From his early youth he was an indefatigable student, collector and writer in various branches of knowledge, especially in natural history. They began when he was nineteen, and were composed in English, French, Italian and Latin, all of which he wrote with facility. The value of his writings in these various branches has been canvassed by several eminent critics in their respective lines. He awards him considerable credit for his earlier investigations, but much less for his later ones. But modern believers in the doctrine of the evolution of plant forms and the development of botanical species will incline to think that there was a method in this madness, when they read the passage from Rafinesque's writings, about 1836, which Dr. Gray quotes as conclusively proving that, in things botanical, Rafinesque had lost his wits.
Every variety is a deviation, which becomes a species as soon as it is permanent by reproduction.
Deviations in essential organs may thus gradually become new genera. This is really an anticipation of Darwinianism in botany. In 1864 the conchological writings of Rafinesque were collected and published, in Philadelphia, by A. G. Binney and Geo. W. Tryon, Jr., without comments. One of the editors informs me that they have positive merit, although the author was too credulous and too desirous of novelties.