Mr.Roscoe on Artificial and Natural Arrangements of Plants. 51 
many ties, that it is in vain to expect that we shall ever be able 
clearly to define them, and accurately to seize upon the true 
distinctions; so as to combine the whole in the precise order in 
which they were primarily disposed by her hand. In the mean 
.time, the necessities of human life, no less than the objects of 
science, require that some mode should be adopted which should 
enable us to distinguish plants from each other, and to designate 
them by their appropriate names, although we may not be able 
precisely to ascertain their natural connections and relative situa- 
tions: and for this purpose it became indispensably necessary to 
have recourse to art ; not to overthrow or oppose nature, but to 
assist us where she deserted us, to guide our steps till we could 
again recover her track, and to furnish us with a lamp till we were 
again illuminated by the beams of day. 
Happily for the world, the formation of such a system was 
undertaken by the illustrious Swede whose name it bears; and 
certain it is, that it could not have fallen inte _abler hands.— 
With the conviction of the real existence of natural genera and 
orders, no one was more deeply penetrated; and to interfere 
with these relations as little as might be consistent with his pri- 
mary object of a complete arrangement of the vegetable world, 
was his constant solicitude, For the creation of this system. he 
did not, however, wholly depend upon the materials supplied by 
his predecessors. The systems of all of them were discarded, or 
only so much of each of them retained as appeared to suit his pur- 
pose; but the most valuable part was supplied from his own re- 
sources. To whatever period we may assign the discovery of the 
sexual system, it was he who first demonstrated it in unambiguous. 
and decisive terms, and who applied this great discovery to the 
formation of an arrangement of Plants, which comprehends.and 
defines every individual of the vegetable world. In executing 
u 2 this 
