of being a great historian. But this dream of his youth was effaced by a new taste, imbibed during a residence in the country, where he amused himself with examining the plants of the neighbourhood, and with writing their descriptions, before he had even opened a single book on botany. The few pages he there read of the volume of nature were sufficient to captivate his affections for the pursuit which henceforth became the dominant passion of his life. The botanical lectures of Professor Vaucher, which he attended in 1794, increased his ardour, and confirmed him in the resolution he had formed, of devoting himself to the cultivation of botany as his pri- mary object, to which all other sciences, as well as branches of lite- rature, were hereafter to be deemed subordinate, and to be followed merely as recreations from severer study.
A visit to Paris, which he made in 1795, gave him the opportu- nity of attending the lectures of Cuvier, Fourcroy, Vauquelin, and other distinguished Professors of that period, and of forming friend- ships with Desfontaines and Lamarck. He always prided himself in having been the pupil of Desfontaines, in particular, towards whom he continued through life to feel the warmest gratitude and affection.
The establishment of the Society of Physics and Natural History at Geneva, which took place, after his return, under the auspices of the celebrated De Saussure, gave a fresh and powerful impulse to his exertions ; as was evinced by the numerous memoirs which he presented to that Society.
The state of Geneva being, soon after this period, absorbed into the French empire, De Candolle was induced to quit that city and attend the medical lectures in Paris ; a course of study which, tend- ing to enlarge his views of the physiology of organized beings, con- tributed greally to the success with which he afterwards cultivated the Philosophy of Botany. While at Paris, he founded, in conjunc- tion with his friend M. I3enjamin Delessert, the Society Philantro- pique. One of the first advantages resulting to the public from this institution was the distribution of economical soups throughout the different quarters of the city. Of this institution he was the active secretary for ten years ; during which period another society was also formed under his direction and management for the Encourage- ment of National Industry.
In 1804 he gave lectures on Vegetable Physiology at the " Col- lege de France," and published an outline of his course in 1805, in the Principes de Botanique prefixed to the Flore Fran^aise.
In 1806 he was commissioned by the French Government to col- lect information on Botany and the state of Agriculture through the whole of the French empire, the limits of which, at that time, ex- tended beyond Hamburgh to the north, and beyond Rome to the south. Every year, during the following six years, he took a long journey in the fulfilment of the task assigned him, and drew up a report of his observations for the minister. In these annual reports, however, he did not confine himself to the special objects of his com- mission, but made known his views with regard to the internal ad-
