[29] See the excellent account of the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies and of scholasticism in Albert Lange’s ‘Geschichte des Materialismus,’ second edition, 1874.
[30] The comparison of the vegetable seed with the egg in animals, which is in itself incorrect, comes, as Aristotle tells us, from Empedocles, and was a favourite one with the systematists.
[31] Linnaeus uses the word ‘herba’ for the older word ‘germen,’ which with him means the ovary.
[32] It would not be difficult to prove that the doctrine of the constancy of species is properly a conclusion from scholasticism, and ultimately from the Platonic doctrine of ideas, and was therefore assumed as self-evident before the time of Linnaeus, who only gave it a more distinct and conscious expression; his arguments from experience are without force. The strength of the dogma lies in its relation to the platonico-scholastic philosophy, which the systematists followed, more or less consciously, up to quite recent times.
[33] The authority for the contents of these dissertations is Wigand’s ‘Kritik und Geschichte der Metamorphose’ (1846).
[34] Bernard de Jussieu, born at Lyons in 1699, and at first a practising physician there, was by Vaillant’s intervention called to Paris, and after Vaillant’s death became Professor and Demonstrator at the Royal Garden. He and Peissonel were among the first who declared against the vegetable nature of the Corals. It is expressly stated in his Éloge (‘Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences,’ Paris, 1777) that he founded his natural families on the Linnaean fragment. He died in 1777.
[35] A. L. de Jussieu, born at Lyons, came to Paris to his uncle Bernard in 1765. In 1790 he was a member of the Municipality, and till 1792 Superintendent of Hospitals. When the Annales du Museum were founded in 1802, he resumed his botanical pursuits. In 1826 his son Adrien took his place at the Museum. See his life by Brougniart in the ‘Annales des Sciences Naturelles,’ vii (1837).
[36] Joseph Gärtner was born at Calw in Würtemberg in 1732, and died in 1791. He commenced his studies in Göttingen in 1751, where he was a pupil of Haller. He travelled into Italy, France, Holland, and England in order to make the acquaintance of famous naturalists, and worked also at physics and zoology. In 1760 he was Professor of Anatomy in Tübingen, and in 1768 became Professor of Botany at St. Petersburg; but finding himself unable to bear the climate, he returned to Calw in 1770, and gave himself up entirely to his book, ‘De fructibus et seminibus plantarum,’ which he had already commenced. Banks and Thunberg, one of whom had returned from a voyage round the world, the other from Japan, handed over to him the collections of fruits which they had made. His persistent study, partly with the microscope, brought him near to blindness. There is an interesting life of Gärtner by Chaumeton in the ‘Biographie Universelle.’
[37] Augustin Pyrame de Candolle sprang from a Provençal family, which had fled from religious persecution to Geneva, where it was and is still held in great estimation. He associated as a boy with Vaucher, and on his first visit to Paris in 1796 with Desfontaines and Dolomieu, and after his return to Geneva was a friend of Senebier. The elder Saussure, and afterwards Biot, whom he assisted in an investigation in physics, endeavoured to attach him to that study. He spent the years from 1798 to 1808 in Paris, where he lived in close intercourse with the naturalists of that city. Numerous smaller monographs, and the publication of his work on succulent plants and of a new edition of De Lamarck’s ‘Flore Française,’ occupied this earlier period of his life. From 1808 to 1816 he was Professor of Botany at Montpellier. During this time he made many botanical journeys in all parts of France and the neighbouring countries, and wrote many monographs, his essays on the geography of plants, and his most important work, the ‘Théorie élémentaire.’ From 1816 till his death in 1841 he resided once more in Geneva, which had freed itself in 1813 from the enforced connection with France established in 1798. Here De Candolle found time to take part in political and social questions, in addition to an almost incredible amount of botanical labour. (Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de A. P. De Candolle par De la Rive, Genève, 1845.)
[38] Robert Brown was the son of a Protestant minister of Montrose, and studied medicine first at Aberdeen and afterwards in Edinburgh; he then became a surgeon in the army, and was at first stationed in the north of Ireland. When the Admiralty despatched a scientific expedition to Australia under Captain Flinders in 1801, he was appointed naturalist to the expedition on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, F. Bauer being associated with him as botanical draughtsman, Good as gardener, Westall as landscape-painter; one of the midshipmen of the vessel was John Franklin. In consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship Flinders left Australia, intending to return with a better one, but was shipwrecked on the voyage and detained by the French at Port Louis as a prisoner of war till 1810. The naturalists of the expedition remained in Australia till 1805, when Brown returned to England with 4000 for the most part new species of plants. Sir J. Banks appointed him his librarian and keeper of his collections in 1810; he was also Librarian to the Linnaean Society of London. In 1823 he received the bequest of Banks’ library and collections, which were to be transferred after his death to the British Museum; but by his own wish they were deposited there at once, and he himself received the appointment of Custodian of the Museum and remained in that position till his death. At Humboldt’s suggestion Sir Robert Peel’s Ministry granted him a yearly pension of £200. His merits were universally acknowledged, and Humboldt even named him ‘botanicorum facile princeps.’