REFORM: OF LISTS^US. 397 



as they often appear to have imagined that the ultimate object of 

 botanical methods was to know the name of plants, they naturally 

 preferred the Swedish method, which is excellent as a finder. No 

 person, however, who wishes to know botany as a science, that is, as 

 a body of general truths, can be content with making names his ulti- 

 mate object. Such a person will be constantly and irresistibly led on 

 to attempt to catch sight of the natural arrangement of plants, even 

 before he discovers, as he will discover by pursuing such a course of 

 study, that the knowledge of the natural arrangement is the know- 

 ledge of the essential construction and vital mechanism of plants. He 

 will consider an artificial method as a means of arriving at a natural 

 method. Accordingly, however much some of his followers may have 

 overlooked this, it is what Linnaeus himself always held and taught. 

 And though what he executed with regard to this object was but lit- 

 tle, 12 the distinct manner in which he presented the relations of an 

 artificial and natural method, may justly be looked upon as one of the 

 great improvements which he introduced into the study of his science. 



Thus in the Classes Plantarum (1747), he speaks of the difficulty 

 of the task of discovering the natural orders, and of the attempts made 

 by others. " Yet," he adds, " I too have labored at this, have done 

 something, have much still to do, and shall labor at the object as long 

 as I live." He afterwards proposed sixty-seven orders, as the frag- 

 ments of a natural method, always professing their imperfection. 13 

 And in others of his works 14 he lays down some antitheses on the 

 subject after his manner. " The natural orders teach us the nature 

 of plants ; the artificial orders enable us to recognize plants. The 

 natural orders, without a key, do not constitute a Method ; the Me- 

 thod ought to be available without a master." 



That extreme difficulty must attend the formation of a Natural Me- 

 thod, may be seen from the very indefinite nature of the Aphorisms 

 upon this subject which Linnaeus has delivered, and which the best 

 botanists of succeeding times have assented to. Such are these ; 

 the Natural Orders must be formed by attention, not to one or two, 

 but to all the parts of plants ; the same organs are of great im- 

 oortance in regulating the divisions of one part of the system, and 



1 The natural orders which he proposed are a bare enumeration of genera, 

 and have not been generally followed. 

 " Phil. Bot. p. 80. 

 14 Gene -a Plantarum, 1764. See Prcelect. in Ord. Nat. p. xlviii. 



