Martins, on the Life and Labors of De Candolle. 233 



days. Since the death of Willdenow (in the year 1810) and the 

 publication of the Enchiridion Botanicon of Persoon in 1809, 

 botanical literature comprised no work which presented a univer- 

 sal view of all known plants according to their genera and spe- 

 cies. The new edition of the Syslema Vegetabilinm of Homel- 

 and Schultes. made but little progress after the death of the for- 

 mer. The systematic knowledge of plants remained in a fluctu- 

 ating state. Whilst numerous monographs appeared, and the 

 materials were multiplied by discoveries in all the countries of 

 the earth, there was no clue to guide in the labyrinth of countless 

 forms. At the same time the necessity was constantly more and 

 more felt of arranging plants, not in the dead frame-work of the Lin- 

 nsean sexual system, but according to the so-called natural families 

 in a comprehensive scientific whole. If we are not even yet able 

 to conceive of these original types, as so many foci of the moving 

 and forming spirit pervading the vegetable world, expressed in 

 each individual case by more or less striking external char- 

 acters; if we are obliged in the first instance to adhere to col- 

 lective characters, that is, to the admission of a certain sum of 

 distinctive marks ; if it must further be acknowledged, that al- 

 though we can perceive the principal characteristics, as they ex- 

 hibit themselves in a few families, yet, that we lose them entirely 

 in their organic, that is, in their universal connection — in their 

 evolution, as it were, out of each other; if especially we cannot 

 deny that the natural method does not yet bring with it any phi- 

 losophic satisfaction ; that above all, the inward truth does not har- 

 monize perfectly with any system, — it must however be acknowl- 

 edged, that we can in no other way attain to an understanding of 

 the kingdom of plants as a great whole, than by the paih of a tho- 

 roughly concrete examination, led by the hand of analogy and 

 induction. The German students of nature acknowledge that 

 such an understanding cannot be obtained by speculation, nor by 

 any constructive method ; and they can only promise themselves 

 favorable results by pursuing the path opened by Jussieu's Me- 

 thode Naturelle. In other countries also — for example, in France 

 and England, more recently in Italy likewise — Jussieu's doctrines 

 had already struck powerful roots, and thus was the age expect- 

 ing and prepared for a work which should extend the applications 

 of the "natural system," carrying it on from the genera in 



Vol. xliv, No. 2.— Jan .-March, 1843. 30 



