Notice of Prof. De CandoUe. 221 



this opinion.* The omission is, moreover, inconsistent with the 

 profound respect with which he alvirays refers to the great sys- 

 tematist. 



In the midst of and by means of this multiplicity of labor, 

 De CandoUe was commencing what he meant to be the great 

 work of his life, and what, if he had lived to complete it as it was 

 begun, would have been far the most remarkable work on bot- 

 any ever executed — I mean his Natural System of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom.! He seems to have entered upon it with a full sense 

 of the greatness of the undertaking before him, and with a lofty 

 and resolute, but ever modest purpose;}: of devoting his whole 

 strength and time, with all his immense resources and all the 

 accumulated ability of a life devoted to the preparation, to its 

 accomplishment. One is reminded of the heroic perseverance 

 with which Saussure, from the banks of that same beautiful lake 

 of Geneva, had for so many years cherished the firm resolve to 

 scale Mont Blanc, and make known the new and strange phe- 

 nomena which its naked top should present ; or of that more 

 than heroic purpose, cherished and kept still at heart through a 

 whole life of preparation, of the far greater Milton, to achieve 

 something worthy to be remembered in future years, and to place 

 his name with those of 



" Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, 

 Tiresias and Phineas, prophets old." 



De Candolle's plan was no less than to arrange and describe, 

 in their natural orders, all known plants, giving to each order the 

 fulness and completeness of a monograph. We who now look 

 back upon his work, can see how far he soared above those whom 

 he hoped to equal, Lamarck, Willdenow, Vahl, Persoon. Few 

 works give us better executed examples of the Baconian method, 

 of forming general conclusions from the careful observation of 

 particulars, and thence going back and reexamining the particulars. 

 He first minutely examined all the species of a genus, and thence 



* After quoting Amoen. Acad, v, p. 148, for this opinion of Linnasus, he adds, 

 " M. de Jussieu adopte la meme opinion." Introduction, p. 5. 



t Regni Vegetabilis Systema Naturale, sive ordines, genera et species plantarum 

 secundum methodi naturalis normas digestarum et descriptaruni. Volumen Pri- 

 mum, Parisiis, sumptibus sociorum Treuttel et Wurtz, 1818. 



t Hanc ipsam curam, hoc opus quod nemo apud nos, nemo apud veteres tenta- 

 vit, timidus hodie aggredior. Prolegomena, p. 3. 



