62 Mr. Rosco® on Artificial and Natural 
discovered a system perfectly conformable to the laws of nature*." 
And among his diagnostics of pretended botanists he particularly 
includes that of “ presuming that they are acquainted with a 
natural method +.” - | 
Instead of dwelling further on the endeavours of the onon 
botanists to invalidate the labours of Linnæus by resorting, as 
Ventenat has done, to the well-known censures of Haller and 
others, I shall in the sequel of this paper endeavour to ascertain 
the relative merits of the two systems which now principally offer 
themselves to our acceptance; in which I shall attempt to show, 
I. That the method of Jussieu is not in fact a natural, but 
an artificial one. ( 
II. That, as an artificial method, the system of TRA is 
inferior to that of Linnæus. | 
III. That the artificial and natural methods of arrangement 
are, and must always remain, essentially different from 
each other, as well in the means employed as in the objects 
to be attained. 
I. Could we suppose it possible for a person to be born with 
some superior instinct, which enabled him to decide at first sight 
on the character of a plant, and the genus and order to which it 
belonged, we might perhaps be induced to assent to his deci- 
sions, and allow him arbitrarily to establish his system. But, 
even with this conviction on our minds, circumstances might 
arise to shake our belief in his infallibility ; and if, like Bernard 
de Jussieu, he should, in one short order of only eight genera, 
unite together the Bromelia and the Hydrocharis, the Musa and 
the Galanthus, we should perhaps feel inclined to ask upon what 
«c Zins, verus, ordinem naturalem; ubi patet indigitet. A Veget. 27. . 
‘€ Nee ssimam structuram oratorio sermone ebuccin —Phil. Bot. p. 294. 
+ Botanophili Fallates—Methodum naturalem sibi notam et "— Regn. Veget. 27. 
similarity 
