candolle's work by Dr. A. Gray and 

 J. H. Trumbull, in the ' American Journal of Arts and Sciences ' 

 (April August, 1883), 



Another work, though more of a literary than of a purely scientific 

 character, must not be omitted in a review of de Candolle's labours : 

 it is his ' Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis deux Siecles, 

 precedee et suivie d'autres Etudes sur des sujets scientifiques, en par- 

 ticulier sur 1'Heredite et la Selection dans 1'espece humaine," of 

 which the first edition appeared in 1873, and a greatly enlarged one 

 in 1885. It need not be said that the * Origin of Species ' suggested 

 this fascinating work, and that the writings of Grove, Spencer, Galton, 

 and Wallace have all been largely drawn upon in its execution. 

 Both genius and originality are displayed in it, whether in respect of 

 the problem it essays to solve or the views which it sets forth. With 

 his undeviating preference for the statistical method, he enumerates 

 by name all the scientific men who had attained the honour of 

 Associates and Correspondents of the Academies of Science of Paris 

 and Berlin, and of Foreign Fellowship of the Royal Society of London, 

 between 1664 and 1882, with their nationalities and the branches of 



