396 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



nefort, which was governed by the corolla; for number is more dcfi 

 nite than irregular form. It was more readily employed than any of 

 those which depend on the fruit, for the flower is a more obvious object, 

 and more easily examined. Still, it can hardly be doubted, that the cir- 

 cumstance which gave the main currency to the system of Linnaeus was 

 its physiological signification : it was the Sexual System. The rela- 

 tion of the parts to which it directed the attention, interested both the 

 philosophical faculty and the imagination. And when, soon after the 

 system had become familiar in our own country, the poet of The Botanic 

 Garden peopled the bell of every flower with " Nymphs" and " Swains," 

 his imagery was felt to be by no means forced and far-fetched. 



The history of the doctrine of the sexes of plants, as a point of phy- 

 siology, does not belong to this place ; and the Linna3an system of 

 classification need not be longer dwelt upon for our present purpose. 

 I will only explain a little further what has been said, that it is, up to 

 a certain point, a natural system. Several of Linnseus's classes are, in 

 a great measure, natural associations, kept together in violation of his 

 own artificial rules. Thus the class Diadelphia, in which, by the sys 

 teni, the filaments of the stamina should be bound too-ether in two 



* o 



parcels, does, in fact, contain many genera which are monadelphous, 

 the filaments of the stamina all cohering so as to form one bundle 

 only ; as in Genista, Spartium, Anthyllis, Lupinus, <&c. And why is 

 this violation of rule ? Precisely because these genera all belong to 

 the natural tribe of Papilionaceous plants, which the author of the sys- 

 tem could not prevail upon himself to tear asunder. Yet in other 

 cases Linnaeus was true to his system, to the injury of natural alliances, 

 as he was, for instance, in another portion of this very tribe of Papi- 

 lionacece ; for there are plants which undoubtedly belong to the tribe, 

 but which have ten separate stamens ; and these he placed in the 

 order Decandria. Upon the whole, however, he inclines rather to 

 admit transgression of art than of nature. 



The reason of this inclination was, that he rightly considered an 

 artificial method as instrumental to the investigation of a natural one ; 

 and to this part of his views we now proceed. 



Sect. 5. Linnaeus 's Views on a Natural Method. 



THE admirers of Linnseus, the English especially, were for some time 

 in the habit of putting his Sexual System in opposition to the Natural 

 Method, which about the same time was attempted in France. And 



