tJ5S The reformed Sexual System of LinncmiSt 



this is contrived to accomplish the proposed end, the better 

 such £i system will be accounted ; and I have endeavoured 

 so to contrive this, that I hope no longer any very great 

 obstacles can arise in the way of the student, and that this 

 will plead my excuse with a discerning and indulgent publi-c 

 for venturing to step out of the beaten path, to attempt the 

 rc/brma^/o7z of a system which has conferred immortal ho- 

 nour upon the inventor, and received the general plaudits 

 and admiration of the learned throughout Europe. It ap- 

 peared to me more advisable to reform the whole, than to 

 make any partial amendments ; either to adopt the system 

 as fklivered to us by Linnaeus, or to have the present sy- 

 stem, as erected out of the materials of the old -, a system 

 which I hope may not moulder, like the o-lher sys^tems*, 

 into the sand of which they were composed, but resemble 

 the youthful Phoenix arising from the ashes of its parent ; 

 or, as a rock in the midst of the ocean, may remain until 

 ** the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds/' 



It is certainly a great satistaction for me to lind, that al- 

 though the learned and venerable Professor Martyn has long 

 openly disapproved of the changes made in the Sexual Sy- 

 stem by the several reformers, yet he writes to me — 



Hxtract €f a Letter to Dr, Thornton from the Reverend 

 Mr. Martyn — 

 '^ T by no means disapprove oi your new attempt to ren- 

 clerthe Sexual System, by the manner in which you have 

 done it, an easier 7nediitm of attaining a knowledge of plants; 

 and have been long convinced in my own mind, that we 

 stri-ve in vain to unite a natural with an artificial arrange^ 

 ment. Upon yo2ir plan, I see 7/0 impropriety in bringing 

 the OHCHiDE^ into the second class : nor can 1 even objeci 

 to your altering, as you have done, the separated classes of 

 Linnxus, Icosandria and Polyani^ria. Yo[ir method is 

 ably considered throughout ;. for along with you I hold our 

 great master's system as sacred, and can never approve of 



* Not less than fifty-two systeitis of Botany have been published, several 

 of tliera of very considerable merit, tut not practically good j hence most of 

 them are now forgotten. 



those 



